OldTools Archive

Recent Bios FAQ

271910 Patrick Olguin <paddychulo@g...> 2020‑10‑12 Re: It's not finished until it's finished
Hi Kevin,
Nice job saving that olde table. Matching finishes is a tricky business,
wot. You definitely want to do the whole finishing schedule on a scrap of
the same wood, the bigger the better. Changing color with shellac is
different from staining/dying wood, as shellac, given how thin the film is,
is more transparent. The good news is that you have a lot of control over
how much you tone the wood. The not as good news is that it can take a lot
of coats (a thick coat of shellac is almost never a good idea). Another
unexpected (to the boneheaded like me) feature is that you are *adding*
color to the wood, instead of changing/covering it up like you do with a
semi-transparent penetrating or dye stain  -  paint, really, and shellac is
more like looking at the wood through colored glass.

From the looks of the table, you're going to want to orange-it-up with
orange shellac (dewaxed, ideally, as it's less opaque), before you use
garnet to darken it, because garnet will bring out the yellow in the wood,
making the whole thing a rather unsatisfying green. Don't ask me how I know
this.

The toning goes pretty quickly, even with the thin coats, cos shellac dries
so quickly. Another hot tip when you're getting close to matching is to put
a bit of new shellac on the old piece. Three coats (THIN) for the new
piece, one for the old. You can keep wiping thin coats (I cut it to
#1.5lb)  until your pad/rag starts to stick, then it's time to let it
really dry (30-40 minutes-ish), then you're back to toning.  Keep track of
how many coats. So, orange shellac to redden/orange-it-up, then garnet for
serious darkening.  You can also experiment with aniline dyes, but I
usually reserve that for projects where I'm making something all-new and
want a color that doesn't appear in nature.

Good luck,
Paddy

On Mon, Oct 12, 2020 at 10:18 AM kevin.m.foley 
wrote:

Recent Bios FAQ