shellac on top of wax?

[Scott Winners]

Counterintuitive to me.

I found a pair of grad students from I think U of Delaware went to Williamsburg, VA and they published they planed a board smooth, used beeswax and a polissoir to fill the grain, and then shellaced the board after scraping with a hardwood scraper. They were studying "material culture" which pretty much means they were grad students in anthropology. My BA in anthropology cost me about $30k and I won't do my graduate work in the same field. The publication came up on page five of my internet search results on the term 'polissoir', well into the mostly french language results.

After that I 'caught up' on Don Williams' blog, dons barn dot com I think, in the Oct/Nov/Dec 2021 entries he covered a class he had run on period clear finishes, and son of a gun if he didn't have the students fill the pores on their boards with beeswax, scrape the surface (metal, no burr) and then apply shellac with a brush before moving on up to a rubber (after flattening) with thinner and thinner layers of shellac to make one of the french polishes.

I am pretty clear that the 'other' thing we in the USA in the 21st century also call French Polish is spit shined wax, but putting shellac on top of wax has me on my hind foot as the british would say. I have Don's three hour DVD on the way from amazon and I am going to fool with the process. On the one hand I think Don knows his onions, but I don't see shellac sticking to wax unless the bridges or gaps are sub millimeter, micrometer level sort of gaps to bridge.

Has anyone here fooled with this, or am I simply going to have to blaze my own trail and lean on search results from less civilized forums? I am planning to work mostly in white oak and hickory in the future, so sub micron gaps aren't really going to be a thing for me going forward.

I have watched several youtubes by a guy Pablo Requena, a guitar maker from I think Spain. His go to for grain filling is West System 105 with 205 hardener, but he can also fill grain with pumice powder. Excellent craftsman, I am confident his guitars are sought after. I doubt I will ever be able to french polish as well as Senor el jefe Requena, but it is good for me to have a level of excellence to strive for.

Thanks in advance.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I was taught that French Polish is a technique, not a material or group of materials. Also that shellac its self is a wax.

One coat of epoxy is a shortcut to 15 or 20 times around with the tampon.

[Jim Becker]

Shellac is somewhat compatible with wax on/in a surface...it natively has wax in it. It also dries rather than cures. It's an evaporative finish, so whatever it's on top of doesn't affect the film being formed. It's this compatibility that makes wax-free shellac a nearly "universal barrier coat". Would I put it over gobbed on wax? No. But it's fine over wax filler, etc., and can be a real problem solver if your ultimate top coat hates what's already on the workpiece.

[Edward Weber]

You can, "at times" get away with putting shellac over a small amount or area of wax but why would you risk it. The entire point of shellac is to be a top coat or a sealer/barrier. 99.9% of the time, a clean surface is desired so that you provide yourself with the best adhesion possible.
Also, as mentioned, French polishing is a technique of applying shellac in multiple thin successive layers that build to a durable top coat. French polish has nothing to do with wax what so ever.

If you use the method you described, applying beeswax and burnishing/polishing with a polissoir, what's left on the surface is an extremely thin layer of wax. The wax is almost used as a lubricant as much as a finish with the process, allowing the straw bundle to more easily move accross the surface to burnish it rather than abrade or sand it. Now you want to French polish over it, my guess is that the alcohol in the shellac mixture (on your rubber) dissolves this thin layer of wax as you are applying the shellac. The sticky shellac will adhere to the wood and the now dissolved wax will be absorbed into the rubber. This will remove all but the thickest wax, that which is deeply embedded into voids in to surface, forcing the shellac to bridge the gap to which it can not adhere.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I did not go to college. I was getting to be OK at French Polish. Lately I go for a satin finish.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The guy who showed me a little about French polish did go to college. His field was Chemistry. He builds Guitars. He will do an abbreviated French polish starting with epoxy, followed by some spraying & leveling, followed by French Polish (rather than a lot of spraying followed by rub out). He charges a lot extra for it. For a fully hand finished Guitar he charges so much extra that no one ever ordered it while I was there. It would have been fun to see.