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Posts: 2987
Location: Great Smoky Mountains
Joined: August 29, 2008
Contributor
Since: December 29, 2011
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From an article by Jeff Jewett:
"Shellac can be applied by practically any method -- brushing, padding, or spraying. My favorite method is padding, which many woodworkers may not have heard of. This technique takes advantage of shellac's rapid drying and allows the finisher to apply a finish in a much shorter time than varnish, polyurethane or oil finishes. It works best on flat surfaces, and in a nutshell, here's how it's done. Use a 2 lb. cut shellac and some padding cloth, which is available from finishing suppliers as trace cloth or French polishing cloth. It should be as lint-free as possible. Do not use cotton T-shirt type cloth or cheesecloth.
Cut a piece of cloth roughly 10"-12" square. Fold it up into a pad so that there are no creases on the bottom. Pour about 1 ounce of alcohol on the cloth and work the alcohol into the cloth. Then take a squirt bottle of shellac and dispense approximately one ounce of shellac into the pad. Starting at the top of the board, bring the pad down on the surface like an airplane coming in for a landing, then lift it slowly off the board at the edge like taking off. Repeat this motion in stripes down the board. When you get to the bottom, the shellac that you put on the top will be dry enough to wipe again. Keep doing this until the surface is tacky and the pad starts to stick. Between wipes, pad the edges. The trick to this is to apply light coats of shellac by keeping the pad moist, not dripping wet. (If you can squeeze shellac from the pad it's too wet). When finished with padding, store the pad in a jar with a tight cap and re-use it. If this is the first application on new wood, the shellac should penetrate quickly and be dry enough to scuff-sand with 320 stearated sandpaper to remove the raised fibers in about an hour. Repeat the same process as above until the pad starts to stick. Let this application dry overnight and then scuff sand with 320 grit stearated sandpaper and then steel wool with maroon synthetic steel wool or 000 regular steel-wool. Repeat the padding application one more time and let it dry overnight. Then rub the finish out with 0000 steel wool, using wax thinned with mineral spirits as a lubricant. After the wax dries to a haze, wipe the excess wax off with a soft cotton cloth. This leaves a very mellow, hand-rubbed satin finish."
You want to build-up the finish by repeating the wiping on 3 or more times on the bare wood then waiting an hour and sanding very lightly using a hard sanding block just to level the finish. Wipe the residue with a micro-fiber cloth and apply another coat and sand. 3 or 4 reps should give you a good finish. I do a final pass with a fresh cheesecloth dampened with denatured alcohol only barely touching the wood, really using only the alcohol vapor to subtly blend the shellac.
Next day thoroughly wet a chunk of 0000 steel wool in mineral spirits and apply a good paste wax like Minwax which is easy to find. Buff it out before it completely hazes and done.
Easy to find Zinsser Bulls-eye Amber is a 3 pound cut. Just dilute it 50/50 for a 1 1/2 lb. cut, perfect for wiping. Get a Mason jar, the kind for canning to store your pad during the finishing and after. Pads keep for months in one.
Here's an amplifier base in Padauk after 12 coats of shellac by wiping:
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