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Thread: refinishing a dining room set

  1. #16
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    The Little Tennessee River near Knoxville.
    Posts
    1,227
    Sam, the reason that I said that shellac should not be used on any piece of furniture is because it is not durable. On valuable antiques that are of museum quality I have used shellac and at one time I was quite good at French Polishing. I have only used shellac on display pieces that would not undergo any use at all. When I had my shop in Little Rock, Ar. I had 2 MD's that invested in fine pieces. Myself and an artist that worked for me restored these pieces. These were auction pieces slated for Southerby's and Christi's and the restoration and repair played a large part in the value and selling price. I am not new to Antiques.
    Shellac has been around for thousands of years but I feel it has outlived its purpose as a finish. That is why industry has abandoned it almost 100 years ago. In this original post, we are not talking about a museum quality piece that was orininally coated with shellac. In my opinion, to put on a lesser quality finish that wont last very long is what I find rediculous.

    As for the dont read books thing, it was not a statement that was meant to be taken so literal. My point was that maybe as an alternative to books, one might read technical stuff such as Product Data Sheets.
    BTW, I am a N.A.C.E. certified Protective Coatings Inspector so I know a little about coatings. Although my expertise as a Coatings Inspector is mainly for steel structures, it encompases a little bit of everything.
    I also have a woodworking business and I do lots of refinishing so that is not new to me.

    I am not trying to start an arguement and I realize that we are trying to help eachother on here. Just because opinions vary, that does not mean we have to be hostile.

    As for a finish, I still stand behind my original statement that shellac is the least durable of any finish. That is my opinion.
    Retired, living and cruising full-time on my boat.
    Currently on the Little Tennessee River near Knoxville

  2. #17
    Tony,

    No offense taken and thanks for clarifying. I visited your web site and it looks like you have quite a business. Thanks for the information.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Location
    The Little Tennessee River near Knoxville.
    Posts
    1,227
    Sam

    The bad thing about text is that what is in our mindset at the time doesn't always get properly translated on paper. Sorry for any misunderstandings.
    Retired, living and cruising full-time on my boat.
    Currently on the Little Tennessee River near Knoxville

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Allen, TX
    Posts
    2,017
    Quote Originally Posted by Tony Bilello View Post
    Just as a side note, my location and shop are posted on my profile and website so anything I say can be verified. It's real easy to be an expert and hide in the shadows of anonymity. Why dont you publicly post the location of your 102 year old floor with the original shellac finish?
    sure, i'll bite.

    the house is in little rock. there are no youngsters in this neighborhood, everything was built between 1895 and 1925. a restriction against residential demolition in this zip code has pretty much kept it unchanged since then, other than commercial buildings and new coats of paint every few years.

    how do i know it's shellac? you can see it in the floor vents. there's very little penetration into the wood, just the film. and i smoothed out a few scratches in the dining room from chairs that the previous owners used without a rug by buffing them with alcohol. it looks like amber, that has aged over time to be a bit darker, the amber tint was much more pronounced on the longleaf pine floors upstairs, these are red oak downstairs in the living room.

    and i've posted pictures of doors and windows i've built on this forum on multiple occasions, also finished with shellac. feel free to search for them and take a look.

    to say that XYZ is bad because Joe the paint salesman said so, is rather silly, especially when XYZ has been used for thousands of years for the very purpose in question.

    is it durable? not really, i won't argue with you there. but then again, no transparent wood finish is durable. my antique furniture doesn't really hold up any better or worse than my new furniture with modern hardened lacquers. so then it becomes a question of what properties you want in your finish. in my case i want historical authenticity, that's why i use shellac. but there are different opinions of durable, so i think that's where the difference of opinion comes from about the viability of traditional finishes. when this house was built in 1908, there were no vacuum cleaners, and people didn't feel a need to move furniture around to vacuum underneath things every week, they did that with a feather duster. they also made a habit of regularly waxing things to preserve them. they didn't buy things, destroy them, and then go buy new ones in those days. these days, people probably complain if their floor finish can't stand up to their german shepherd's claws running around the living room, back then, a large dog in the house would've been the very definition of tasteless. as for the dining room table, my grandmother had one that was 150 years old, and on the points above, when i was a kid you couldn't even sit down at my grandmother's table and have a peanut butter sandwich unless the table cloth was on it. there was one cheap'ish cotton table cloth for every day use, and a linen one for guests, and the only time that table was without one of the two was when it wasn't being used. these days people don't do that, i've been to people's houses and seen their kids banging silverware and toys all over their dining room tables, and they don't even own a table cloth. i'm sure there are plenty of other examples my grandmother could give us about the different habits of generations as they pertain to maintaining their wooden homes and furnishings. as for me personally, i don't let pets in the house and i don't have kids running around with baseball bats and football cleats, so i don't have any trouble maintaining my traditional finishes .

    now, i don't honestly care what other people use. i don't sit at their table on their chairs. lots of people on this forum use lacquers, lots of people use varnishes, and lots of people use shellac and wax. the only exception to that is i will chime in and tell people that in my opinion, polyurethane is not appropriate for furniture, especially antique furniture, but in lieu of that, to each his own. either way, i don't feel a need to convert the world to my choice of finish. i'm not trying to get people to come to church on sunday, i'm just telling them what i think of the finish i put on my doors, floors, and windows. on the same token, i don't really feel a need to convince the world that lacquers are the devil's elixer either, for the same reason.

    edit: you had a shop in little rock? you should be familiar with the area then . the house is in hillcrest, a block away from the corner of markham and kavanaugh. you're probably familiar with fairfax and midland streets in that area? that's where it is. i bought it a few years ago and have been tearing out drywall and carpet and restoring plaster, floors, doors, and windows since.
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    Last edited by Neal Clayton; 09-13-2009 at 12:12 AM.

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