Anxiety, frustration, and exhaustion

[Joel Ficke]

Well this is no rant, nothing to blame but my own inexperience, just looking for a "hang-in-there" from folks who can relate.

For two years I've been working on a 'masterpiece' highboy. Carefully carving, leaving tools marks, fitting every joint as well as possible, being as authentic as possible to 18th century craftsmanship and at the end of this month plan to enter it in the Northwood's exhibit up in cold country -- Minneapolis, MN. Nearly two weeks ago the finishing was 'done' and it was easy street or so I thought. This weekend should have been simple -- wax-on wax-off, but noooo. I apply the wax, wipe off and to my horror I'm left with white streaks in the shellac which do not go away with further rubbing. "OMG now what," says I. At first I thought it was just irregular surface roughness, so out with the rubbbing materials again but to no avail. This stuff was imbedded in the shellac body. I was crushed and even worse had no clue how to recover -- frustration!

So I start experimenting to gain insight (hint don't experiment on the real thing) but soon burn through the shellac and dye. Oh well, time to strip that drawer front. So now I'm really faced with a dilema. Do I strip all the drawers back and start over hoping that whatever I did doesn't happen again. Oh the anxiety -- no solution -- lots of work -- and a fast approaching deadline.

I decided to use up lifelines and here's the good part. 9pm good Friday evening a stranger calls me long distance on his dime just because of my paniced email. He takes the time to explain the problem, works me through a relatively simple solution, and feeds me with more shellac knowledge than I've ever been able to read or learn about in classes. Honestly I can't believe such kindness and knowledge exist in one person. So Saturday I try it out and by 5pm hope is again in sight. The solution is simple enough, but on a case this large doing things by hand takes lots of time and that's the exhaustion side of this, but at least there's a solution that doesn't involve stripping the piece and starting over.

So can anyone else relate? For as many pieces as I've finished and as many test boards as I completed for this piece alone I still can't believe this happened. Some days I think giving up on 18th century finishing and just going to a Maloof finish would be soooo much easier :-)

BTW - my problem is called mineral oil bloom avoid it by using non-blooming mineral oil during French polishing - doh!

[John Schreiber]

I feel your pain. But yours sounds worse than mine.

[Steve Schoene]

What was the solution that worked for you? Others may face similar problems.

[Joel Ficke]

Remove the wax with mineral spirits, bring surface to desired finish again with padding (or french polish) and then treat surface with Murphy's Oil Soap instead of wax; however, the real solution is to use non-blooming mineral oil as the pad lubricant in the first place so you don't have to deal with this at all.

What complicates all of this in my case, is that the rub-out routine can't be followed because of the wax/oil interaction, so what's taking so long now is rebuilding the surface to accept an alternate rub-out routine.

[Steve Schoene]

The mineral spirits--I like naptha for this use--will get rid of the oil. But it won't disturb the shellac. The oil is always removed when french polishing--though in traditional practise is done by "spiriting off" by padding with just alcohol. You can see the potential for screwing up. Naptha removes the oil without potential for messing up the shellac. Why do you have additional rubbing out to do, except on the damaged drawer, after removing the oil if the shellac was applied in a french polish technique?

I don't understand any reason for the Murphy's oil soap and wouldn't use it.

Wax is also an optional treatment for appearance purposes--it doesn't add any protection to speak of.

Actually, from your description of the piece--eighteen century with carvings, I don't understand French polish. American (and British I am pretty sure) makers didn't move to French polish as a finish until the 19th century, and it was only associated with Federal furniture (Sheraton and Hepplewhite, the Adam influence) with flat surfaces and lots of veneer instead of carving. Shellac would be appropriate near the end of the eighteen century, but not the high gloss super clarity of French polish.

[Calvin Hobbs]

Joel,

Sorry to hear about your finishing woes.

Last year I had a large table I had promised to deliver on a Sunday, I had used Rock Hard table top varnish for the first time, upon several recommendations. I let the table cure for 3+ weeks and rubbed out through the successions of grits.

Then I put on briwax, which I wasn't that familiar with.. I came back 15 minutes later and several places had eaten away the finish. I was aware of the toluene issues, but hadn't realized it was so easy to screw up.... Needless to say, it was Saturday and I had to call and put off the delivery.

Good luck with the rework. CH

[Eric Wong]

Yikes, I have been there, but on a smaller scale. Thank goodness someone came to your rescue! Just look at it as good cardiovascular exercise.

[Joel Ficke]

Steve,

Clearly I have much to learn about 18th century finishing in general, and hopefully this year I can focus on that a bit; however, I will at least note my experience with this problem for the group.

Naptha/mineral spirits -- makes no difference as both will remove the wax. I prefer the longer working time of mineral spirits to clean the surface. Murphy's oil soap surprised me too, but if you ever run into this problem I can assure you it works well but I can't explain why. If I just hit the shellac with naptha, it turns white again, presumably because of capillary voids where the oil was -- very ugly -- and perhaps that's exactly what happenend when wax was applied as well. Again, the theory is unknown to me. Perhaps multiple naptha/padding iterations would close all the capillaries and accomplish the same thing as Murphy's oil -- not sure about that.

As to 18th century and what they did and did not do back then -- I'm clueless, but agree that the highly specular look doesn't seem to exist on any 1700s pieces I've seen in museums; however, when I viewed this piece at Winterthur for sure the drawers fronts and sides were flat (pores filled) and had a dull scheen, so that's the look I was going after. Stopping after padding shellac is too specular and that's why the rub-out / wax after padding. Now that wax is out of the question for me, I have no way to color the pumice stuck in any grains, so I'm working to 100% pore fill with shellac prior to rub-out this time. I'm sure there are other better ways to reach this end, I just don't know what they are. Care to share your finishing approach for 18th century furniture -- I'ld really like to learn more about the options. The ideal look for me was a dull scheen where I left wax and rottenstone behind in the pores....

[Frank G]

If your building for the general public, go modern finnishing. If your building for the original I (after many readings, studying, I have come to the conclustion that our past rekatives did not see and put down in writing what was good and bad as for as finishing goes. I have been fortunate to place hands on 18th centrury pieces without gloves and all (even after museum cleanup?) there definately was not a feeling of consistancy. It just deoends on what yiu are trying to replicate, but finnishing in the same way as a certain time does not mean twenty coats of wipe on poly with sanding with 0000 steel wool between each coat.
Usuall disclaimer: I'm old and i DON'T KNOW NOTHING.