Rubbing wax over lacquer

[Corey Rebette]

I'm restoring antique hand plane totes and knobs, stripping them to the bare wood, finishing with a few coats of shellac for durability, a coat or two of lacquuer for authentic finish followed by a critical coat of paste wax or Renaissance wax to shine it up and further give protection. Problem is after the wax coat, I get white spots and splotches on the finish (and even into the finish, though it's dried for three days). Ive used shallac independently with wax so it's not the shellac that's the problem. Any ideas or solutions? Once the white spots appear, the only fix is to re-strip and omit the wax, which is a key ingredient to the finish. Thanks!

[Steve Eure]

I ran into the same problem and was told that the lacquer was not cured long enough. I ended up letting it cure for upwards of 3 weeks after that. It was caused by the higher humidity in the air and in the wax. I never would have thought that the wax could have humidity issues, but none the less, that's what it was apparently.

[Richard Coers]

I assume these planes are for looking at and not using? Never heard of anyone putting wax on knobs and handles. All things considered, probably no finish would be the best for using. How old is the shellac? What wax did you use? Paste or Renaissance? Hard to tell by what you said. I've gotten spots on carnauba when moving bowls in a misting rain.

[Corey Rebette]

Some of the planes are lookers, some are users, some could be either, whatever the buyer wants. The shellac underneath the lacquer is relatively new, old enough to satisfy whatever Zinsser recommends and some up to a few weeks old. I've had the problem with both paste and Renaissance. I think the answer is to eliminate the wax from my finish.

I assume these planes are for looking at and not using? Never heard of anyone putting wax on knobs and handles. All things considered, probably no finish would be the best for using. How old is the shellac? What wax did you use? Paste or Renaissance? Hard to tell by what you said. I've gotten spots on carnauba when moving bowls in a misting rain.

[Mike Brady]

I stripped and finished many rosewood knobs and totes over the years when I was restoring planes. I also made the new handles from woods such as claro walnut. I found two finish recipes that worked well; meaning that the final appearance was smooth, but not shiny. I would strive for a result that would be the same or slightly better than that on a NIB plane. The easiest and fastest method of finishing was to first spray Bulls-Eye dewaxed shellac from a spray can (after the old finish was stripped and lightly sanded). Shellac dries in about 1/2 hour. After that I would go to satin gloss spray lacquer. With the lacquer, I found that brand makes a difference. My preferred one was Deft satin. It dries very quickly. This whole process can be done in the course of one day. Forget the wax.

There are a couple of gunstock finishes that are good too. One is Tru-Oil by Birchwood Casey. They require a wait between coats of a day or two. To me it is over-kill for a tool handle and nothing like the original finish.

[Stew Denton]

Mike and all,

I do not know about Birchwood Casey's Tru-oil, as to whether it acts like linseed oil or not, but I do know that linseed oil will turn the rosewood totes and knobs that Stanley used Jet Black. I think that Stanley used rosewood for their totes and knobs until about WW2. I think some other oil finishes will also do that.

Regards,

Stew

[Mike Cornwall]

What it sounds like you’re getting is called “blushing.” I got a lot of answers from Jeff Jewett’s book on Hand Applied Finishes. Paint seems to be an area where words like Varnish and Lacquer can be printed on the can but not be what you thought you were getting. Acrylic Lacquer and Nitrocellulose lacquer are different. Being really bad with paint, I try to do as many things right as possible.