I’m finishing an oak file cabinet and so far have applied 3 coats of shellac, the first at can strength and the next two at a 2# cut. I’ve sanded with 0000 steel wool and would like the piece to have a bit more luster. Am I going to be better off applying another 2-4 coats of shellac or should I just hit it with a coat of wax?
If the answer is wax, two further questions. Do I need to wait several weeks before applying the wax? If I power buff the wax, what speed (rpm) should the drill run?
thanks,
Mark Coleman
Replies
How are you appling it? I use a cheap HVLP touch up gun and wind up with high gloss from the first coat.. The only reason I sand with 320 between coats is because there is a lot of dust in the air in my shop and it takes a moment for shellac to dry.. (10 minutes to the touch, 45 to sanding)
My last coat I spray wash. That is I clean out the shellac in my gun by filling the cup with alcohol. If there is anything less than full gloss I spray another coat using alcohol only. (really clean gun at this point)
What I would do at this point is pad on a final coat of shellac. Padding avoids the problems with brushing, putting down a very thin topcoat. This gave me a very high-luster finish.
You can also wax over the surface you have, and buff the wax to a polish. I think 24 hours is plenty of time for a shellac finish to cure before waxing.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." A. Einstein
http://www.albionworks.net
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled