Handy Plans

[BrisBen]

I was looking about for a new project and and came across this

http://home.comcast.net/~charliebcz/...OfContent.html

Hope it is of some help

[Stylesy]

Many thanks for that BrisBen, now I know what I was doing wrong when trying to stab those water buffalo. Now that I've put a micro point on my pointy stick, all's good and food's back on the table .

[Iain]

My stick had two ends and I didn't know which end to sharpen so I cut one end off.
There was nothing on that site that helped me with my dilemma

[LineLefty]

SWMBO actually asked me to make a "poking stick" to poke all the crappy nappies down into the nappy bucket. I just sharpened the end of a dowel to 10000 grit

[Bob Willson]

A page of information is also available for a shellac finish that is mentioned nowhere in Neil's book. To wit:

SHELLAC


Shellac is a popular finish for most wood projects and is one of the few "natural" surface finishes that is auhorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to be eaten. Coated pills, M&Ms and apples in your grocery store all probably have a coat of shellac on their surface. This is a bit surprising because shellac is made from either the spit or feces of the Laq / Lac bug. Kids love to use shellac "'causeit's BUG SPIT!". It's fun to grind up and dissolve in alcohol. The mixing process,, incidentally, can produce a mild, somewhat pleasant buzz, with little or no hangover.

Shellac comes in two main forms, the not as expensive "with wax" "buttons or flakes and the prohitively expensive "dewaxed" flakes only form. The former has exotic types like Kusm and Button Lac, while the latter has more upscale names like garnet, lemon, blonde, super blonde and platina. The ground material is dissolved in denatured alcohol (though some prefer to use anhydrous methylate with minute quantities of methyl chlorate or methyl anhydrate powder, with perhaps some ground up natural pearls). The ratio of dry flakes to liquid solvent is called "The Cut". One pound of shellac dissolved in one gallon of solvent is called a One Pound Cut. You supposedly can go up to a Three Pound Cut, commonly sold in premixed cans at paint stores. When you've got the shellac ground up and weighed out it'll look like trying to dissolve 10 pounds of powdered sugar in a teaspoonful of water. After interminable shaking, stirring and swirling, the ground shellac will, if you started with raw ground shellac, eventually get to a lumpless "liquor" of some of the most beautiful clear liquid you've ever seen

There are several fool proof methods for creating an almost flawless finish with a depth that will astound you.

FRENCH POLISH

The most time consuming method of applying shellac is called a French Polish. This method uses what is called a Muneqa, which is Spanish for "little doll". Start with a softball sized wad of sheep's wool, washed, bleached and carded. Place the wool wad in the middle of a 9 and 3/32nds inch square of old sweatshirt material, fuzzy side to the inside. Then wrap that in a 10 and 5/64ths inch square piece of Irish 3000 count linen..

Now pour some of you shellac liquid into a special thin nozzle squeeze bottle, called a "special thin nozzle squeeze bottle" screw the special thin nozzle onto the squeeze bottle and squeeze the shellac liquid onto the wool center of the muneqa. Tightley wrap the piece of sweatshirt around the balled up wool and apply a little more shellac to the bottom of the outside of the balled up wool/sweatshirt bundle. Place this bundle into the center of the linen square and bring the four corners of the square together. Bring the resulting newly created four corners together with the first set of four corners and twist them all tightly, twisting in an anti-clockwise direction until the bottom of the outside of the linen becomes damp but not dripping. Next, tap the resulting muneqa on a candy maker's piece of fine Italian marble that has been ground to within 0.00001 inches of perfectly flat and chilled to 7.375 degrees Celsius. This marble tapping will make a flat bottomed muneqa with rounded edges.

You're almost ready to begin French Polishing. But first pour one and one half liquid ounces of fine cognac in a snifter with a 3 4/7ths inch diameter neck. Sniff the cognac before hooking the content of the snifter in one gulp. WAIT 30 SECONDS BEFORE TRYING TO BREATH THROUGH YOUR MOUTH.

