Shopsmith Forums

As much as JPW is well-regarded here, I'm moving away from it overall. I don't like the solvent smell, and there are some interesting alternatives.

First up is a "polissoir" application of hard beeswax on wood. I'd mentioned it on another thread about a month ago. The broom-like polissoir, covered in some revived antique woodworking texts, applies enough burnishing friction heat to sort of "flow" the hard wax.

Next up is Microcrystalline wax... specifically with a low-VOC solvent. For this I think what I got would compete with Renaissance wax, but has much less smell. I used Paragon pipe wax. This is on all the Shopsmith tables and tubes now, and really has a nice sheen and smooth feel, and has a great resistance to fingerprints. It seems so nice and benign, I even put it on my control-buttons:

Brought to you in the fellowship of boredom and waiting for Super Bowl...

Chris

What did you use for the brush ? the Micro crystalline is rather impressive

Hi,
That 'polissoir' was some broom straw cut out of an old whisk broom, and lashed up. Some folks online are arguing that a softer hedge is more historically accurate than straw, maybe not as likely to scratch softer woods.
For the microcrystalline Paragon wax (which I had got from the Auction site, new), it's very easy to apply with any cloth, and it dries fast. It's also my go-to for shining up pens before I gift them... really bright and resistant to fingerprints.

Chris

I've started using Odie's brand oils and waxes, as well as their citrus-based solvent, on a majority of my projects.

Love the smell, love the finish. They basically have 3 viscosities of product ... Odie's Oil, Odie's Butter, and Odie's Wax, with each step up having less solvent in it .... you can use them in any combination to create a beautiful finish on any wood, including woods that typically don't take oil finishes very well.

The bottles are small but because there is very little solvent in them, each bottle goes a long way. I highly recommend the Odie's products !

That wouldn't be for me. I love the smell of urethane in the morning.

Here is another trial of a beeswax application, which I saw on donsbarn.com . (He was a Smithsonian conservator, etc.) This is a bit better than the cold-burnishing for filling grain.

Another little square I made is coated with melted beeswax, using a small tacking iron:

The excess wax is scraped away gently with non-burred scrapers or small blocks of hardwood:

Then it is buffed out. A nice, hard, glassy, fun to hold finish; definitely more striking than a paste-wax result:


Chris

While you are experimenting... Try some shoe polish. Varies by brand but comes in many colors (at places other than Walmart).
If you need something slick top off with Lemon Pledge but don't get it on the face of your miter-gauge or on your floor. A sober ant couldn't stand up safely on that stuff.
I was always taught to keep a ball of bee's wax with the woodscrews for driving ease. A small brick of paraffin also worked but not as well as bee's wax. When I was a kid all screws were driven by hand. I really hated wood screws back then. I'll bet now that I don't hand drive 10 screws a year.
These days if I want to drive a long screw into very hard wood I am pretty quick to coat it with wood glue to lube it.
I like that iron. Back in my shoe repair shop days I kept a cheap blow-dryer at the bench and used it dozens of times a day for heating items to get wax into a surface, (and also for speeding up contact adhesives) these days I keep a heat gun in the shop. A heat lamp is also a good way to warm an item gently before applying wax.

Edit: Forgot to mention, who else remembers when bread was sold in waxed paper bags and kids carried one with them to sit on and speed up the slide at the playground? It didn't take very many passes to shine up the surface well. Hey, another use for Lemon Pledge...


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I never heard of the playground slide trick but I certainly remember when bread came in wax paper bags.

I used wax paper all the time at the playground slide. Alas, Pledge no longer has any wax in it... probably silicone?

I recall using deli papers. They sold hot dogs at the park/zoo.