Thread: 1900s homemade cabinet - touching up the finish

Very nice. How much tint to the French polish? How are you applying it? I have a 1930 sideboard made of English oak veneer to redo the top on and that is the same colour.

I'm not doing so well with my Feast Watson French polish on the (we think yew wood) table. I think there is a reason it had been varnish with such a strong colour that you could see the grain. I keep getting areas that are splotchy. Even a complete sand back and careful start again went the same way. This time no going back. I will continue to layer the French polish and use the gentle wire between layers. Maybe it will come good as I end up with layers on layers instead of the wood itself.

I have also moved on to a large wardrobe of solid silky oak. This will be converted to a bookcase with internal LED lighting (unless SWMBO takes it for a wardrobe again ) . Still thinking what to treat it with and thinking about Danish oil With have to experiment with another piece of silky oak first.

I stained the wood before putting on the French Polish. I did the same for the top which was really dark. Sanded it right back then stained it the same as the shelf so both match the cabinet colour. Much easier to control the colour by staining initially. I mix 50/50 with Colour Reducer for the first coat then adjust for the next coats if required. I ended up with approx. 60% walnut 5% brown Japan and the rest colour reducer for the final 3 coats.

Here's the cabinet top stained but with no French Polish

IMG_0763.jpg



I applied the French Polish with a new, clean, dense but soft bunched up cotton cloth - like a shellac rubber but without the filling.

I rang Feast Watson this morning to see if the shellac flakes and French Polish were dewaxed and we were chatting about whether to use French Polish or home mixed shellac for the cabinet itself. He was stressing the importance of a clean surface and mentioned a rub over with rag soaked in wood turpentine as opposed to mineral turpentine. This is also in the French Polish application data. Maybe there's a residue on your timber?
He also recommended home mixed shellac for the cabinet.

Wood turpentine 80 That's all new to me. Googling seems to be telling me it is Gum Turpentine. I'll be trying that.

Thanks for the procedure on staining. I try with some samples. Feeling more confident with the idea of doing a light colour first then increasing darkness.

Apparently it's nasty stuff. I'd be wearing a respirator and gloves. Do a search here - talk of kidney damage etc.
Amazingly, I tossed out a litre of it two weeks ago because of the all the warnings, now find out I need it

Big thanks for warning me. I have been wearing respirator and ear muffs for sanding but I think I need to change the cartridges for fumes
I bought the colour reducer as well.

1. Antiques were never finished with blond shellac. The Fine Woodworking article needs to be interpreted for what it is - general information for those who have never used shellac, and their recommendations are good for new furniture. Both of the main posters here are dealing with antiques, so the FWW article is not relevant - though the 'how to make a rubber' video could be useful to all. Neil Ellis's book (see Forums home page) covers it all thoroughly.
2. In the old days shellac came as solid 'buttons' and brown button shellac was probably the original and most used. Shellac buttons can still be purchased in Aus from Shines shines.com.au These are what I use to repair Australian antique furniture.
3. I dislike the colour of orange flake shellac. I think it ruins antiques.
4. The most convenient shellac you can get comes from the forums' owner UBeaut. They have made-up bottles of various shellacs including white (I think they call it instead of blond) as well as 'normal' shellac and also sell flakes I think (I've never purchased those see point 3.
5. The wax in normal shellac helps to protect the timber, and it also binds to the final wax finish applied to give the warm glow to the finished product. I like UBeaut's Traditional Wax but any good furniture wax with a high Carnauba wax content (and low beeswax content because beeswax stays sticky and attracts dirt and dust). No, I am not affiliated with UBeaut in any way, I just like their products and use them.
6. The paint on the shelf was original and very commonly used on European cabinet interiors, though very rare in Australian antique furniture. Probably red lead so I hope you didn't breathe in the dust.
7. The secret to retaining the value of an antique is to do the least intervention possible and to live with the dings and dents - they are called patina and are part of what makes antiques valuable. For that reason removing the paint was not a good idea, but now that you have done it don't try to repaint. Likewise, for that antique table - if you cut it down you may as well throw it away or burn it in terms of what you have done to its value. Try the wet grass in the sun trick - take the cupped table top off, wet some lawn on a sunny day and put the table top - concave side down - on the grass in the sun. Voila the cup often comes out, top flattens. Mostly the top stays flat after you re-fix it to the base. Sometimes you have to seal the under-side with shellac to keep it flat, but that is not normally a good idea - see above.

Shame you didn't respond earlier when the question was originally asked re freshening up the cabinet. What's done is done. At least the top is now in one piece. I will button it down unless you think nailing it down, like is was originally, is the best thing to do. I was pretty sure it was red lead as I used it years ago when setting up final drives.

The cabinet and top have not be finished as yet so there is still time. The interesting thing about the cabinet is that it is made from scraps of timber underneath.
One question - if one wanted to keep the depth of colour as it is and not go darker, wouldn't brown shellac darken it further?

Many thanks Xanthorrhoeas,
All my early pieces are for learning on before I allow myself near the quality stuff. For instance if I think it is original coating (eg: shellac then I tread carefully and slowly). So far the pieces I'm touching this year have had some terrible coatings. For instance the sideboard I stripped first had some ugly modern type varnish. I figured even the doors were added later and have already remove the Tanderra glass and the round Philips head screws (oops forgot the modern white sticky paper, yuck). I have a few old dining sets to tackle but that will be gentle cleaned and where required reinforced. I guess for me it's a mixture of re-purposing some pieces and taking others back to as original as I can.

