I experimented with a procedure outlined in Ed. Heron-Allen's book on violin construction. This was a method which "fooled" gamboge, a spirit soluble gum/stain, to dissolve in oil. I tried it with shellac and a 1/3 damar 2/3 copal varnish with good results. I lent the book out, but essentially it involves boiling the spirit until it is fairly well evaporated then adding to it the varnish which is either boiling or at the same temperature as the spirits. Usually it takes me 3 days to boil copal into solution in turpentine or old, semi-polymerized wood turpentine, so the whole procedure smacks of alchemy. But even just the copal/damar varnish looks like magic (taper the damar cut until the last few coats are just the harder copal). A technique for filling with an oil-based varnish I have used is to make a paste with rotten-stone (for dark woods) or 4f pumice with slightly gummy varnish, which then is applied across the grain like commercial fillers. Blackboard erasers and old hammer rest rail cloth tacked to blocks make good disposable rubbers. When the paste gets too tacky, a little extra varnish on a cloth or on the rubber will soften it. Again, I've had problems with glue-size in conjunction with oil-based varnishes and fillers, and varnishes will "flake" off a shellac base. However, the mixed shellac/varnish, along with (ye) Old-English polish makes a nice refurbishing medium for improving some old finishes with steel wool or brillo pads (though often shellac by itself does the trick). What I'd love to know is what "wax polishing" involves; apparently this was a finishing techique used until French polishing was invented, and discarded because French polishing was ... less labor intensive. Clark
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