Thread: Attempted French Polish

The shine that you are getting on the "rounds" is most likely not french polish. Sometimes on rounds it is somewhat difficult to see the difference between french polish and a good even coating of shellac, on large flat surfaces it is far more obvious. Both of these finishes use the same basic coatings and methods but the end results are very different. I quite often give an item a shellac finish but the finish does not have the depth that french polish has. Both of these finishes have a role to play and complement each other but they are not the same.

Keep working on your finishing.

Good luck

Router

What's the difference between a good even coating of shellac and french polish? I have used a rubber, and applied plenty of pressure forcing the shellac into the pores/grain/timber. And I know I did a good job because the 'first' time I decided to sand back to bare timber I quickly decided that I need to remove far too much timber to get to bare timber, so I settled for a flat even, already shellac choked surface to try again.

My method of cheating has evolved from trying to do the right thing of coating/skinning in/spiriting off, burnishing. to something along the lines of

-slap on 4-5 coats of shellac using a #10 mop. trying not have fat and thin sections, but the surface is far from flat and even. let it dry 24hrs.
-using a little pencil eraser about 40x20x10mm as a sanding block. I use #400 dry to remove most of the high spots/fat overlaps. sanding with the grain
- #0000 steel wool so I have a mostly dull flat sheen over the surface. sanding with the grain
- #1200 wet n dry using the same tiny eraser sanding block, lubricated with turps. sanding with the grain
- #2000 as above. sanding with the grain
- meguires ultimate compound applied by hand with a tshirt rag with the grain
- wipe that meguires stuff off using a turps soak rag and put the piece aside while I do all of that to the other panels.
- then I made a little rubber using some bedsheet material and cotton wadding.
-I tried pure metho in the rubber, but I found I was removing shellac from the surface and burning through. So I add a few drops of shellac and some more metho over the top.
-spread some liquid parrfin on the back of my hand and tap the rubber on it to lube it some.
-then using hard pressure, fly in fly out method. I go back n forth with the grain until it is mostly shiny. It still has streaks at super low angle light...
-then I use a #3000 foam backed sanding disc by hand to kinda dull the surface just slightly so there is less of a jump between super high gloss areas and less gloss areas.

it seems to be working. I'll get some photos up in a few days time. I have 6/12 panels completed. 4/12 awaiting final padding, and 2/12 panels looking like a dogs brekky with only 4 coats of 2lb cut shellac on it which was slapped on by a butcher.

You seem to be going to a lot of trouble by taking shortcuts/cheating. The best method to get a fair result. Try on one of your panels doing a skin in coat by giving the piece a couple of coats with a blender not a mop then build up the finish with your rubber. A blender is a flat brush and you simply go from one end to the other end without stopping several times till you have it covered, no oil at this stage. Next stage is to "body up" that is using a different rubber and by using a small amount of oil. At this stage to flatten the surface add some pumice to the inside of your rubber. Pumice is an abrasive so when the bodying up is finished the surface will be somewhat dull. By using pumice you will be choking up the grain and therefore giving a nice flat surface. The next step is to stiff up by removing the oil. If the oil is not removed, as the oils used are non drying oils the surface will go grey over time. If you have some darker spots on your finish by running your finger across the area you will see that there is oil still on the surface by the mark that is left, stiff up is complete when there are no dark spots. French Polishing gives a great result but does take time and practice.

Good luck

Router

That actually seems like a good way to do it. I haven't been using any pumice at all, and one of my biggest issues is with high and low spots from the initial mopping of coats. The pumice would probably cut these down to size in no time. I'll try this next time, I'm pretty well committed to my method at the moment.

There are some dovetail/dutchman cutouts in the panels which is breaking a ~800mm long panel into 4 small areas. The butterfly keys will sit proud of the surface by 2mm. I will glue these in afterwards. This bedhead comes apart for shipping, which is a good thing because the thing is getting close to 45kg!

Leveled the high/fat spots with #400 grit dry using a 40x20x10 pencil eraser sanding block
400.jpg400_2.jpg

Steel wool the surface so there aren't too many shiny low spots.
steel.jpgsteel_2.jpg

After cutting back with #1200 and #2000 wet with turps, then using Meguires ultimate compound.
meguires.jpgmeguires_2.jpg


And a finished panel after rubbing it out with a small rubber loaded with small amount of shellac and metho and lubed with liquid paraffin.. It looks good enough. There are 12 panels total.
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I am not in a position to answer your first question, as I have not experienced that. However, now that the discussion has developed into a more general "how to French Polish" one I'll add my two cents worth.

The finish that you have achieved looks good although the technique that you have used leaves me boggled. But, to me it looks like a real French Polish should. The characteristics of FP are the clarity and depth so that you are seeing the full beauty of the timber revealed. A shellac finish looks Ok but does not have the clarity and depth.

The technique described by Router has some characteristics in common with the technique that I was taught except that technique used the pumice with straight metho before any shellac was used - the pumice had some dry colouring added to suit the timber. I do not use pumice because fillers were not used on very early Australian furniture and that is what I started off polishing (but only when they had been damaged and had lost the original I must add).

The secret is to take your time/not be in a hurry and use very dilute shellac on a fairly dry pad. I start and finish with the same rubber and build up the polish over days/weeks/month depending on how much time I get in the workshop. I also do not use any oil as I find that a dry rubber on well-dried earlier coats does not stick and does not rip off the earlier coats - in my experience that only happens when they are not fully dry.

Hope this is of use.

David

Where can I find pumice in Australia that is already graded? I can find talc and rottenstone but I don't think that is the correct thing to use. Talc is just a filler, and rottenstone is an abrasive but doesn't fill?

Aanyways, I finished polishing the panels last night and a quick assembly of the bedhead and it looks good to me. The photo sucks, its just on my bench in my poorly lit garage. I'll have to get better pics inside the house somewhere, or politely ask my clients to supply some since I don't have a kingsize bed in my place.
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