Disaster applying shellac to lacewood...

JoeS · 2024-12-26T17:30:24+0000

So my last xmas gift needed a finish and I decided (wisely) to finish it with some shellac I mixed up after getting advice from the forum a couple of weeks ago. It went on a test piece reasonably well, but seems to have failed on the box I wanted to finish with it.

I left the first coat about 10 hours before applying a second, third and fourth coat in fairly quick succession. Box was sanded at 240 grit before finish was applied. I hadn't really noticed the problem until I applied some briwax to the box with some very fine wire wool. But there are issues all over the work piece to be honest.. the shine of the briwax just highlighted it...

You can see the finish has an almost flakyenss to it - it is most noticeable in the top picture. Not sure if this is because of the way th grain on the lacewood is?

Any thoughts? Will have to strip back with meths I think!

Inspector · 2024-12-26T18:24:20+0000

That looks more like grain tear out, than a failure of the finish.

Pete

thetyreman · 2024-12-26T23:03:01+0000

+1 it's tearout, you need a very sharp hand plane to fix it that's the only way, for difficult grain like this I use my 55 degree handplane, set up with a very close cap iron to the edge it also has a very small mouth, all of these things make it ideal for this, you could also try a card scraper but it must be very sharp.

--Tom-- · 2024-12-26T23:19:50+0000

Finishing wood is amazing at highlighting all the irregularities and bits you hoped you might be able to get away with.
That’s some very nice lacewood, will look amazing when you’ve smoothed the surface- as above freshly sharpened plane at a steep angle, or a cabinet scraper will help you get that smooth. Lightly wetting the surface with isopropanol can also help to ease tear out on difficult woods.

XTiffy · 2024-12-27T08:17:28+0000

As shellac based finishes do not noticeably raise the grain, I am surprised the tearout wasn't instantly obvious when applying the first coat. I have only used a brush (mop) on mouldings etc. but always used a traditional french polishing rubber with shellac. Unfortunately it is back to square one!