Kerry Cox
03-06-2007, 6:16 PM
Hello - I've been lurking here for a while, mainly on the Neanderthal Haven group, and very much enjoying the site. For a short intro I'll just say I've been WW for 4 years now and have a small shop in my basement. Like (I believe) most WWers who appreciate hand tools, I enjoy a mix of power and hand tool use in my projects. My main interest in WW for the time being is reproduction furniture, and it is my most ambitious project yet that brings me to post this question.
I'm finishing a folding card table made with African mahogany with stringing and inlays and ran into a problem when applying a french polish to the top. I know the durability limitations of shellac, but I still like using it and I decided to finish this table with it. I've used the french polish technique outlined by Flexner a couple of times in the past and have gotten (in my opinion, anyway) quite nice results. This table top is the largest surface I've tried to do this with so far - it's a semicircle with a radius of 17". After staining with a waterbased dye, I applied a coat of dewaxed superblonde shellac, then filled the pores with a tinted grain filler. I did not sand the grain filler for fear of sanding through the dye, but instead used a plastic squeegee to work it into the pores, and then after the filler dried some I began to rub the surface with clean rags until I felt I was down to the shellac surface. I left it to dry for 2 days then brushed on a couple of light coats of dewaxed garnet shellac. After that dried for a day I began the french polish process and things were going very well except at one spot on the top when the pad began to get sticky and harder to move, the surface seemed to get very rough looking - not silky smooth:( . I noticed that there were a few small spots, about 1/2" long and 1/8" wide where the shellac layer was pretty much removed - like it had been sort of torn off :eek: :( . Could anyone hazard a guess as to what might have caused this? Is it possible to rub too hard when french polishing? I did use mineral oil for lubrication and if anything that made the problem worse. Did I not leave the filler dry long enough before applying the shellac?
I left it for an hour and then went back to the spot with some fresh shellac in the pad and very lightly padded the area and it did seem to improve a little, but it has some kind of texture to the top, faint orange peel look, not smooth like the rest of the top. I'm thinking I might try going over the area with a rag soaked in denatured ethanol until the area is smoothed out and then try again when that dries. Does this sound like a good plan?
Any advice would be welcome.
Cheers,
Kerry
I'm finishing a folding card table made with African mahogany with stringing and inlays and ran into a problem when applying a french polish to the top. I know the durability limitations of shellac, but I still like using it and I decided to finish this table with it. I've used the french polish technique outlined by Flexner a couple of times in the past and have gotten (in my opinion, anyway) quite nice results. This table top is the largest surface I've tried to do this with so far - it's a semicircle with a radius of 17". After staining with a waterbased dye, I applied a coat of dewaxed superblonde shellac, then filled the pores with a tinted grain filler. I did not sand the grain filler for fear of sanding through the dye, but instead used a plastic squeegee to work it into the pores, and then after the filler dried some I began to rub the surface with clean rags until I felt I was down to the shellac surface. I left it to dry for 2 days then brushed on a couple of light coats of dewaxed garnet shellac. After that dried for a day I began the french polish process and things were going very well except at one spot on the top when the pad began to get sticky and harder to move, the surface seemed to get very rough looking - not silky smooth:( . I noticed that there were a few small spots, about 1/2" long and 1/8" wide where the shellac layer was pretty much removed - like it had been sort of torn off :eek: :( . Could anyone hazard a guess as to what might have caused this? Is it possible to rub too hard when french polishing? I did use mineral oil for lubrication and if anything that made the problem worse. Did I not leave the filler dry long enough before applying the shellac?
I left it for an hour and then went back to the spot with some fresh shellac in the pad and very lightly padded the area and it did seem to improve a little, but it has some kind of texture to the top, faint orange peel look, not smooth like the rest of the top. I'm thinking I might try going over the area with a rag soaked in denatured ethanol until the area is smoothed out and then try again when that dries. Does this sound like a good plan?
Any advice would be welcome.
Cheers,
Kerry