Shopsmith Forums

My wife found a picture of bookshelf like this and said I should make one for the family room. It's 46.5" x 24.5" x 8.25". Birch pw with poplar edging. Joinery a combination of dados and dowels. We're at loggerheads on how to finish it. Who knows if it will ever be complete. One great thing was that all the stock was off-cuts from other projects. Outside of the usual expendables like sandpaper, dowels etc. there was no material cost.

Very nice. Don't know your room's color scheme but I like it just the way it is.

Any time you can find a use for stored lumber it is a plus!!


Looks nice.

Looks good to me! Interesting too.

John

I finally finished this project. I ended up brushing on 5 coats of garnet shellac and then a coat of wax. I'm unhappy with results. I used 1 oz of shellac flakes to 8 oz of denatured alcohol, formula? I've had some luck spraying shellac but wanted to give this a try. Thk for looking.

Looks great! Why are you unhappy with the results?

The reasons I'm disappointed in the results. The problems are my fault/lack of experience. I've had some luck spraying shellac and that's what I'll go back to.
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First, I applied the shellac before assembly. I didn't use painters tape to isolate the glue areas (lazy me). Instead I ended my brush strokes at the point where I knew a vertical needed to go. That left 'pools' of finish in several areas. My photo doesn't show those areas, but they're there.

Second, my technique was to dip the brush. Tap off on the side of the supply jar. Make a stroke fully from right to left and then from left to right. Dip the brush, tap off and make the next pass with a small overlap. In a number of overlap spots the garnet built up and left a streak.

Third, I edged the birch pw with poplar. I thought the shellac would blend in and hide the poplar's 'green' color. But it didn't the edging really stands out.

Finally, the finish is really dull. It just has no luster. Waxing gave is some boost, but it's just blah!

The part that worked well is the color matches the mantel I did with maple in the spring. I don't think I ever posted a picture of that??

The mantle is beautiful. Popular will not match anything. It is beautiful by itself however. If you want to match Birch or particularly Baltic Birch use Maple.

It does take a lot of practice to use shellac. The 1 pound cut that you used is really a light coat so it would take a lot of coats to get to any sort of shine. Most people use a 2 - 3 pound cut for French Polishing or brush. When I use shellac, I usually apply a 2 pound cut with a cloth similar to how you French Polish and sand or rub out with pumice/rotten stone between every 3-4 coats until it gets to the amount of shine that I want. It can take a lot of coats because they are so thin. I have never tried spraying it.