How I finish scales with shellac.
For those of you not familiar to shellac, have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac
I've done my fair share of furniture restores using shellac.
But I have never up until recently used it on scales.
I pretty much assumed that it wouldn't hold up.
But a recent thread were a fellow member talked about gunstock & shellac got me thinking.
With the little exposure to water that the scales get during a shave, they should be fine, no worries at all actually.
And if something happens, a quick touch-up would be very easy.
But once waxed I'm now pretty sure that there won't be any problems at all.
Basically what can happen with shellac finishes it that they turn white or get white marks from to much moisture.
Think white rings after glasses & bottles on old tables.
I've done some tests & even handed my kids a few pieces of olive-wood finished with shellac to play with & even unwaxed they stood up well.
Iv'e kept some bocote finished with shellac & wax in the bathroom, lying open in the bathroom window for a few weeks. No problems at all.
Infact I believe that if there is so much mositure around the scales that the shellac would be ruined,
you would before that have had problems with rust on the blade.
I really love the look of wooden scales & I love to work with wood.
I also love to keep the natural look of the wood.
The so popular CA-finish aint for me.
It just makes everything so artificial.
Like a beautifully colored acrylic.
And it feels like plastic in your hand.
But lets take that discussion elsewhere.
YMMV
IMHO shellac enhances the look of the wood, protects it & adds a kind of natural warmth to the wood, both for the eye & your hand.
Let's roll;
Here's my way of putting shellac on scales.
There is a gazzilion of opptions.
Back in the days shellac polisher or French polisher was a full time occupation that required a long apprentice-ship to learn.
My way is resonably easy to get great results with IMO.
The patient we are demonstrating on is a pair of bocote scales. http://www.exoticwoodgroup.com/about_bocote.htm
Sanded to 1200 grit, 3 coats of 50/50 tung-oil/naptha dried for 48 hours & then hand buffed with cheese-cloth.
I didn't fill the pores because bocote has a very tight grain in itself.
If you like, you can do it.
How is up to you, commercial grainfiller, wetsanding with "slurry", shellac with pumice & so on.
If you have a more open grained wood, filling is necessary.
But almost all hardwood has pretty close grain.
You can also burnish it, i.e rub it against another piece of wood or with a glass object.
Experimenting is fun!
First we need shellac:
You can find it at hobby stores, old school paint stores or furniture suppliers & also of course on eBay.
100 grams will only set you back a couple of $ and will last for lots of scales.
There is a variety in color, the most common is blond(white) lemon & orange.
I went for lemon here.
They don't add much color at all. More a tint or warmth. Deepening of already existing colors.
The perhaps most classic combination is mahogany & orange.
You can also choose from de-waxed or natural.
For these kinds of jobs I like the natural.
If you do a piano or old Victrola, go for de-waxed.
Again, experiment!
You will also need some alcohol.
It has to have a high alcohol content, at least 70% of volume (what ever that is in "proof")
The purer the better. The best you can use is the pure stuff that dentists use.
Old timers that restore & make furniture around here usually brew their own just to get it as pure as possible.
But since home-brewing hard liquor is forbidden by law in most civilized countris, we settle
for the denatured kind. Your best bet is to buy it in a paint store, that way you know it will be denatured in a way that still make it useful
in painting. If you are Swede, Nitor makes the best stuff.
OK, you have shellac, alcohol & a place to work.
Another good thing about shellac polishing is that it is completely harmless.
Shellac is infact used as a finish on many glossy candys like M&Ms.
And as long as you aren't inhaling denatured alcohol fumes for hours on ends there is nothing to worry about.
Take about 2 tablespoons of shellac flakes and put in a glass jar.
Pour alcohol over until the shellac is covered.
Put on a airtight lid & shake well.
Let it sit for a day or so, shake a few times every now & then & wait until everything is dissolved.
Here is what it looks like then:
Take out another glass jar & put an old t-shirt over the opening.
