French polishing blunders

[Ron Booth]

Afternoon all,
I write to mention how I seem to get too much shellac buildup which then seems to be too easy to reduce suffuciently to get a shine.
My pad gets too full of shellac/metho/veg oil mix and then just smudges the finish.
Any help welcome
RB

[hurcorh]

Smudges the previous coat of finish you mean? Or leaves too much oil?

I've done without the oil until the last few coats and just put the tiniest amount on for those coats.

I'm wondering if your mix is also cut down enough?

Cheers.

[Luke Maddux]

Take a mister bottle of pure metho and wet the exterior of the rubber. Dab it onto a clean cloth so that it's damp, but not sopping. Rub it in a figure-8 or circular motion until it's dry-ish, but before it begins to "pull" the shellac. Repeat this until the surface is free of oil and begins to exhibit the desired shine.

After that, if you still need to build, I would try using less oil. How much are you using? I use a dropper bottle to put just a small drop onto the rubber which I then rub in with a cleanish finger. I use less and less until the end when I use none. It's at this stage that I use what I call "landing strokes" to burnish to a proper, polished finish. These strokes basically involve coming in in the grain direction and, without ever stopping the rubber, swiping back and forth, with the rubber both beginning and ending each swipe off of the surface. Repeated side to side strokes which are a lot like a plane coming in for a landing at one edge and then immediately taking back off when it reaches the other edge.

Hope that helps,
Luke

[Xanthorrhoeas]

I agree with the above responses. It does sound like you are using the rubber too wet and the polish not diluted enough. I do not use oil at all with polishing and have polished large tables successfully. You certainly should not be using oil when building the layers and the layers should be so thin that they are dry looking by the end of your stroke. IF you need oil it is only a couple of drops, later in the process.

[Ron Booth]

Thank you Luke and others.
As you can see I am a beginner, but wanting to become proficient.
I have tried your suggestions and found that I needed to be braver with the metho to remove the oil.
I guess this is about the 50th coat I have applied and removed, which doesn`t matter because in the process I have taught myself the correct way to resharpen a cabinet scraper, use it, and start the polishing from scratch.
It`s all fun and I`m sure little brother will be pleased with the end result as it is intended for his 63 rd Birthday.
When the little box is finally finished I will try to post a foto.
Cheers and many thanks for your generous assistance.
Ron in Hobart , Tassie