Shellac, French Polishing

Once you have mastered the polisher’s mop as described in an earlier post, I am sure you will be eager to progress and try your hand using a “rubber”. This is the tool used for achieving a faultless finish on a flat surface or even a curved one if the radius of the curvature is large enough. Generally though the surface will be flat and horizontal, which will catch the light, making it imperative to have a surface free of brush or wipe marks, that would break up the refracted light and stand out. There is a certain mystique about French Polishing and it is true, there would be a huge amount to learn if you wished to set up business professionally. However, there is no reason why you should not achieve spectacular results on a small or uncomplicated project for yourself. However, it would be wrong of me not to point out that large, complicated or high value pieces should be referred to a professional.
That said, a lot of pleasure and satisfaction can he had finishing or repairing smaller or less valuable pieces; and if you catch the bug there is nothing to prevent you from honing your skills by attending a short course at a school of polishing or further reading and practice.

However the first thing to do now is make your rubber. When these are properly made and stored they can be used again and again, over many years. The one I am currently using is several years old and is used on a regular basis. Or at least the fad part is, the cloth cover will need changing from time to time, because of wear. I should explain; the rubber consists of two parts, the “fad” and the “rag”. To make the fad, you will need a small piece of upholsters skin wadding. Grey skin wadding is best. Cut this into a 9inch square and fold in half top to bottom. Now fold in the corners of the folded edge (as opposed to the cut edge) to form a delta. Fold and tuck in the cut edge about an inch while folding the delta again into the centre. You should now have a conical pear shape about 3 inches from point to bottom with a seam along the top edge.
This will be springy so place an elastic band around the middle to hold it in place while you cut a piece of clean white cotton cloth, about 10 inches square. You can buy this in 1kilo packs from finishing suppliers, or an old cotton sheet is ideal if you have one available. Place the fad into the centre of the rag with the point towards one of the corners. Place this in the palm of you hand and grip the fad through the rag. Turn your hand upside down so that the edges of the cloth hang down. Now working from the point, twist the leading edges, while maintaining the point and work back along the fad to form a rope shape, which should lie against the back of the fad. When you come to the end of the rope, give it a twist around your finger, to form a loop on itself and tuck it in.

The cotton should now be tight around the fad. Place another elastic band around your neatly formed rubber and soak the whole thing in methylated spirits with a little shellac added and set aside to dry. This trains the fad to keep its shape and makes it easier to use. You will only need to do this once, in future after the rubber has been commissioned, you will want to avoid letting it dry out again, even a little. Therefore you must store your rubber in an airtight container. A small Tupperware box would be ideal.

I shan’t repeat the method of preparation for the work piece as we have covered this in earlier posts, except to say that it must of course be clean and dust free.
To begin you will need to charge the rubber with shellac. Remove both the elastic bands. Next, hold the rubber in the palm of your hand, then while gripping the fad, open the cotton rag covering it and let the edges fall away. Now slightly open the seam at the top of the fad and pour a small amount of shellac along this seam. Naturally you are going to need slightly more the first time you do this than on later occasions. I’ll just mention, decanting the shellac into a handy sized bottle will make controlling the flow much easier, every time you re-charge the fad. Lastly, close the rubber tightly as before, laying the rope edge so that it will nestle in your hand comfortably. You will need to test the rubber before using it. Do this by pressing it against a clean piece of paper, which it should just wet, without an excess of the shellac flowing out. If you do find the rubber is overcharged, squeeze out the excess shellac and move to a clean spot of paper to test again. Repeat until you are satisfied its right. Over time you will learn to judge the right amount and it will only be necessary to dab the rubber against the palm of you hand to know if you have it right or not.

Now, some polishers advocate adding raw linseed oil to the face of the rubber to lubricate. This is not really necessary and if overdone can cause problems. All I do is to dip the tip of my finger into the linseed oil and spread this tiny amount over the face of the rubber and only then, if the rag has been changed or the piece covering the fad moved due to wear. It’s probably not necessary at all; I just think it conditions and smoothes a new piece of cloth.

Hold the rubber firmly in you hand, as low down as possible without danger of your fingers touching the polished surface. If held too high, you will have no control over the rubber and it will stick at some point, causing a “rubber burn”. Begin by gliding the rubber onto the surface and work around the edge of the piece in small circular movements. Once you have completed one circuit, glide the rubber off again. There should be no obvious marks left on the surface, however if you have a heavy build up, wait an hour and sand back with 400 grit paper. Re-test the charge in your rubber and now try again. You should feel some resistance as you pull the rubber over the work and you should be able to see a damping of the surface behind the rubber, which will begin to dry immediately. The pull should not be so great that the rubber judders or sticks. If you pull the palm of you hand over a clean windowpane, this will give you an idea of the correct resistance you should experience. Although you will notice a slight increase in the pull as the rubber dries out. When this happens, increase the pressure on the rubber, then, finish the run you are working on and glide off at the end, re-charge.

Once the edge has dried for a few moments, look at the surface and mentally divide it into 4 tracks. Working each track in turn, proceed by making small figure of 8 strokes along the grain, gliding onto the surface at the beginning and gliding off at the end. It would be perfectly natural to form these figures of 8 movements with the wrist. However, this is not good a good way to work. A far better technique and less tiring method would be to keep the wrist stiff. Making all your movement come from the elbow and shoulder. Let your strokes overlap the imaginary tracks about a 1/3 on each side and keep the figure of 8 strokes tight enough within the track to cover the entire surface. Next re-work the surface with two tracks overlapping as before and then one track. Repeat as necessary. As we are repairing a surface rather that building one up, you should not require many coats before you see a shine appearing. When you do change to working along the grain with strait, slightly overlapping strokes. Gliding on and off at each end of the stroke. Continue until you see the shine deepen. When satisfied, leave overnight for the polish to dry back and harden.

The next day, or later, very lightly cut the surface back with fine synthetic wire wool, using the gentlest of stokes and wipe clean. Follow with one or two coats in the same manner as you finished with the night before and leave for twenty minutes. While you are waiting you can prepare your rubber for “spiriting” or stiffing. Do this by charging with clean methylated spirits and press the rubber against a clean piece of card or paper, squeezing out as much shellac mixture as possible. Do this twice. Then give one pass of the rubber over the entire surface, The thinned shellac and meths rich mixture will liven-up the previously applied polish. Now drip a few drops of meths onto the face of the rubber, dab the rubber against your palm to distribute the methylated spirits through the fad. Go over the surface with straight strokes as before. You should feel a slightly greater resistance, than when using the shellac full strength but this should not be excessive. Keep a close eye on the rubber making sure it is neither too dry, causing it to stick. Nor wet enough to leave a visible deposit. This will in a short time dramatically improve the quality of the shine. However, you must again leave overnight before proceeding, in fact it’s better if you can leave it several days. You should then find that any slight rubber marks have disappeared as the polish has hardened and dried out. In fact the shine will probably be so good it will look unnatural for a piece of antique furniture. It may pass as fine for a piece of Louise XIIII, dripping with gilt ormolu. However, a shine like this will look brittle on traditional “brown” furniture and will need dulling down with your synthetic wire wool and wax in the exactly the same way as mentioned before. Only this time pay particular attention to the direction of the grain and use the lightest pressure. I’m sure you will now glow with the greatest of pleasure yourself, as with a flourish you buff the wax until it gleams.