Button polish

[chaoticbob]

I tried finishing a piece with Rustins Button Polish t'other day - it gave a lovely shine to it, but 48 hours later it is still a bit tacky to the touch. After a bit of research I belatedly understood that shellac polishes have a limited shelf life. There is no 'best before' date on the bottle, and I can't remember when I bought it - maybe a year or more ago. My question is: if I I leave it long enough will it 'set', or do I need to strip it off and start again?
Robin.

 

[marcros]

strip and start again.

 

[ED65]

Best to remove it but it's not something you must do.

What's the piece? You can sometimes get away with using aged shellac by leaving it a good long while, a fortnight or longer, and then applying something over the top to reduce tackiness (usually wax).

The shallac layer will never go as hard as it should and will remain sensitive to fingerprinting so best not left if it's on something that is handled a lot. If it's not though, if it's on something that sits there and looks pretty, then you can get away with it.

 

[chaoticbob]

Thanks for replies both. It's a sort of plinth thing which will be screwed to a wall, so it won't be handled once mounted and maybe I could get away with overcoating. However, the project is partly about teaching myself new techniques - I'd really like to be able to achieve a glassy French polish finish, so if the stuff is never going to harden properly it's back to bare wood and start again

I have a bag of shellac flakes on the shelf, probably been there over a year - if I brew my own polish with these will it be OK, or will they have 'gone off' as well?
Rob.

 

[profchris]

The flakes should be good for years yet.

 

[chaoticbob]

Thanks profchris, new batch in progress.
R.

 

[ED65]

Since you're after the classic look of French polish is the plinth made from a close-grained wood or did you fill the grain?

 

[chaoticbob]

It seems to be pretty close-grained - it certainly sanded to a satin-smooth finish without any obvious pores and I didn't grain-fill. I don't actually know what it is - a dark hard chunk from a box unhelpfully labelled 2010. It may be Indian Rosewood. But seasoned at least!
Thanks for your reply though ED65 - it prompted me to Google close grained woods. Are there particular species which are specially amenable to the high finish of classic French polished work? Much to learn here!
Rob

 

[ED65]

Some of the woods traditionally associated with a full-on French polish job weren't close-grained species and required some grain filling, mahogany is the classic example probably, so I wouldn't say you should lean towards those by any means.

Filling can be a tedious and needlessly complex job, or it can be simplified greatly if you go fully traditional (as befits French polishing ) and use plaster of Paris.

 

[custard]

Indian Rosewood isn't a close grained timber, it's open grained and very hard, much harder than Mahogany for example. Different polishers take a different view, some argue the finest and most enduring results come from completing all grain filling with rottenstone/pumice, so you effectively fill the grain with an amalgam of ultra fine sawdust (ground out by the abrasive action), shellac, and rottenstone. I've done it that way and it's viable with softer Mahogany but becomes a real slog with harder timbers like Rosewood. It's also pretty difficult if you've got pale inlay lines or marquetry to avoid contaminating the lighter woods with sawdust from the darker woods.