Make sure it's a cotton shirt, no synthetics, the alcohol might dissolve it...
Now pour the shellac into the other jar.
This will filter out any impurities left after the crushed bugs.
Now the shellac is ready for use.
Next we need something to apply it with.
A brush can be used, but I find it absolutely best to use a sudd (sorry, it's called sudd in Swedish, no idea of the proper English word,
so I'll go ahead with "sudd")
A sudd is what was used & still is used in all professional shellac polising.
With bigger objects the most common size is a sudd that fills your palm.
An old wool sock covered with t-shirt cloth is perfect.
But, this is a scales-sudd:
Sift thru SWMBO's toiletries, you will find some kind of cotton pad or ball.
Take one & then cut a squarish piece of clean cotton cloth.
The old t-shirt comes in handy again.
Fold the cotton like thus:
And place it on your cotton cloth:
Fold the cotton cloth so it resembles something like this:
And we are ready to rock!
Pour a little shellac into a smaller tray, I used the lid for the jar.
Dip your sudd in the shellac, let it soak in good.
First time you dip it will be really thirsty, but after the first time, it will only take up a small amount.
Now take the sudd & dab it a few times against something absorbing.
An old newspaper is great or any piece of none-glossy paper actually.
Now you are ready to use an over 200 year old method of finishing wood!
There are any number of ways on how to move the sudd.
But lets not go into that.
For scales I do two rather quick strokes wait a few seconds & then comes back & do a third.
Finished.
Exception is the first pass, then I sort of rub the shellac in & smooth it out with a few strokes.
The single most important thing with working with shellac is to never, ever let the sudd stop.
It will immediately create a big ugly hole in the finish.
Let the sudd hit the scales running & also leave like that.
Never go back "and try to fix things" If you mess up a little, let it dry & sand the faults down using 0000 steel wool.
If you mess up big time, take a cloth, soak it in alcohol wrap it around the scales for 30 seconds & then wipe all shellac off.
And start over. Shellac holds up really good against almost any other solvent, but alcohol dissolves it very fast.
I do three coats rather fast, maybe over ten minutes.
Let it dry, might take 15 or 30 minutes then I sand very lightly with 0000 steel wool.
Very lighty remember.
Dust the scales off, tack-cloth is ideal, but any piece of felt or cotton will do.
Apply a new coat. let it dry. sand. Apply a new coat. And so on. You get the idea
I usually go for ~10-12 coats.
If you want to crank up the glossy-factor, when your last coat is near dry, take a piece of felt, saturate it with turpentine & raw linseed oil & polish like mad.
If you do it right, you will have a piano finish. I don't do that on scales though. Up to you again.
If it gets to glossy, take some 0000 steel wool & sort it out.
Here is a quick video showing the procedure:
(excuses for the music, but I was home alone & took the opportunity to really crank it up , bonus point for guessing artist/song)
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp_mssoaD18[/YOUTUBE]
After first application:
Wet shellac. Notice how I've covered up the sudd & shellac with plastic.
Shellac dries so fast that you can't leave it out.
Always keep the lid on the jar & the sudd either wrapped in plastic or in another jar.
Shellac has a long shelf-life as long as it is stored out of the sun & in a air-tight glass container:
After 5 coats, exactly the same position & light as the first picture without shellac was taken:
Finished!
11 coats. Unfortunately I ran out of daylight... But you get the idea.
A few small dust speckles that I will remove with (can you guess........................ 0000 steel) wool before waxing.
Some very light steelwooling on the finsihed shellac also makes the wax blend in better with the shellac.
And as long as you are careful, it won't affect the look:
Still they need to dry overnight & then buffed & waxed.
I like a good home-made wax like 1/3 of each of naptha/carnuba/beeswax.
But that is your choice.
And then I'll pin them to a blade.
When it all gets done I try to get a decent photo and post here.
Any comments or thoughts highly appriciated!
