"New" old uprights Costs

[Richard Brekne]

Wow... thats a mouthfull... I have been struggling to get this down myself for
3 years now, and finnally am starting to really get the knack of it. The
basics you can read in information pretty readily available on the net...
basically.. make a wad add polish and a drop of oil and then start circle
eighting it into the wood... add a dab of rotten stone to help fill the
pores..

In a nut shell thats about all you can find out by reading up on this in the
info I have been able to aquire, this includes a few books that come highly
recommended on the subject.

In reality the process is much more complicated and there are tons of mistakes
you can make. The clue seems to be the consistency (feel) of the laquer as you
apply it. It cannot be too wet or it burns right through existing coats, and
pulls fibers from the wad onto the surface. Nor can it be to dry or it wont go
on. I find if you maintain a creamy type feel to the lack as its applied then
you get great results. Just wet enough to go on without cutting into existing
coats. Keeping this balance is tough as the alcohol in the lack evaporates
quickly. The wetness of the lack seems independant of the thickness of the
lack.

What I do is take a wad of cotton and soak it with thick polish mixture and
wrap it into a dungeree "caseing". Squeeze out enough of the lack so that the
wad is not dripping wet and wait a few minutes to take bit of the bite out of
the alcohol. This is for wood that has no finish at all. Then using circles at
first I start quickly traversing the surface of the wood to get a first
coating over about a two square foot area. I start adding a bit of white oil
to the application surface of the wad to keep the lack workable and the wad
"greased". No more oil is used then is neccessary to accomplish that. You are
constantly adding a bit of oil to the wad tho.. every minute or two. I keep
working the area until I have the lack and oil worked into all the pores and
the surface appears pore filled. Then I let it dry and move on to a new
section.

After doing a whole piece like this I let it dry over nite. The lack will sink
in and the next day you will see that the pores are not completely filled but
are very evenly "almost" filled. I repeat the above process with a little less
lack in the cotton to start of with.

I also find that at the start of a session working an area I use mostly lack,
then as I need to "spread it out evenly" I start adding oil to the wads
surface untill during the last pass for that session I am pretty liberally
adding oil. (a finger tip full brushed on the wad)

The next day again I am useing an even thinner (but just as creamy) coating of
lack, but essentially do the same thing otherwise. At the end it is simply
very thin and pretty darn dry this time with a wad that has a nice smooth
linen "caseing" instead of the dungeree.

In this fashion I am able to completely pore fill and polish to a flat mirror
and dead blank finish in the course of three to four days. You can of course
work several pieces side by side as you are never working any given piece for
more then 10 15 minutes at a time.

I will be taking a course from an old world master this summer so it will be
interesting to see what I have learned on my own compares to what he has to
teach me.

Lots of things can go wrong so if you are attempting this and have any
particular problems you can describe then write me privately and I will try
and comment on them.

Hope this helps.. tho really the best way of learning this, instruction or
not... is to do it and experiment with different things untill you find
something that works. I have read lots on the subject and there seems to be
many different configurations about wads, polishing oils, methods of
application.. etc.

Patricia Neely wrote:

> Richard regarding French polish could you explain the tecnique , Thank you
> Patricia Neely

--
Richard Brekne
Associate PTG, N.P.T.F.
Bergen, Norway