New to Refinishing / Shellac Question

[Scot Stout]

hello. i'm new to this forum and have some questions regarding restoring a shellac finish.

i have a ca. 1930 mahogany bedroom suite with an alligatored shellac finish that i want to restore. a book i bought says to use denatured alcohol to dissolve the shellac. however, it doesn't go into enough detail. i brushed the alcohol onto one of the bed's siderails and the finish dissolved beautifully. however, when it dried there were areas with peaks and runs, even though the wood was flat. did i use too much or too little alcohol? should i remove some of the finish while it's still dissolved? how do i restore the old finish while keeping it smooth?

i must say that the beauty of the mahogany was immediately apparent as soon as i brushed on the alcohol. now i'm motivated to do the entire suite!

[Steve Schoene]

It's not so much whether it is too much alcohol but how you manipulated the finish once it started to dissolve. Unless you are trying to really remove the old finish, you should just reamalgamate the surface, applying the alcohol as if you were padding on a fresh coat of shellac. This means you keep the pad moving, never letting it stop on the surface gauging how damp your pad is to be enough to dissolve the top layers of shellac without being so wet that you dissolve it all and starting moving it around so much that you get thin and thick spots.

Frankly, when I have done this, I often just use lots of alcohol and remove most of the finish, and then reapply fresh shellac as if I was starting fresh. Sometimes this is less work than being fussy enough to reamalgamate without causing problems. Of course, you can start by trying to get the hang of the reamalgamation technique, and then shift to removal with very little loss of time if you choose.

[Scot Stout]

thanks, steve. since this is just the siderail that will be covered by the bedspread, i figured it was a good piece to practice on. however, i used a brush rather than a pad, since that was what the book said... should i use a pad instead?

the furniture originally had a high gloss finish, which is the result i want. i'm just looking for the best way to get rid of the alligatoring and get the high gloss, since the wood underneath is beautiful.

i noticed that the areas where i used the brush several times ran the most but it also removed the alligatoring completely, whereas, the areas where i brushed the alcohol on just once and left did not run but the alligatoring remained. should i use a brush to remove the old shellac, then apply new shellac with a pad?

remember, this is all completely new to me, but i'm enjoying every minute of it.