Now, before the cognac kicks in, begin rubbing the dampened but not soaking wet muneqa on the surface to be finished. Apply only enough pressure to cause the vein in your forehead to become visible. A lighted, magnifying mirror is handy to have to know exactly when you're rubbing hard enough. The popping and cracking of knuckles can also be used to tell when the pressure is correct, sort of like a break wrench. Rub clockwise for three consecutive revolutions and then three anti-clockwise/counter clockwise revolutions before moving off the spot you're rubbing. Every 8.29 seconds open the wad/muneqa and squirt in some more shellac liquid. Repeat the process on the adjacent area, making sure to overlap the previously rubbed area by half. By the time you go over the entire surface once the place that you started will be completely dry AND a year of your life will be gone. Repeat the whole thing three more times and you'll get a finish that looks a mile thick - and show all those sanding marks you forgot to get rid of BEFORE you began French Polishing

[Bob Willson]

.THE "TOUCH AND GO LANDING" FINISH APPLICATION METHOD

You'll need a brush made from the eye lashes of a brahma bull. The bristles must be at least one inch thick and four inches wide. While this type of brush is very expensive, brahma bulls don't give up their eye lashes easily, the finish they can (note I said "can" and not "automatically will") produce is astounding. Dip the first 8 to 10 mm in the jar of shellac, take it out of the liquid and tap it against the side of the jar until it's almost dry. DO NOT shake it. Quickly move the brush so the bottom edge is parallel to the surface you want to apply shellac to and about a quarter inch above it. With a moderately slow but even stroke, lower the end of the brush following an 8.3 degree glide slope until you have touch down. Then glide the brush along the surface until you're about 12 to 15 mm from the end of the piece. At that point, start your "take off", along the 8.3 degree take off slope. You should "leave the ground" when you run out of "ground".

Quickly return the tip of the brush to the jar of shellac, do the dip and tap thing and do another Touch and Go, this time overlapping the previous pass by 1/4 inch. The shellac from the previous pass should still be wet, or at least not bone dry. This will allow this pass to flow into, then flatten with, the previous pass. Sounds easy and straightforeward. It ain't. If you wait too long you'll get a series of nice parallel little, but very visible, ridges at the edges of each pass. Repeat the dip/tap/touch/and go process until the entire surface of the part being finished has been landed on. The key to this method is to maintain a wet edge.

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, TRY TO GO OVER THE SAME AREA TWICE BEFORE THE FIRST PASS IS COMPLETELY DRY. YOU'LL GET NASTY BRUSH MARKS THAT WILL HAVE TO LATER BE SANDED OR SCRAPED FLAT. Word to the wise...

POUR IT ONE, TILT THE PIECE 'TIL THE EXCESS RUNS OFF THEN TILT IT THE OTHER WAY

Also known as "the impatient method", this is a quick way to build a finish. It won't be a uniform thickness and it may have runs and drips in it, but it builds fast. You won't actually save any time since the time saved applying the finish is much less than the time it takes to level the finish once it has dried. But if you're in a hurry, want to cover a lot of wood quickly and don't care about what the final finish looks like, then this may be the method for you.

SPRAY LOTS OF THIN COATS ON

If you already have a compressor that'll put out 50 to 100 CFM at 3000 psi you might want to get one of them Critter type sprayers or, if you have more than $40 US, get a real air gun, with fourteen tips, two or three finish cups and a viscosity cup. Fill the latter with brandy or cognac and quickly hold it over your open mouth. Begin counting "one Mississippi, two Mississipi" (do this mentally cause if ya try counting out loud while your poring booze in your mouth ya'll are gonna choke and cough) and continue counting until the cup stops dripping. Swallow the cognac and then write down the last "Mississippi" you counted, labelng it “Cognac 1”. Repeat this step three or four more times, recording your highest "Mississippi" and labeling it “Cognac 2” and so on.. Next, fill the viscosity cup with your shellac mix. As the shellac begins to run/drip/ooze out of the cup begin your "Missippies" count until there is no more drips of shellac from the cup. Write this number down and label it Shellac.

You now have the "Mississippies" for Cognac 1, 2, 3 and 4 along with the Shellac Mississippies. Add up Congac 1+2+3+4 values and divide by four. Write the results in the palm of your left hand if you're right handed or in the palm of your right hand if you're a southpaw. You want to record four significent digits - so try to write pretty small - but not too small cause ya'lls visual acuity is failing due to them four shots of whatever that stuff was.

Oh - don't breath on no open flames fur a wile cause ya'lls mouth may 'splode - OK? Ya gotta be safety conshus yu know - don't want no fahrs or blowed up stuff in da shop. Ya unnerstand whut I'm sayin' man? NO fahrs! NO blowed up stuff! No man, I'm serious! Pay attention man! NO blowed up stuff in MY shop! Dis is really, really, really, really important - NO BLOWED UP STUFF IN MY SHOP MAN! You bet I was YELLING cuz I wanna make sure you unnerstand
- n o ...b l o w e d ...u p ...s t u f f ...- OK? No fahrs neither man - OK?

What were we doin'? Oh yeah - viz coz oh tee. Divide the Shellac Mississississippies by the numbah ya wrote on ya'lls hand and write down the results in black marker on ya'lls fo'hed and then turn off the shop lights and try makin' it to ya'lls bed. Tammara, when and if ya'll can get outa bed ya'll will see somethin rit on ya'lls fo'hed when you look in the mirra while tryin' to toothbrush that bottom o da birdcage taste out ya mouth. By now the ole eyes shud be focusin enuff to read dat numba. Write it on da mirra with tootpaste so yu'll see it da nex day. Go back to bed and try an sleep it off. In a day or two yu'll feel well enuff to get back in da shop, but ya'll will be wonderin' who wrote on ya'lls mirror with toothpaste. Forget about that, just go spray on your shellac. The finish you get will look like crap, but when you're still hung over, the quality of the finish won't be a big deal - until tomorrow.

BTW - the alcohol in the shellac mix is highly flammable/inflammable. Do not light a cigaretter, cigar, pipe, joint or bong in a room full of a very fine mist of alcohol. An open flame in the same room, say in a furnace or maybe a water heater, can create the same potential disaster. At best, the flash burn you'll get won't look like the nice sun burned look you get in Cabo or The Keyes. At worst the BOOM can make the quality of the finish you get the least of your worries. On the plus side, the finish will have plenty of time to cure while you're in the hospital.

If you want to reduce the risk of burns and/or explosions, try an HVLP system. HVLP stand for High Velocity Low Pressure. That means you can apply lots of finish at much lower pressure than with a conventional compressed air gun. That means that more finish makes it to, and stays on, the work with much less bounces back into the air. That's a good thing and a bad thing. With this method finishing screw ups happen faster and worse than with conventional compressed air gun spraying.

Rather than a compressor generating a little air at a high pressure, HVLP systems use a single, double or triple turbine to move a lot of air. The turbine(s) are basically the same as that found in a household vacuum cleaner, only much more expensive. The turbine(s) are also LOUD and have to be relatively close to the HVLP gun and therefore to YOU and your ears. Wear hearing protection or get use to saying "WHAT!?"

While on the subject of safety, regardless of the method of spraying shellac, you don't want to get much of this stuff in your lungs. You can eat it, but don’t breath it. If you're going to spray in a confined space with poor ventilation, practice holding your breath for for to five minutes, the time it takes to apply a spray finish to the average piece of furniture, OR, get, and wear, a respirator mask - the kind with the activated charcoal cannisters. You'll have to decide whether you want to be a lung or liver donor should you die prematurely. If it's the lungs you want to donate then wear the respirator and/or do your spraying outside. If it's your liver you want to donate skip the viscosity procedure..

[Stylesy]

Yes, but how do I get the buffalo blood stains off the pointy stick? Will Polish Reviver work? Or should I stain it with the blood first, then apply the shellac?

[BrisBen]

To be fair Stylesy, I can't really comment on the finish of your pointy stick, you see I am considering creating an heirloom pointy stick that can be passed from generation to generation, carefully caressed and maintained over the centuries to be admired by all and sundry.

Not some run of the mill, "I'll just walk out in the paddock and stab a buffalo for dinner" pointy stick.

I think you need to consider the intrinsic artistic merit of the pointy stick further

Become the stick and you will know the answer

[Stylesy]

Become the stick and you will know the answer

Aaah, true, sensai. I admit my pointy stick usage has been quite utilitarian in its ways. I shall heed thy advice and change my heathen paganistic views. Time to meditate on the pointy stick.

[Cagey]

My pointy stick is nearly finished and it seems to perform all required tasks admirably, but something doesnt feel quite right. Do you think I might need to add a micro bevel?

[echnidna]

We could simplify Bob Wilsons method very easily.
Just delete everything after drinking the Cognac and have a double.