For those of you not familiar to shellac, have a look here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac
I've done my fair share of furniture restores using shellac.
But I have never up until recently used it on scales.
I pretty much assumed that it wouldn't hold up.
But a recent thread were a fellow member talked about gunstock & shellac got me thinking.
With the little exposure to water that the scales get during a shave, they should be fine, no worries at all actually.
And if something happens, a quick touch-up would be very easy.
But once waxed I'm now pretty sure that there won't be any problems at all.
Basically what can happen with shellac finishes it that they turn white or get white marks from to much moisture.
Think white rings after glasses & bottles on old tables.
I've done some tests & even handed my kids a few pieces of olive-wood finished with shellac to play with & even unwaxed they stood up well.
Iv'e kept some bocote finished with shellac & wax in the bathroom, lying open in the bathroom window for a few weeks. No problems at all.
Infact I believe that if there is so much mositure around the scales that the shellac would be ruined,
you would before that have had problems with rust on the blade.
I really love the look of wooden scales & I love to work with wood.
I also love to keep the natural look of the wood.
The so popular CA-finish aint for me.
It just makes everything so artificial.
Like a beautifully colored acrylic.
And it feels like plastic in your hand.
But lets take that discussion elsewhere.
YMMV
IMHO shellac enhances the look of the wood, protects it & adds a kind of natural warmth to the wood, both for the eye & your hand.
Let's roll;
Here's my way of putting shellac on scales.
There is a gazzilion of opptions.
Back in the days shellac polisher or French polisher was a full time occupation that required a long apprentice-ship to learn.
My way is resonably easy to get great results with IMO.
The patient we are demonstrating on is a pair of bocote scales. http://www.exoticwoodgroup.com/about_bocote.htm
Sanded to 1200 grit, 3 coats of 50/50 tung-oil/naptha dried for 48 hours & then hand buffed with cheese-cloth.
I didn't fill the pores because bocote has a very tight grain in itself.
If you like, you can do it.
How is up to you, commercial grainfiller, wetsanding with "slurry", shellac with pumice & so on.
If you have a more open grained wood, filling is necessary.
But almost all hardwood has pretty close grain.
You can also burnish it, i.e rub it against another piece of wood or with a glass object.
Experimenting is fun!
First we need shellac:
You can find it at hobby stores, old school paint stores or furniture suppliers & also of course on eBay.
100 grams will only set you back a couple of $ and will last for lots of scales.
There is a variety in color, the most common is blond(white) lemon & orange.
I went for lemon here.
They don't add much color at all. More a tint or warmth. Deepening of already existing colors.
The perhaps most classic combination is mahogany & orange.
You can also choose from de-waxed or natural.
For these kinds of jobs I like the natural.
If you do a piano or old Victrola, go for de-waxed.
Again, experiment!
You will also need some alcohol.
It has to have a high alcohol content, at least 70% of volume (what ever that is in "proof")
The purer the better. The best you can use is the pure stuff that dentists use.
Old timers that restore & make furniture around here usually brew their own just to get it as pure as possible.
But since home-brewing hard liquor is forbidden by law in most civilized countris, we settle
for the denatured kind. Your best bet is to buy it in a paint store, that way you know it will be denatured in a way that still make it useful
in painting. If you are Swede, Nitor makes the best stuff.
OK, you have shellac, alcohol & a place to work.
Another good thing about shellac polishing is that it is completely harmless.
Shellac is infact used as a finish on many glossy candys like M&Ms.
And as long as you aren't inhaling denatured alcohol fumes for hours on ends there is nothing to worry about.
Take about 2 tablespoons of shellac flakes and put in a glass jar.
Pour alcohol over until the shellac is covered.
Put on a airtight lid & shake well.
Let it sit for a day or so, shake a few times every now & then & wait until everything is dissolved.
Here is what it looks like then:
Take out another glass jar & put an old t-shirt over the opening.