This morning I finished using Danish oil on a very heavy table top of local timber and will be aiming to put it on an old silky oak table frame. This is my re-purposing the table frame. The wardrobe I'm currently working on will have the remaining mirror left and replaced with glass and then shelving installed to use it again as a bookcase.

Much later I will recondition chairs belonging to the table that took me 6 months to clean and shellac (finished with lantern oil). The table was done using Ubeaut shellac and will be used for the chairs. Sadly some wood has split and while I will try to use the same wood I already have stock of other old chairs for replacement wood. These aren't any great pieces to anyone else just family sentimental value

Yes, wood turpentine = gum turpentine = "natural" turpentine. It smells delightful but has been implicated in nasty effect like memory loss etc. However, I would not get too worried about occasional use in well-ventilated spaces. The problems arise with closed spaces and long use. My wife is an artist and artists' oil paints use so called natural turps for thinning and cleaning up. Her studio smells very strongly of it and I believe it has caused some memory loss problems, but she refused to use the air-scrubber I bought her because it was noisy!

I am really surprised that it is recommended that you use natural turps before shellac. The two are not compatible to the best of my knowledge, turps is an oily substance and would work with oil paint, shellac being alcohol solvent is not oily. Traditional French Polishing as I was taught it was to polish the wood with a rubber and metho before applying shellac. Turps under shellac is likely to turn it milky - as does sealing with Danish oil before shellac - nasty milky finish after some time.

Originally Posted by Lappa

Shame you didn't respond earlier when the question was originally asked re freshening up the cabinet. What's done is done. At least the top is now in one piece. I will button it down unless you think nailing it down, like is was originally, is the best thing to do. I was pretty sure it was red lead as I used it years ago when setting up final drives.

The cabinet and top have not be finished as yet so there is still time. The interesting thing about the cabinet is that it is made from scraps of timber underneath.
One question - if one wanted to keep the depth of colour as it is and not go darker, wouldn't brown shellac darken it further?

Yes, Lappa, I missed this one indeed, I must have been doing woodwork.
Brown shellac does impart a richer colour but, the layer is so thin that I doubt it would make much difference. The only way to test would be to try on another piece first, but my comments were meant as general advice/guidance and are based on my experience with Australian antiques. That's why I also mentioned the white shellac - it is your choice. We all often have to make our own decisions about such things as finishes and the 'client' often determines what we do anyway. I have even been known to finish furniture with poly because the client required it! (Not antiques though, never.)

For final finish and whether to nail or button down the top really depend on what you want. I would personally find it difficult to justify using nails and, in my experience, the top would not have been nailed originally. Tops were usually glued on with hide glue and had small glue blocks - sometimes triangular in cross section but often small rectangular blocks - positioned around the interior gluing the sides to the tops. The hide glue dries up in our difficult climate and the top detaches, often the blocks just fall off and are lost. You may find witness marks of glue lines if you look. If it were an important and valuable piece I would make new glue blocks and reattach with hide glue. Titebond liquid hide glue is convenient if you don't have pearl glue and a double-walled glue pot, and seems to have worked well over the three or so years I have used it on small repairs - I still pull out the glue pot for a big project.

However, your cabinet needs to be practical for you and its value is practical rather than monetary (European Oak furniture does not have a high $ value in Australia) so perhaps just button the top down.

The "scraps of timber underneath" is a very European feature, though I have seen it in early Australian furniture made in Tasmania where they have used pieces of European Deal pine packing cases in a carcase.

Thanks.
Thats why it's all confusing, even from the same manufacturer Feast Watson instructions for their Shellac based French Polish, on their website is " ...Any wax build up from old French Polished surfaces should be removed by wiping with a cloth dampened with warm soapy water or pure turpentine".
The back of the bottle states the same but uses the words ".... or wood turpentine"

If a person didn't know there was gum turpentine as well as mineral turpentine?

Anyways, I need to put something on the cabinet and top so I'm tossing up whether to mix my own shellac or use the pre-mixed Feast Watson product - it certainly, to my eyes, gives a very smooth, shiny finish after 4 coats. What would be your recommendation Xanthorrhoeas?

Additional info:
there are no triangular glue blocks or witness marks but there are two rectangular ones, one on each side with signs of glue on them but no where else.
IMG_0769.jpg

I'll probably just reglue it with hide glue. I did make slotted panels and buttons because I didn't want to slot the existing carcase.

IMG_0770.jpg

Is this the brown button shellac you mentioned earlier?

http://www.thewoodworks.com.au/shop/...on-waxy-detail

This is all new to me. Mixed up my shellac, tested it out on some scrap. Looked good, dried in an appropriate time according to multiple instructions on the subject, so on to the cabinet.

Before

IMG_0767.jpg

After 5 coats of shellac. The time I got around the cabinet once it was time for another coat so not a lot of time involved. Having not used shellac before, I find it very satisfying to use even though the application is reasonably regimental.

IMG_0771.jpg

I'll wait an hour, then sand back with 800 then 5 more coats then decide on the final finish.

Totally agree on the regimental Looking good so far.

For my table it seems the more applications of shellac the less the problems. I really think I have been having reaction to something in the wood.

In anticipation of finishing the shellac finish on the cabinet tomorrow, I'm looking at whether or not it requires another finish to help protect it. I'll leave it for at least a week before doing anything. It's not liable to have any drinks etc placed on top - just a Samovar set a friend brought back from Russia some 30 plus years ago. What do people recommend as a final coating on the shellac if any?

- leave it as is.
- wax
- other coating (Feast Watson recommend Floorseal oil)

Cheers