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I am pretty new to woodworking and have always used a blend of linseed oil, poly and turpentine to finish my projects. I just built a very nice chessboard with carpathian elm burl veneer sides, an inlay border, and walnut and birdseye maple squares and a dovetail joined drawer. Now I have to finish it and have no idea what to do. I bough Waterlox Tung-Oil High Gloss Finish and was going to throw 5 or 6 coats of that on. Wet sanding the walnut after the first coat to fill the pores. However, the more I learn about finishing the more I think I should try to use shellac (I have never used it) to really bring out the grain and permit me to rub out a really fine glossy finish with pumice and rotterstone. Whatever I do I don’t want to screw it up because the chessboard is a christmas present for my dad and I have about two months worth of time in the thing. Thanks in advance for any advice you might have.
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Replies
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Eli:
Any of the finishes you mentioned, including the original oil/poly/solvent mixture, will be fine. While the Tung oil will not amber the wood as much as boiled linseed oil, it will enrich and deepen the grain ... ANY oil product for wood will do that, including oil based varnishes and polyurethanes.
However, it's about what you want to achieve. It's not as easy as it sounds to rub a shellac finish out to the high-gloss, piano-finish look of French polishing ... that's a whole process in itself. You can rub out the shellac finish, but if you're looking for a high-gloss finish, in a relatively short period of time, I would recommend a spray can of glass lacquer. You can rub that out, too, and it offers the benefits of being a bit more durable than shellac.
Good luck!
PS - Varnishes are fine, too, and you can rub them out as well, but they take much longer to dry and longer to cure so that you CAN rub them out.
*EliJosh is giving you some solid (no pun intended) advice. Shellac's big advantages are 1) that it's alcohol based, which makes it compatible with either oil or water base finishes, and 2) that it comes in a number of different grades, each with it's own unique color. Orange (or amber) shellac brings out some nice warmth in some woods, especially oak. I happen to like it on walnut, but there are others who think it "cools" the color a bit. As Josh says, you can use varnish, but it takes awhile (at least a week) to fully cure. To speed this up a little, you can add a couple drops of japan drier to a pint of thinned varnish.Bottom line, experiment on some scraps...the learning is half the fun! Good Luck,Bob
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