Woodfinishing Workshop – Day 3

The final day of my finishing workshop is all about the final appearance, including rubbing out and adjusting color the shellacked big panel, which had more than a dozen coats and looked like this at the start of the day.

Beginning with the 24×48 panel subdivided into quadrants, each received a different treatment.  One quadrant was left untouched as a reference point, then work began on the second one.  It was rubbed with Liberon 0000 steel wool, then rubbed with more Liberon 0000 infused with paste wax.  The result is wondrous, and this is one of my very favorite finishes.  It glows visually and is irresistible for just rubbing your fingers over its surface.

The third quadrant was polished with tripoli/rottenstone and mineral spirits, using a fine linen polishing pad nearly identical to that used for spirit varnish pad polishing.   Any residue was wiped off and the surface received a light coat of paste wax.  The resulting surface is absolutely spectacular.

The fourth section was rubbed with dry Liberon 0000 to give it a tiny bit of tooth for the addition of colorant glazing.  Two gazes were tried, the first being asphaltum thinned with naphtha and the second being waterborne shellac with goauche colorant.  They work very differently but both students had excellent results of a gentle color shift.  The final step was to seal the glazing with a brush coat which both saturates the color and provides an even gloss.

The final project completed was rubbing out and waxing the raised panel doors and the table legs.

We took pictures of their gallery of work, and they headed for home.  Both had very long drives, one to Louisville and the other to Syracuse.