Zinsser’s new Bulls Eye finish eliminates much of the drudgery connected with the time-honored French-polish finish.

To apply a traditional French polish, you need to keep the viscosity of the shellac in your pad just right, adding shellac, alcohol, or oil as needed. You must move at the right speed and use enough—but not too much—linseed or mineral oil as a lubricant. Because the oil will bleed out of the finish, leaving it blotchy, the final step is to clarify the completed finish with naphtha or alcohol. This generally has to be done several times over a period of days.

To make this premixed formula, Zinsser uses dewaxed super-blond shellac flakes and adds isoparaffin, a highly volatile oil, as the lubricant. The paraffin oil evaporates within an hour or two, negating the need for the clarifying step crucial to a traditional French polish.

Following the directions on the can, I prepared a wiping pad. For the core, I used felted sheep’s wool because it holds its loft indefinitely, and then I covered that with a piece of cotton cloth. I dipped the pad in alcohol and squeezed out the excess before loading it up with the finish. I then added a good amount of Bulls Eye French Polish and started polishing. The results were just as advertised: The finish built fast, and sticking never was a problem.

—Ernie Conover teaches woodworking at his school in Parkman, Ohio.

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