Shellac under poly


rmartuszewski

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i am working on a live edge slab for the wife. Going to be a new TV stand.

she wants high gloss poly, I want epoxy resin lol. 

So sealing the walnut with shellac before poly was the way I am thinking of going. But have read tons about shellac discoloring under poly. Is this true?

what would be the way you guys finish it to get a high gloss look?

Only will have a flat screen tv and PS3 on it. 

Edited by rmartuszewski
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Really no reason to use the shellac at all.  Just use gloss poly.  

Or lacquer.  Or just shellac.  You can achieve high gloss with any of them but there's no need to use more than one.  Also you'll want to pore fill walnut or it will look ridiculous with a high-gloss finish.  Ideally you'd just use a satin finish so it looks like wood instead of wood under plastic.

That last part is pure opinion...but I'm right.

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==>That last part is pure opinion...but I'm right.

Well...

 

Done properly, a shellac finish doesn't look 'plastic'... If you look at a nice French polish, not plastic at all...

But I do agree that if you go hog wild, then the results look like plastic.

It's the same for ARS compared to a good Tung oil finish... I know folks are enamored with ARS, but I suspect that's a lack of experience with other finishes...

 

==>Shellac is almost universally accepted as a sealer under most finishes.

One of the best reasons to shoot a light coat of Super Blonde... You can lock-down the surface and mitigate shop contaminates. I do this on a good percentage of pieces... Another reason is to drive oil deep into the wood to accentuate figure/chatoyance. Shellac is also east to tint... There are lot's of reasons to like shellac...

Edited by hhh
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It's the same for ARS compared to a good Tung oil finish... I know folks are enamored with ARS, but I suspect that's a lack of experience with other finishes...

No question, at least for me.  But am I wrong that that comparison is kind of apples and orange since ARS is so much more protective than tung oil, especially after only three coats?

I love the look of DJM's tung oil finishes...I plan to attempt it one day.  My fear is always lack of protection.

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Poly would be oil based.

poly was to better protect it.

shellac was thought to seal the wood so it doesn't soak up so much poly. I used a piece I cut off the slab with poly, and it was soaking it up like a sponge.

I fon't want to fill in the grain with a grain filler. As there is so much figuring and color  variation  in grain I am  afraid  It will look weird with all the little discolored dots as there is no way to do just one color filler.

is there a clear filler I could use?

apso the poly was picked as lack of  maintenance. Don't want to be refinishing the thing every year if we picked tung oil or just shellac. 

I suck at finishing, so feel free to correct me or point me in the right steps. All I care about is the end state, high gloss low thickness. Like not a film look. 

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Poly certainly gives you some protection if you can't shoot conversion varnish...  Great for casual pieces...

ARS is so easy, it's obviously a tempting go-to... . But if an item doesn't need that level of protection, I'd look at shellac, Tung oil, etc...

If you've got some nice Walnut, a dozen coats of Tung oil is a great finish...

 

PS: you know, an easy way to try something new, would be Waterlox. I use it for quick/dirty oil finishes -- it's not quite as easy as ARS, but the results are a lot nicer... If you thin it a bit with MS, it'll be easier...

 

Sorry OP, we're way off base here...

IMHO, Epoxy really doesn't look good as a finish...

Assuming a TV stand doesn't get much abuse -- you put a TV on it, leave it there and not re-position... Then you don't need massive protection... You could look at a shellac finish... Just 'place' the tv in position and not slide it around...

I'm not convinced a gloss would work for that application -- you don't want a reflected TV image from the surface of the stand... But, you can start with a gloss, then rub-back to whatever you want -- just not the other way around...

So get a gloss finish, then produce some test boards with various sheens and let the boss pick...

 

Edited by hhh
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==>DJM's magical tung oil finish was Arm R Seal

Yes, he used an ARS, but not today's ARS...

 

Around '03, ARS was reformulated to drop the Tung oil (lowering production costs)...

Prior to reformulation, DJM used ARS (Tung Oil) on the show...

The ARS David used was a GF formulation that's no longer available....

