I've been doing a lot of work of late with only hand tools and want to continue it through to the finishing process also.

All the work has been done is in pine and I'm very competent in the typical finishing procedures of sanding sealer, then tinted lacquer, then distressing, then rubbed on/rubbed off dark stain, and then final lacquer coat route... but I no longer have access to the equipment to pull that off and for the most part don't want to.

So I need to bone up on how to to do old school finishing i.e. brushes, shellac, stains, and elbow grease...

Any suggestions and or food for thought.