beginner needs advice re finishing
Hi all I am brand new to the forum and looking for some help and you would seem to be the right people. Some background I am recently retired and looking to do some furniture restoration at a leisurely pace. I have some background, my father french polished as a hobby and pardon the pun but some of it seems to have rubbed off. He would apply up to a dozen coats of shellac using wet and dry in between and then finishing spirit at the end. This created a wonderfull finish to look at but not very usable. I have jars and jars of pre measured shellac flakes and bottles of I think distilled metho just waiting to be mixed. I have a number already mixed that maybe up to 15 years old. I am quite capable when it comes to the stripping and repair I have built a number of pieces over the years all pretty simple desks tables and the like. I have been using shellac for colour and filling and then a brush on polyurethane mirror tone product and finishing this with steel wool and danish wax. This has been working ok and giving a reasonably durable surface. I am about to start renovating some silky oak pieces and would like to know how best to finish then. Imagine starting with a freshly sanded clean piece of SO How would you choose to finish from this point? I am hoping to adopt a new technique from the collected wisdom here. What would be the best products where to buy them and how to use them. I am in Brisbane. More than happy to mix up SECRET formulas if this is best. Any advice would be much appreciated thanks