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==>DJM's magical tung oil finish was Arm R Seal

Yes, he used an ARS, but not today's ARS...

 

Around '03, ARS was reformulated to drop the Tung oil (lowering production costs)...

Prior to reformulation, DJM used ARS (Tung Oil) on the show...

The ARS David used was a GF formulation that's no longer available....

Interesting.  I always thought he was using straight tung oil old school.

So the "tung oil" he was using was actually an oil/varnish mix?

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==>So the "tung oil" he was using was actually an oil/varnish mix?

I did eMail him on this some time ago... He's admitted to the show causing confusion and he's apologized for his part in it...

He used a bunch of finishes, including old-school Tung...

But we're talking WW... The first five or six seasons of WW, it was a GF product labeled Tung Oil. This was the early version of what we now know as ARS, but not the ARS as sold today. It was and remains a combination of oil with a dryer -- he needed a fast drying finish for the show... Pure Tung is too slow drying (two-three days) for TV... I'm not sure if the Tung was cooked with a resin before '03, but today's ARS is cooked with poly... I'm sure with enough Google, I could find a pre-'03 TDS, but I don't have that sort of free time. :)

Most Tung oils are a combo of some sort -- some have resins, some not -- most have dryers. The higher percentage Tung, the more expensive the product. Pure pre-catalyzed Tung oils sans dryers are pretty expensive... Great products, but up to $200/gal (lot's of solids in there)... One downside: as you get closer to pure Tung, the more finicky the application. I just finished a small chest in Honduran and pure cat Tung... Seven coats and you have to sand each coat into the surface plus steel-wool between coats... It's a lot more work than ARS... And a lot more time -- took two plus weeks to get the finish down... Also, pure tung is thick and can get a bit sticky if you're technique is slow... The results are great, but not for the quick-and-dirty like ARS...

 

==>Getting a bunch of different directions. 

Sorry, we've hijacked this to the North Pole on you....

 

==>Would it be better to post pics of slab and drawing of leg design? 

Sure, that could help. The other thing would be an idea of how much abuse the surface would take... If you've got kids banging toys on the top, then we're talking poly...

 

 

Edited by hhh
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==>You think Arm R Seal is an oil varnish/blend?

Probably shouldn't have used the word blend... It implies oil/varnish blend... I'll change it...

I was just observing that even in the good old days, GF's Tung Oil finish wasn't pure tung oil -- it was some combination of tung [maybe] cooked with a resin + MS to make some form of wiping varnish... Today, it's also some sort of oil (not tung) cooked with poly and reduced with MS (or similar) to make a wiping varnish. Although, it doesn't dry as hard as some wiping varnishes (it remains gummy for quite a while)...

Edited by hhh
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This is the slab, and a quick (bad) render. No clue if we going the left side four legs or right side two large legs. A lower board will be running along the length for router/modem and such.

FullSizeRender.jpg

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The TV stand will not see a lot of abuse at all. Teen girls, so no issues with that. Myself and wife just don't want to be touching up or refinishing each year. 

We want a high gloss.

How does one post more pics? 1.9mb size limit. per thread....

 

IMG_3664.JPG

IMG_3666.JPG

IMG_3723.JPG

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==>We want a high gloss.

OK, high gloss, we get it...

 

You need something you can rub out: so poly, ARS, wipe-on varnish, etc are all out...

Not much abuse... Good.

So, we want a pore filler followed by shellac as a sealer.

Some sort of shellac or lacquer topcoat, but not too much so that it looks like plastic :)  You know, the very first piece of furniture I ever built was French polish, but I wouldn't inflict that on you... :)

 

Can you spray?

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Unfortunately, the final sheen of the finish is down to more than just the sheen of the topcoat... If would be nice if that's how it works, but it doesn't...

You can get a gloss poly, but that won't give you a high gloss finish...

A 'gloss' poly will have a higher sheen than a 'semi-gloss', but that's a function of the flattening agent in the coating -- not the final result...

 

So, let's work on a more precise definition of 'high gloss finish'...

If you could find a few snaps of Walnut pieces with the finish you want and post them, we could refine the solution set...

 

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