davepolaschek

frenchpolish

Five of the drawer fronts on the cabinet, four are still being finished, with the jam jar and the squeeze bottle of shellac just visible at the bottom of the frame

Today's finishing started with the four drawer fronts I showed last time. I gave them all a half-dozen quick coats of shellac and oil, with some rottenstone to fill the grain a little quicker, then put them back so I could pull the other five drawer fronts to work on those. I don't think the first batch are done, but they're getting close. One more session should do the trick.

This next batch has the drawer with the crack and the bug tracks. That one got some CA glue drizzled into the crack from the back before I started, and also some CA on the front side. I don't want that crack to open up while I'm finishing the board, and I feel like I've solidified things a little.

The four drawer-fronts I'm currently finishing, with one showing a line where the crack needed fixing

My squeeze bottle of shellac was getting a little low too, so it was time to mix up a new batch. 2 ounces of shellac flakes in the 14 or 15 fluid ounce salsa jar leads to a mix that's just a little bit over a one pound cut. Dissolves fairly quickly with the magnetic stirrer mixing it up. It'll be ready for use tomorrow morning when I'm back in the shop for sure.

A magnetic stirrer with a salsa jar of shellac sitting on top of it

Also, I used some rottenstone in the first bits of finishing on these drawer fronts. It's fine pumice, and will abrade the surface of the wood a bit, creating a slurry in the shellac and oil, and then pushing that slurry into the grain. I decided I'd compare using it first versus using it in the second round of finishing.

The pad I used to apply shellac, worn through in a spot, showing the interior layers of cheesecloth, which are a coarser weave

The downside of using rottenstone is that it wears out the pad fairly quickly. But that's an easy problem to solve; just move the outer layer of t-shirt to a fresh spot after wearing through somewhere.

The pad with a fresh spot on the t-shirt moved to the center

A few more coats of oil and shellac, and the second batch of drawer fronts are looking pretty good.

All five boards in this batch, showing they are partially finished

There are still some spots where the grain hasn't been completely filled yet, but I think I can safely put the rottenstone away and just finish with shellac and oil.

A closer, and lower-angle view of the boards, showing that there are still spots where the grain has not been filled

Contents #woodworking #storage #frenchPolish #shellac

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Today I didn't have a lot of time, so I pulled four different sized (so I don't get them mixed up) drawer fronts off and started shellacking them.

Tools are a pad,

A pad for applying shellac

which is stored in a jam jar when not in use,

a jam jar, containing the pad for applying shellac

a squeeze bottle of a 1 pound cut of shellac (1 oz of shellac flakes per cup of denatured alcohol),

A squeeze bottle with four drawer-fronts, all resting on a piece of cardboard

and a smaller squeeze bottle of linseed oil.

A smaller squeeze bottle containing a darker-colored liquid

I started with two coats of shellac, padded on. It takes two drops of shellac for the smaller drawer fronts, and four or five for the larger. I alternate between figure-eights across the grain and swooping passes with the grain.

When just shellac starts feeling a little “draggy,” I will start adding a drop of linseed oil to the pad for every three or four drops of shellac.

After six more sets of applications of oil and shellac, the pad started to drag again. You can often see wrinkles in the face of the pad at this point. That's a signal that it's time to take a break for at least 10 or 15 minutes. Longer won't hurt. I'll be coming back to these tomorrow.

A close-up of one of the drawer fronts, showing how the shellac has just started to fill the grain and give a glossy finish

Looking at the surface, I'm starting to get some nice gloss on the high-points of the surface, but I haven't really started filling the grain at all. I guesstimate it'll take two or three more sets of 6-8 coats before I'm happy with the surface.

a lower-angle view of a different drawer-front, showing spots where the shellac has clearly not finished filling the grain

Contents #woodworking #storage #frenchPolish #shellac

Discuss... Reply to this in the fediverse: @davepolaschek@writing.exchange