Actually, it should be: “Quickly applying Shellac, Applied more alcohol to pad, it quickly pulled a strip of finish off, my daughter learned some new words…”
Here is my problem, and it has happened twice. I swirl on the shellac (Shellac loaded inside pad, alcohol applied to outside) starting around the perimeter, fill in the middle, and then start going in straight lines (like a plane landing and taking off) the shellac gets tacky, I load the pad with alcohol. Look at the table top, a few “streaks” I need to smooth out, load with alcohol, Come down for a landing and it pulls the shellac up behind it almost down to bare wood…
Sooo…. I’m about to sand the table top down again and start over.
Any advice would be appreciated, but I think the venting has really helped the most.
Replies
You violated what should be the first rule of shellac finishing. When the finish gets tacky--ie the pad shows ANY drag...STOP. Let it harden before going on. By the way, the airplane technique works better as part of a French polishing tecnique where you are using a lubricant (such as mineral oil) or when using "padding lacquer" which includes the lubricant in the formulation. With pure shellac it is asking for trouble I think.
Personally, I don't even like the pure alcohol rub down in "spiriting off" the lubricant while French polishing. Naphtha removes the oil quite well, with no risk of pulling up shellac.
I don't think you will have to remove all the shellac by sanding. Just level it out and proceed. You may need to build a thicker film than might always be necessary to give you plenty of thickness to sand out any defects in using a rubbing out process. A full French polish program might not need final rubbing out, but padding on shellac is almost always likely to need some rub out.
Steve, first off, you're a
Steve, first off, you're a saint for all the time and responses you put in here.
I took the finish off completely, have padded on two coats, the pad never leaving the top and haven't had any issues.
I thought I was following the instructions from a Jeff Jewitt article accurately, but I guess I wasn't.
Thanks for your response. Will report back when finished.
Once I pulled up a 2" x 3"
Once I pulled up a 2" x 3" section on the final pass prior to removing the oil. Brushed on a couple light coats to quickly fill that area, then blended in with the pad.
My guess is that most of the alcohol in a thin coat of shellac evaporates very quickly, but not 100%. And some of the alcohol in the immediately following padded layer migrates back into the prior one. So over several padding coats the alcohol content of the shellac gradually increases until pulling up the layer becomes a possibility. Allow to dry overnight and all of the trapped alcohol evaporates and the process continues the next day. Or so I'm guessing.
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