Why oil French Polishing pad?

[delbs]

Stupid question, but if I have unused dry shellac still in the bottle, sealed well, is it still usable even if a few years old?

I had the same thoughts reading this thread.i picked up a tub of shellac from memory at the Canberra or Sydney wood show years ago. Has largely been in dark cool (maybe there's been some hot days in there) dry cardboard box storage over the years. It doesn't have a package date on it it's just empty

I poured a small amount into a jar with 100% metho about 18 hours ago and looks like mushed up corn flakes. I'll leave it longer but just seems to have gone off

I suspect I'd just need to buy another and use it within 6months as it says on the tub lol. I wasn't aware of this use by date



Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

[woodPixel]

Yeah Delbs, you and I both. I buy so many things with the INTENTION of using them


UBEAUT, have you considered updating your site at all?

[delbs]

Yeah Delbs, you and I both. I buy so many things with the INTENTION of using them


UBEAUT, have you considered updating your site at all?

Ha why do you think I'm hand tools only/mostly this time. Two rules are restore tools to USE them and use my materials instead of collecting and hoarding like I used to haha

My shellac fell into my old hoarding rules unfortunately.

I do however need to buy a copy of the polishers handbook so perhaps some shellac can sneak into that order

Sent from my TA-1012 using Tapatalk

[ubeaut]

Stupid question, but if I have unused dry shellac still in the bottle, sealed well, is it still usable even if a few years old?

Not Stupid as per Delbs post #28 above.

If shellac flakes are kept cool, away from bright light and heat, and not in a tin container they should last for many years. Heat and bright light are problematic. Keeping in a fridge is a good idea, an esky in the coolest part of shed or house should be fine but just anywhere in the shed which on a hot summer day could be in the high 40s'isn't a good idea.

Delbs Geez it must be old haven't done Canberra for around 10 + years and Sydney not much less.
If it looks like mushed cornflakes after 18 hours it might just be no good. Probably been heat and/or light affected at some time. Give it a stir and if it goes to all liquid it should be alright. If it's still moosh... Nup it's no good. If it's left without stirring or agitating it could look like moosh and still be alright if it dissolves when stirred.

For what it's worth. We keep all our shellac and made up finishes in a 40ft. refrigerated shipping container at between 8^c/12^c constant but can get up to about 16^c/18^c on really bad 40^c+ day(s). Good place to have lunch on a 40^c+ day

UBEAUT, have you considered updating your site at all?

The current site is updated from time to time, but I'm currently in the process of building a new online shop with attached Blog and eventually with videos and other helpful stuff.

However it's taking for ever and a day to get done. The current site is antique and I built it all myself back around 1998 or 99 I have no trouble doing whatever needs to be done on it and never have. But the new one is all but finished and I'm to the point of pulling my hair out because I can't get my head around the back room stuff of design, final layout, etc. So having to rely on a third party to do this and it's frustrating.

Should have been ready to go live a couple of months ago.

The old site is a bit of a dinosaur, but easy to work on. The new one should be great but it's a complete and utter pain to get set up.

[Dengue]

Hang in there with the new Ubeaut shop website, Neil. I feel your pain. I too wrote the website for my son’s Strutmaster business over 10 years ago now, but the web design software has all changed with CSS and styling and blocks etc. The site is antiquated too, but I would not have a clue how to modernise it. He will have to go to a web designer

[yvan]

ubeaut,

Thanks for the YT link. A simple to follow and very instructive demonstration.

No wonder my few attempts were not the best: I was "flooding" the surface by using too big and too wet a pad !!!!

From now on it will be golf-ball-size pads and drops of shellac rather than generous squirts of the stuff!!!


Cheers
Yvan

[jack620]

Did you have a look at the video link I put on in earlier post How to French Polish - Woodworking Finish with Shellac - YouTube if so you would have seen how dry the first applications were.

Good video. I started a new thread with this question, but lost the lot when I submitted it. Golden Rule- always compose lengthy threads in Word first.

In the video he dusts a fine coat of 4F pumice onto the raw timber before the first coat of shellac to act as a grain filler. I went to Carbatec today to buy pumice. They sold me U-Beaut Tripoli powder which they assured me was the same thing. After a bit of research I found it isn't pumice. It isn't rottenstone either. According to the U-Beaut website it is used AFTER French polishing to remove blemishes and impart a sheen.

So regardless of what it is, does anyone know if it is suitable as a grain filler for French polishing? If so, does it show up as white on dark timbers?

[ubeaut]

Golden Rule- always compose lengthy threads in Word first.

Better still compose it in note pad as Word often puts weird code into the post which doesn't always work well with these forums.

I started a new thread with this question, but lost the lot when I submitted it.

If you lose a post/thread. Start it again in a new text box and you should see a note at the bottom of the box saying Restore Auto-Saved Content. if you click on that you should retrieve all you had originally done up until the last Auto Save.

When you're typing into the text box, the forums will Auto Save your post/thread every minute or two. You may notice a little yellow note pop up in the bottom rh side of text box every now and again saying Auto Saved. If you see it then that will be the last point you can restore to if everything goes left handed in the next minute or so....

So unless your fingers are lightening fast on the keyboard the worst you might lose could be a sentence or only a few words.

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers - Neil

PS being the eternal pessimist, if I'm working on something big or have to leave (often happens) before I finish a post I will Select all (Ctrl A) Copy (Ctrl C) and paste it to Notepad for safe keeping.

If I've been working on same for a very long time I do the same without saving. Just in case I've been Auto Logged Out. Hasn't happened for a long time now but I'm still wary of things like that.

[woodPixel]

Drafting in email is my trick (Thunderbird).

It fixes my terrible spelling too

[ubeaut]

OOPS!
Sorry I got carried away and completely forgot the bit about the pumice.

I went to Carbatec today to buy pumice. They sold me U-Beaut Tripoli powder which they assured me was the same thing. After a bit of research I found it isn't pumice. It isn't rottenstone either. According to the U-Beaut website it is used AFTER French polishing to remove blemishes and impart a sheen.

So regardless of what it is, does anyone know if it is suitable as a grain filler for French polishing? If so, does it show up as white on dark timbers?

Tripoli Powder is definitely not Pumice Powder. It has been called rotten stone in Aus for a long time but it's not rotten stone/rottenstone either. It is Tripoli Stone. Mined in the US or the stuff we get is.

Tripoli Powder is: A porous, friable, microcrystalline siliceous rock of sedimentary origin that is composed chiefly of chalcedony and microcrystalline quartz.

What we sell is called Air Float Cream (AFC) which is the finest grade and named so because if you throw some into the air it will hang there for quite some time.

Yes it can be used to fill the grain and as it basically goes in almost colourless it blends in well with most woods. However because it is so fine it may clog the pores of your rag.

Pumice doesn't really fill the grain with pumice although a portion iof it ends up in the pores. It fills the pores with the dust of the wood as the pumice is basically grinding the surface of the work like sandpaper and pressing the shellac sodden dust into the pores of the wood. So it's more a case of filling the wood with itself.

You can also use a very small amount of our Talc in some white shellac to fill the pores of very open grain wood. Maybe a teaspoon of talc to 250ml shellac. Brush on leave to dry well and sand with fine abrasive (no courser than 600 or 800 grit). The talc makes the sanding easy as it helps to not clog the abrasive. Works best with dewaxed shellac and can also be used with our sanding sealer. Don't do too many coats of it loses it's transparency and starts to become a bit translucent instead.

[jack620]

Yes it can be used to fill the grain and as it basically goes in almost colourless it blends in well with most woods. However because it is so fine it may clog the pores of your rag.

Fantastic. Thanks for the info Neil.