Make sure it's a cotton shirt, no synthetics, the alcohol might dissolve it...
Now pour the shellac into the other jar.
This will filter out any impurities left after the crushed bugs.
Now the shellac is ready for use.
Next we need something to apply it with.
A brush can be used, but I find it absolutely best to use a sudd (sorry, it's called sudd in Swedish, no idea of the proper English word,
so I'll go ahead with "sudd")
A sudd is what was used & still is used in all professional shellac polising.
With bigger objects the most common size is a sudd that fills your palm.
An old wool sock covered with t-shirt cloth is perfect.
But, this is a scales-sudd:
Sift thru SWMBO's toiletries, you will find some kind of cotton pad or ball.
Take one & then cut a squarish piece of clean cotton cloth.
The old t-shirt comes in handy again.
Fold the cotton like thus:
And place it on your cotton cloth:
Fold the cotton cloth so it resembles something like this:
And we are ready to rock!
Pour a little shellac into a smaller tray, I used the lid for the jar.
Dip your sudd in the shellac, let it soak in good.
First time you dip it will be really thirsty, but after the first time, it will only take up a small amount.
Now take the sudd & dab it a few times against something absorbing.
An old newspaper is great or any piece of none-glossy paper actually.
Now you are ready to use an over 200 year old method of finishing wood!
There are any number of ways on how to move the sudd.
But lets not go into that.
For scales I do two rather quick strokes wait a few seconds & then comes back & do a third.
Finished.
Exception is the first pass, then I sort of rub the shellac in & smooth it out with a few strokes.
The single most important thing with working with shellac is to never, ever let the sudd stop.
It will immediately create a big ugly hole in the finish.
Let the sudd hit the scales running & also leave like that.
Never go back "and try to fix things" If you mess up a little, let it dry & sand the faults down using 0000 steel wool.
If you mess up big time, take a cloth, soak it in alcohol wrap it around the scales for 30 seconds & then wipe all shellac off.
And start over. Shellac holds up really good against almost any other solvent, but alcohol dissolves it very fast.
I do three coats rather fast, maybe over ten minutes.
Let it dry, might take 15 or 30 minutes then I sand very lightly with 0000 steel wool.
Very lighty remember.
Dust the scales off, tack-cloth is ideal, but any piece of felt or cotton will do.
Apply a new coat. let it dry. sand. Apply a new coat. And so on. You get the idea
I usually go for ~10-12 coats.
If you want to crank up the glossy-factor, when your last coat is near dry, take a piece of felt, saturate it with turpentine & raw linseed oil & polish like mad.
If you do it right, you will have a piano finish. I don't do that on scales though. Up to you again.
If it gets to glossy, take some 0000 steel wool & sort it out.
Here is a quick video showing the procedure:
(excuses for the music, but I was home alone & took the opportunity to really crank it up , bonus point for guessing artist/song)
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp_mssoaD18[/YOUTUBE]
After first application:
Wet shellac. Notice how I've covered up the sudd & shellac with plastic.
Shellac dries so fast that you can't leave it out.
Always keep the lid on the jar & the sudd either wrapped in plastic or in another jar.
Shellac has a long shelf-life as long as it is stored out of the sun & in a air-tight glass container:
After 5 coats, exactly the same position & light as the first picture without shellac was taken:
Finished!
11 coats. Unfortunately I ran out of daylight... But you get the idea.
A few small dust speckles that I will remove with (can you guess........................ 0000 steel) wool before waxing.
Some very light steelwooling on the finsihed shellac also makes the wax blend in better with the shellac.
And as long as you are careful, it won't affect the look:
Still they need to dry overnight & then buffed & waxed.
I like a good home-made wax like 1/3 of each of naptha/carnuba/beeswax.
But that is your choice.
And then I'll pin them to a blade.
When it all gets done I try to get a decent photo and post here.
Any comments or thoughts highly appriciated!
Last edited:
