Before using The Finishing Turntable, it used to be that I had only two uses for lazy-susan devices: 1) Providing access to hard to reach goodies in the corners of cabinets, and 2) providing access to a plentiful variety of tasty dishes at a Chinese food event. After conducting our Finishing Turntable review, I can now add finishing woodwork to the list.
The Finishing Turntable is brought to us by the same clever folks that invented the Painter’s Pyramid. In fact, the Finishing Turntable has 12 pyramids built in to its design. It cleverly uses a turntable with a spoked design, allowing you to easily slide the various Painter’s Pyramids left and right / in and out. This flexibility lets you use any or all of the pyramids to support your work piece for finishing. The whole turntable can even be disassembled if you spill Chinese sweet and sour sauce paint or finish on it. The diameter of the turntable is just under 16 inches. It’s even available with red or yellow pyramids, in case you have OCD when it comes to color matching your tools in the shop.
As someone who seems to do a fair share of multi-coat finish work, I love this product. I often work with wood that needs stain and finish on all sides, and doing each coat for all sides in one shot is normally problematic at best. With the Finishing Turntable, you can stain/finish the bottom side first, then set it down on the turntable, and smoothly finish the sides and top, sans any paw prints. I found the Finishing Turntable to be most stable with somewhat heavier objects since they don’t shift as easily from brush strokes. Of course, if you’re spraying the finish, its weight won’t matter at all. Since it’s rated for up to 100 pounds, you can use it for a broad range of projects. However, depending on how well you balance and support the workpiece, remember the adage, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
The Finishing Turntable is simple to use. Just place it on a stable, level surface, and place your project on a minimum of three of the support pyramids (you’ll need exceptional telekinesis skills if you use 1 or 2)! Center large projects to avoid any drama during rotation. Luckily, the Finishing Turntable spins at a very controlled rate. Just gently rotate it by touching the turntable (not your work piece), and you’ll have convenient 360 degree access to your work. It’s great for hand, brush and spray applications. If you’re worried about keeping your turntable pristine, the maker’s suggest this tip: just cover it with cling wrap or foil.
The folks at K & M not only sent us a Finishing Turntable to review, but they also are sponsoring this month’s Free Stuff giveaway. So while the Finishing Turntable will normally set you back about $50, you have a chance to get one free (along with extra Painter’s Pyramids), in the January Free Stuff Giveaway! Otherwise, you can find the Finishing Turnable via our current sponsor Rockler.com.
Now if they’d make a bigger one, I could spray doors and jambs correctly. Since I spray all my finishes, the indexing idea would probably keep things from becoming obscure versions of propeller beanies… By the way, who has a table that weighs 100 #’s that is less than 11.25″ square?
The Finishing Turntable can support over-sized projects. By using several of the pyramids we have used it to easily support an average-size door. We simply placed the middle of the door on the turntable, finished one side, flipped it over, and finished the rest. Rated for 100 pounds several people have found that it can support even more than that. Thanks!
The 100lb limit is a little surprising. I’d be interested to know how they achieved a balance between strength and workpiece safety with the pyramids. I’m guessing they’re made out of some plastic hard enough not to lose their tip/height through repeated use – but too fine or too hard of a point could easily mar some furniture. 25 or 33 pounds on the head of a pyramid could sink into or scratch most woods pretty well. but then – who would notice when it’s on the bottom of table leg?
one thing that would be a great addition is if the turn table was indexed – so you could have an exact spacing, if you were using it to pattern or paint something.
Hey Paul, thanks for the comment! I was surprised that the table is rated for so much weight too, but you have to figure (as I think you did), that the workpiece will be supported by at least 3 or 4 pyramids. The pyramids themselves are solidly built, and their tip is slightly blunted. Like you said, if it’s something that weighs that much, it’s probably on 4 legs. If not, you could use even more than four painter’s pyramids, and that distributes the weight even more evenly (think man lying on a bed of nails here).
The indexing idea is interesting, although I’m not clear on how that would help on most finishing jobs. But maybe I don’t do the right kind of finish projects to appreciate the concept. Thanks again for your comment and for reading HomeFixated!