Shellac over a gel stain

[John Coloccia]

So, I'm looking to do a French polish over a gel stain. Has anyone ever done anything like that? Shellac seems to go over most anything, but I've never tried it over gel stain, and the urethane in the gel stain gives me a little pause. I don't want the thing to delaminate 6 months from now.

Any help is appreciated.

[Howard Acheson]

If the french polishing process works with the first application, there is no reason for the stain to fail at a later date. After all, shellac is shellac no matter how it is applied. Test it out on some scrap before committing to your "money" project.

[Prashun Patel]

I'd still minimize any possibility for frustration by using fresh, dewaxed shellac.

[Scott Holmes]

Are you looking to do a real "French polish" technique or are you using the term to mean padding shellac? They are not the same... French polish uses pumice to cut (sand) a slurry then fill the grain. Staining has already do that to some extent and pumice will remove your stain inconsistantly.

[John Coloccia]

Are you looking to do a real "French polish" technique or are you using the term to mean padding shellac? They are not the same... French polish uses pumice to cut (sand) a slurry then fill the grain. Staining has already do that to some extent and pumice will remove your stain inconsistantly.

I appreciate that a lot of people say French polish when they mean applying with a pad, but I actually mean French polish :) In this case, I wouldn't use pumice to do any grain filling. I'm working with spruce and alder so they will finish fine without any grain filler. It brings up a good point as to what I'd do on Mahogany if I wanted to do such a thing. I have a waterbased, clear grain filler that will accept tinting, so I'd probably tint the grain filler to the color I wanted, sand it back, dye/stain (whatever :) ) the rest of the piece and then perform a french polish over that. I think that would work fine. This is all kind of new to me, though, as I traditionally wouldn't do any tinting under a French polish. I'm experimenting with trying to emulate a modern sprayed guitar finish (i.e. sunbursts and things like that) with more traditional techniques, like fading colors by hand and things like that.

I've found that grain filling with a modern grain filler is the way to go. Maybe we should call it New York Italian polish to avoid any confusion :D

Anyhow, I may just toss the whole idea and just spray the stupid finish, but I'd really like to see what kind of results I can get doing everything by hand.

[John Coloccia]

Bah....I skipped the stain after seeing the body with a coat of shellac on it. I like it natural! I think I'll pad on the finish on the body, leaving it at a semi-gloss, and continue with the French polish on the top.

All told, I'm pleased how the sunburst came out (the limited color resolution of the iPhone doesn't show the fade and colors very well, but you get the idea). I don't think I will do it like this again. Doing it by hand was much harder than I thought it would be, and you're always one bobble away from disaster. I will probably just spray any future sunbursts as that's much easier. Still, doing it by hand has a cool feel to it.

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