Finishing the Stop Tab Rail

At this point, I was faced with refinishing the console.  I really need to rebuild the stop tab rail, but that is best done after the console is refinished.  I really didn't know much about wood finishing, so I picked up a copy of Bob Flexner's excellent book, Understanding Wood Finishing.  It is the most complete, practical, and unbiased source of information on finishes that I have found.  Highly recommended!

First, I finished the new bird's-eye maple stop tab rail.  I decided to use an analine wood dye to high light the eyes just a bit.  The concentration of the water soluble dye can be easily adjusted to give just the right effect.  For topcoating, I used platina dewaxed shellac.  Shellac gives great depth to the wood and can be built up in layers without getting cloudy.  Platina is the clearest non-yellowing type available.  I built it up with rather thin coats, sanding back lightly between every third or fouth coat.  After 17 coats all of the pores were filled and the surface was smooth as glass.  I decided to try French polishing to give it a high-gloss, mirror-like finish.  The process involves applying very thin coats of shellac with a fabric pad, lubricated with mineral oil to eliminate all rag tracks.  It worked pretty well, although a few tiny pits appeared after I was done.  I'm not sure why they appeared, but they were pretty minor and I decided not to try filling them in.

I just realized I didn't take any photos of this part.  Sorry about that.