Oooops....Shellac/French Polishing question.

[Phil Winn]

I think I made a big Oooops....I just finished a small walnut table
and was planning of French Polishing it.....I needed to add some color to the base, so I used some Transtint liquid Dye mixed with alcohol. It is all the same wood, dyed the same color. Will this cause a problem when I either:
1. start filling the pores with my 8lbs cut shellac with FFFF Pumice? Will the alcohol in the Shellac/Pumice mixture cause the Dye to bleed?
2. start French Polishing with my 2lbs cut shellac? Will this cause the dye to bleed?
I appreciate your help-
Phil with a Dunce-cap on...

[lou sansone]

Phil
I have heard of filling with pumice and BLO, but not with 8lb cut. A lot of folks like to put a wash coat of shellac on prior to filling.

I am not sure I really understand what you are concerned about bleeding this into that?



lou with a confused look on

[Chris Barton]

I think I made a big Oooops....I just finished a small walnut table
and was planning of French Polishing it.....I needed to add some color to the base, so I used some Transtint liquid Dye mixed with alcohol. It is all the same wood, dyed the same color. Will this cause a problem when I either:
1. start filling the pores with my 8lbs cut shellac with FFFF Pumice? Will the alcohol in the Shellac/Pumice mixture cause the Dye to bleed?
2. start French Polishing with my 2lbs cut shellac? Will this cause the dye to bleed?
I appreciate your help-
Phil with a Dunce-cap on...

Yes, I did essentially the same thing once and it will smear the color around (sometimes we learn the hard way). You could try to pu a layer of poly down to isolate the current finish from you rub out or switch over to poly for the remainder of the job. Another potential solution would be to switch to a lacquer finish for the remainder.

[Phil Winn]

I purchased Jeff Jewitts "French Polishing" video, and he describes an
8lbs cut of shellac with FFFF Pumice, rubbed/pushed into the wood, and then removed while still wet by rubbing a clean cloth against the grain...
The same video states that one should never use alcohol based dyes when using shellac...obviously alcohol/dye ......and shellac which is disolved in alcohol....could the alcohol in the shellac "re-disolve" the alcohol/dye combo? I guess I am worried that Jeff Jewitt stated
"do not use alcohol /dye when using shellac"...after I dyed my project with the same, worried me. You may ask, why did I.....well I got the video after I dyed the project with the dye/alcohol combo....
Thanks,
Phil

[Phil Winn]

I "made" my second post before I read your post...if I use Poly, can I then resume with the French Polishing? Could I use SealCoat as a topcoat before resuming the French Polishing?
Thanks,
Phil

[Chris Barton]

Hi Phil,

I think you could but, I don't have first hand experience. I love to use shellac as my finish and I also love Transtine dyes for staining but, it is always a challenge because no matter how long you allow the Transtint to dry, it will "reactivate" the dye to some degree. So, my suggestion was based on theory. In theory there should be no problem doing the FP on top of a poly. But, as yet I haven't tried it. Mabe you could try a test piece on some scrap?

[Rob Blaustein]

Target makes a water-based shellac, maybe that would work here. People have written that Jeff Weiss at Target is very helpful with questions about their products. You might also email Jeff Jewitt directly (he sometimes even answers posts in the Finishing forum). Good luck, I'm curious to see what how it turns out.

[Steve Schoene]

Target makes a water-based shellac, maybe that would work here.

According to a recent Jeff Jewitt post, this WB shellac is made by dissolving the shellac in an alkali solution. While I don't understand the chemistry I don't see why this would make the shellac film insoluable to alcohol, and that is what would be needed to use it as a barrier to keep the alcohol dye from redissolving. Basically, it needs to be sealed off from subsequent shellac. No reason to use poly here, it just complicates the process by being more difficult to adhere and adhere too. A traditional resin finish would work just fine. Keep any sealing coats thin--while shellac will basically adhere to anything, you still don't want to have a substantial softer coating (varnish) under a harder coating (shellac).

[Rob Blaustein]

According to a recent Jeff Jewitt post, this WB shellac is made by dissolving the shellac in an alkali solution. While I don't understand the chemistry I don't see why this would make the shellac film insoluable to alcohol

Probably right. If it is the same shellac with the same solubility properties, it will dissolve in alcohol.