Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:20:28 -0800, SonomaProducts.com wrote:

I assume you are talking about a grain filler to try and get a piano
type surface. If so, an you haven't done this before, you need to
practice quite a bit to learn how. (p.s. don't practice on your project)
I've done grain filling a few times and still never got it completly
right.

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I've read that mixing pumice
with some shellac makes a good grain filler. Apparently the pumice
becomes transparent in the shellac. If anyone here has tried it, how did
it work?

I have, and once leveled out it looks quite nice. However, for my
armoire project I decided not to go with that approach because the
pumice made the surface very difficult to sand smooth, and it wore out
my sandpaper almost as fast as I could tear off a new piece!

For that project I tried just about every filler approach known to man,
gravitating in the end towards various solids mixed with shellac (I even
tried SALT, which worked surprisingly well but I was afraid it might
react with the wood or have negative effects on the longevity of the
shellac). I was very interested in that "piano" smooth finish, but I
didn't want to see any kind of opaque "filler" in the pores of the wood.
Plus, the fact that stain was involved (water soluble dye) complicated
the process; breaking through the stain when leveling with sandpaper is
*going* to happen, and many of the otherwise successful approaches I
tried broke down when a repair was involved. In the end, I abandoned
solids altogether.

Perhaps the obvious approach would have been a traditional French
polish, and I tried that but my skill level was laughable. The process
I finally used was to stain with dye, followed by coat after coat of
garnet shellac slapped on without any regard for getting it smooth or
level; I was simply going for buildup. Once sufficiently thick, I would
level it with a sharp card scraper (MUCH faster, cleaner, and easier
than sandpaper!), taking almost all of the shellac back off (you can
save the shavings and reuse them by tossing them back into a jar of
alcohol) until the pores were filled. Any time I broke through the
stain, I simply restained that area and repeated the process. Shellac
is a solvent based finish, so there are no witness lines and the repairs
are invisible. Eventually, I got enough buildup to where I could switch
to wet sanding with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper until the surface was
baby-butt smooth, and the final step was to spray on a nice wet coat of
satin lacquer. Done!

I still have most of the twenty or so pieces of scrap Mahogany with the
various failed experiments in finishing, and none can compare with that
simple layer of translucent garnet shellac lying deep within the pores
of the wood. It's purty!

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