Anybody out there really know the process , ingredient & medium of “French Polishing” ? I have read Taunton’s book on Finishing, but still cannot digest it, esp. french polishing with shellac on stained wood grain. I do not have much scraped lumber. If I just try once to my project, and it fails, is it easy to rectify and do it again? I’ve tried to get advice from a finisher locally, alas, the one that I know well enough too quiet reluctant to name the ingredients.
Thanking you in advance.
Replies
Some people's reluctance comes not from wanting to keep a trade secret, but from not wanting you to know that they don't know how to do it either.
I use to do it, but it was a very slow process. I always thought I was missing something, because the surfaces I French Polished weren't any different from those I brushed and rubbed out. I had a chance to see a surface done by Jeff Jewitt, and this confirmed that the difference in a brushed and rubbed out surface and French polished surface were so similar, as to be the same. I'll admit the French polished surface was a little "lighter"; that is it was thinner, having a more in the wood look.
I think the most difficult part is filling the grain. The traditional way to do this is with pumice, but this is difficult over colored wood, since it wants to abrade the surface. On colored wood, I seal the wood with a very thin coat of shellac and fill the grain with oil based paste wood filler. Purist will recoil in horror at doing this, but with a proper color match and a good job of removing the filler completely from the surface, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.
The other pitfall is having too much shellac on the pad ( I have a lot of trouble with this). It should be almost dry. Another problem, which is related to having too much shellac on the pad is, burning the surface. This happens when you move the pad to slowly or heaven forbid stop moving the pad, while on the surface. The addition of a little oil will ease moving the pad over the surface, but too much will cause streaks.
I've found that if I go over the area several times and let it sit for an hour or so, then repeat, I get better results.
In the end, I think French polish is a technique, from a time, when the high quality abrasives we have today weren't available. You can get the same look, by brushing on several coats of shellac, and rubbing out. An even better way, is to brush on a coat of shellac, let dry, and sand lightly, then use padding lacquer to build a surface. Padding lacquer works easily right from the bottle, and makes a beautiful finish. This results in the same lightness of a true French polish, without all the labor.
Rob Millard
Rob
Along these lines, how do you keep a " wet edge" when brushing on the shellac. Everytime I try to use it, I end up with ridges. Is it critical to avoid this, or do you not worry about it, and sand off the ridges. I have been annoyingly unsuccessful with shellac, and have "####" it from my very small finishing reportoire. I never seem to get the results I see others achieve with it, and it's unfortunate, because I really like the color it achieves on cherry and maple. I'm certain it's a practice issue, as I've only tried it a handful or fewer times.
Would spraying it on be better for even coverage, and if so, what cut would you recommend. Thanks for the help.
Jeff
Keeping a completely wet edge isn't practical on objects of any size. So I combat it by using a watercolor wash brush with Taklon gold nylon bristles. This as a low reservoir so doesn't flood the surface. I also use 1 1/2 lb cut (more or less) shellac. The combination of thin shellac and a light touch with the brush means that any overlaps or holidays will be small in thickness, and should not occur at the same places--kind of averaging them out in a larger number of applications. I do try to work really quickly--not the deliberate brushing pace used to flow on varnish--brushing mostly in one direction. Going back to "fix" a spot is an invitation to bigger problems. You can brush on several coats before sanding any defects.
My attempts at spraying have been, shall we say, poor! This is in part the cheap touch up gun I use, but mostly my heavy handed technique.
I use high quality artist brushes made for water colors. The ones I like best are golden Taklon. They are available at Michael's and from Homestead Finishing. I have a flat 1" and 2"; and a 1/2" filbert for detail areas like carvings and moldings. They aren't cheap, but last a long time.
The shellac should be as thin as water. Most if not all problems with brushing shellac come from having it too thick. The other thing that causes problems is trying to manipulate shellac like you would varnish. Shellac dries so quickly that you have to flow it on in one stroke. If you miss a spot or don't like the looks of it, let it go until the next go around. Adding Shellac Wet will also help, especially with keeping a wet edge. It is available from Homestead finishing.
If I do a good job of brushing I can rub out with 400 grit or 600 grit paper.
Rob Millard
Thanks for the pointers. I just made a cherry box, and want to try shellac again. I'll give your advice a whirl.
Jeff
Masrol,
The lady-wife got me to make a walnut tea box for a friend's birthday and she wanted it French polishing. This was the begining of a long and frustrating adventure into an arcane technique.
I read a book and watched a video. I had a go. It was a disaster. The problem is that proper French polishing requires excellent technique and is very sensitive to errors on your part, to atmospheric conditions, to the quality of the ingrediants and a hundred other factors.
By happy co-incidence, there is a fine Octogenarian gentleman lives around the corner from me who spend 45 years as a French polisher for the famous furniture-making firm of Waring and Gillow, here in Lancaster. They made furniture of high quality, including the stuff in Luxury liners, various palaces and so forth. Mr Forrester (the polisher) had polished the best, all around the world.
I was a bit tired of French polishing by then. Mr F showed the lady wife how to make and use the rubber (cotton waste wadded into a ball-within-a-cloth) to FP the walnut box. He advised how to mix, look after and treat the polish. He showed how to use the meths to repair errors and give the final coat. He showed how to use the French polishing mop in the difficult corners and mouldings.
The point is, French polishing seems to be one of the few remaining WW skills where you can only really learn (in a reasonable time, at least) by being shown "live" by an expert. Learning from a book or even a video does not seem to avoid all those potential errors the novice can make.
Liberon ready-made polish and other FP stuff is good quality but many like to buy the shellac and mix their own. (Dried shellac keeps better). Liberon also make a "quick" French polish that a friend of mine says is good (ie looks like the real stuff) but is much easier to apply. Haven't tried it myself. Liberon also publish a booklet about how to polish, with both their traditional and "quick" polish.
I imagine that other FP suppliers provide similar stuff.
Good luck!
As the others have said it is really in the technique. Since the ingredients are just shellac. Although there has been speculation that the French Polishers of yore used to add resins and other ingredients to their shellac mix. Trying to get the pad working properly is the trick. When you have White streaks behind the pad that seem to disappear as you move the pad over the surface, then you have the correct amount of polish in the pad.
I think it would help to have someone show the tell tale signs of what to look for with the process. However it is also tactile in that you want there to be a little resistance on the pad but not too much.
Staining and Polishing, by Charles H. Hayward is a book that goes into some great detail about the process and technique of french polishing.
As for me I usually brush on a couple of sealer coats, then fill the pores with grain filler and then pad on the shellac with a "rubber" with out the oil and rub out with rubbing compounds. As Rob stated, it is very difficult to tell the difference plus it only takes a fraction of the time.
I have repaired french polish with the traditional technique and it is not too difficult.
J.P.
I learned at lot from this article by Jeff Jewitt
http://homesteadfinishing.com/htdocs/padshellac2.htm
Bobby
True French polishing is a lot of hard work. I've read where the old polishers could be picked out of a crowd because of their Popeye forearms. The finish is very fragile and easily scratched. I think it is only suitable for the finest musical instruments, which is where I first learned how to do it. This is a tutorial that is the best I've seen on the process, it's about finishing a guitar but all the information of the various steps are there.
http://www.milburnguitars.com/frenchpolish.html
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
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