French polishing & Rubber making

French polishing and rubber making.

In order to French polish, you will need a handful of cotton wool, and a sheet of clean white cotton material about 7ins or 17.5cm.

Shape the cotton wool into a pear shape, then cover the wool with the rag trying to make a point at the front.

Once you have made the correct shape open the cloth, then charge with French polish and reshape, you will find this a little easier to do whilst the cotton wool is wet.

The excess rag can be twisted at the back of the pad, and used as a grip in your hand.

If your wood is now ready to polish, you can apply a few drops of linseed oil onto your furniture, then wipe over with your now new French polishing rubber.

To start off go in the direction of the grain, using light pressure, when you are confident with this you can then move on to polish in circles, or a figure of eight patterns.

If you feel that your polishing becomes too stiff, apply some more linseed oil onto the furniture, this should now work much easier.

Try not to press too hard or stop whilst polishing as this could leave marks on the surface.

Top up your rubber occasionally with French polish, and you can apply a small amount of Methylated spirits, but do take great care not to apply too much as the Methylated spirits could strip off all your hard work.

Please be patient whilst practising as this does take a very long time to perfect.

To finish off your polishing you must follow the direction of the grain with light pressure, and perhaps change the rubber rag, as this will help to clean off all the linseed oil.

You should now begin to see a clear finish start to emerge, keep working until you can see no more oil streaks on the surface of your furniture,

Leave this to dry for at least three days to harden properly, leave much longer if possible.


Continued

I should like to give you the details, regarding the French polish that I prefer to use.
I use Special Pale Shellac polish, which is manufactured by Morrells Ltd. (UK)
This is a highly refined polish, pressure filtered several times, which gives a pale amber coloured polish.
For use in the highest quality, antique restoration processes.
Product Codes: 3070/000 
Pack sizes available: 1L - 5 Litres.