Shellac French Polish question

can shellac freach polish be done within a day or few days compared to truoil where it takes weeks to month and long hours in between for each coat?

I am sure the experts will correct me here but from my limited experience and understanding,

it depends on the constituents and the necessary curing time between the coats. I remember seeing a video of a Brune (I think the Richard's son) Frenching a guitar side in 20 mins flat. Always wondered how hard that finish would be.

When I was doing it, my teacher taught me to take the time to let the coat cure and to use a lot of oil so as to give a good finish which will give less problems down the line.

Not sure if this is what folks usually practise.

Terence

I like this one:

http://www.milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html

it takes twenty minutes per coat with a day or swo drying time. brian Griffn of griffinukuleles.com has a good demo of FP.

Depends on how good you want the finish...Tru oil is plenty good enough for the job..some top builders use nothing else.

I can finish a uke with French polished shellac in a day, but it would not be to my standards of finish for one of my custom instruments.

David,
How long on average does it take you to FP a tenor-sized ukulele that has a finish you are satisified with and deem it ready to deliver to client?

Just trying to get a handle on how long to expect to get a qualify FP finish....

Thanks,
Mark

I have quite a detailed finish schedule, suited for the way I build.
I finish the neck and body separately before the neck is glued in, Once it is glued together I finish the top to a higher degree, then glue the bridge on. Once it is playing and has its final set up, I remove the bits and go over the whole instrument, checking for any marks made during the set up, and let it hang for as long as I can before the customer gets it, hardening the finish.
It is hard to give a time for finish because I don't know how you are building. If you build the whole thing, string it up in the white before any finish (this is "Spanish style") I suppose you should figure at least a couple of weeks for an excellent finish, that is including "hanging time" between sessions and some time to harden upon completion.

A very nice professional FP job will take more time than a lacquered finish. And lacquer takes a long time! So FP is not a time saver if that's what you're looking for. The less time you spend on FP, the more time you'll spend redoing it down the road.

I've heard of upgrade costs for a FP but never for truoil. Time is money

Certainly for me, a satin lacquer takes less time than a TO finish. You don't have to finish sand to as higher grit and there is less wait between coats (and it looks 10x better IMO). The extra time in a full gloss lacquer finish is mostly in the polishing.

In choosing a finish, time is just one factor.
I began in the '70's doing Nitro, but quit for health reasons. My sloppy procedures, with no dedicated finish room, had the chemicals taking their toll on my body.
I gravitated from different varnishes to Shellac because I can pretty much drink or eat all of the components, and I can get a full gloss finish in a dusty shop. The time rubbing on the shellac is very short in the overall schedule, with curing a much bigger component.

I FP my tops until all is pretty flat and the medullary rays have been sealed, then I spray nitro over that. It takes a day of coats, drying and doing other stuff to get a spruce top to FP'ed' state from where I spray to give a harder more durable protection.

If you want professional FP results I'd go do a course on it as it is difficult to 'feel' how much pressure to use watching a vid. When i was taught by Teen Goh, i put my hand on the guitar top and got him to exert the kind of pressure he uses when French Polishing. It surprised me how hard he was pressing.

tangimango said:

can shellac freach polish be done within a day or few days compared to truoil where it takes weeks to month and long hours in between for each coat?

Click to expand...

That depends on the type of French Polished surface that you want. There's a lot more than one way to arrive at a finished surface with it, from super flat, super gloss to something a bit more organic. French polishing is a technique or a method. It doesn't describe the final outcome. You decide that. Most people think french Polishing is applying dozens of sessions of 'french Polishing', allowing it all to harden and sink back before going through the grits to obtain the billiard ball look. That's just one approach and that has probably become the 'industry standard'. That particular method takes time: weeks. You can use a faster approach but you won't achieve the same appearance. I've done it in 3 days, start to finish. Finished straight from the cloth using the glazing method, no grits. To be honest there are less involved finishes out there. You can brush the stuff on. One coat takes about 2 minutes to apply. Multiply that by 15 and you have your working time + the time taken to go through the grits after it's all hardened. The whole thing can be done in under 2 weeks. It's known as Spirit Varnishing. Alternately just brush on a couple of coats of floor varnish. That's pretty quick. Lot's of options.

You need a drying period after each session to keep the fresh shellac from gumming up the previous coats. If your pad sticks, even after oiling it, it's a signal to take a break. To build up an appreciable thickness takes several days.