A client's old chair taught me a new trick with shellac

Last week, a customer brought in a beat-up dining chair from her grandma's house in Albany. The original finish was this weird, cloudy shellac that felt sticky. I tried my usual denatured alcohol rub, but it just smeared. On a whim, I mixed a tiny bit of boiled linseed oil into a fresh pad of shellac and started padding it on. The old finish melted in perfectly and leveled out without any gumming up. Has anyone else tried adding oil to their padding mix for tricky repairs?

3 comments

3 Comments

parkerkim3mo ago

Honestly that oil trick is a lifesaver for old shellac. I had a sticky gramophone cabinet last month that was a total mess. A drop of mineral oil in the pad made it flow like butter instead of grabbing. It's like the oil breaks the surface tension just enough. I keep a little bottle mixed up now for all my pre-1940s refinishing jobs.

beth_baker693mo ago

Wait you're mixing mineral oil INTO your pad? I always just put a drop on the surface first. Putting it in the pad feels like it would mess up the shellac mix, how does it not leave an oily film?

jessicaw5425d ago

Nah I gotta push back on this. You're probably just using too much pressure or your shellac is too old. Adding oil into the pad is just asking for trouble down the road when that finish starts to cure weird and you get fish eyes or clouding. I've been doing this 15 years and I never put anything but fresh shellac in my pad. Clean surface, light touch, that's all you need.