Thread: streaky finish using shellawax liquid

What diameter is the platter?
I believe for anything larger than a small bowl, shellawax can go on patchy when applied on the spinning lathe? It's best used for smaller items I think. Neil might be able to confirm this.

I usually load up a bit on the cloth, set lathe speed to low and apply as evenly as possible, then speed up lathe, find a new dry piece of the cloth and apply fritcion (heat) to melt the wax into the wood. It usually evens out a little more then.

Light sand and then apply another coat, and then a third if needed. I then sometimes apply a coat or two of waxtik over that. Gives a nice semi-gloss finish that doesn't look like plastic.

For ultra shine, you need EEE-ultra shine (of course)

B and maybe c too.

G'day Brudda - Have a look at this page http://www.ubeaut.com.au/swinfo.htm and see if it is of any help to you, there are a number of fixes for a number of problems there.

Streakiness is usually an indication of using either too much or too little shellawax, however, it is extremely possible that the problem in this instance could lie with the Norfolk Pine. Some timbers just don't want to play the game and some Norfolk Pine doesn't work too well for some reason.

You can use Shellawax liquid for large work, platters etc but you must use a fair bit of it. Stephen Hughes recently told me he was having great success applying the liquid with a spray bottle to platters. This would stand to reason, as the surface would be covered pretty evenly and quickly giving more time to work the finish into the timber.

As for the rag, I prefer to use a new clean piece of cloth for every application or at least a clean section of a previously used rag. I prefer to use old flannelette sheet for my rag, but recently purchased a few metres of new stuff to try out. Haven't tried it yet but should work brilliantly. If I can ever find it in amongst the bomb site that is our new factory.

Hope some of this is of some help to you.

Cheers - Neil

Thanks neil.. I will bring the offending article with me to melbourne.

.. you will get yours as well

Dean, the diameter is approx 300mm

As Neil said, he prefers a clean section of rag for each application..... however I think that he perhaps should have stressed that you should use the SAME part of the cloth for application AND burnishing because all you will do if you use a clean part to burnish you will actually be wiping the finish OFF before it can do its' job. Burnish the work to a lovely shine using the SAME part of the rag that you used to wipe it on!