Thread: Advice on a dining setting

G’day all

I’m working on a bit of a restoration project and I at the stage where I’m thinking about different finishes and would like a few different opinions based on peoples experiences. The project is the restoration of a (reproduction) dinning room setting, I have attached pic’s at the bottom. As the pic’s show there is a fair bit of detailed carving which makes finishing more interesting than my usual flat surfaces. At the moment there are two finishes that I am looking at, spraying on lacquer and Shellawax cream with a boot brush and lambs wool buff (possible with some EEE).

My main concern is that I have not (knowingly) seen either of these finishers before. I assume that Lacquer would be a smooth finish with a feel similar to varnish but what does a Shellawax look and more importantly feel like? I have used organoil’s hard burnishing oil before an liked the result because you can still “feel” the wood. This is the impression I get about Shellawax from Neil’s book, correct me if I’m wrong.

I would appreciate anybody’s comments on their experiences (good and bad) with either finish and if someone knows a gallery or something in the Canberra region where I see and feel them that would be appreciated.

Secondly if I go down the path of the lacquer can someone point me in the right direction in relation to advantages and disadvantages of the different lacquers, there is a bit in the forums on water based ones, has anybody used them? Are they available in Canberra? Do they behave in the same way as nitro cellulose lacquers? I would be looking at using probably a Wagner 180, is this a suitable choice? And any other advice that you could offer would be appreciated.

Finally…. I am looking at darkening the wood prior to finishing it. I was thinking about trying Potassium Bichromate as the wood may be Philippine Cedar. Would this be incompatible with either finish, if so is there an alternative?

Thanks for looking

TJ
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