Categories for Shop Procedures

On How to Properly Sand, and do a Hand Rubbed Finish

October 18, 2015 Leave your thoughts

I really like Minwax Wipe On Poly. I have been using it for years now as a sealer under shellac, but have recently discovered how to do a really nice hand rubbed finish with it. The secret is in the sanding. The finer the grit the surface is sanded to, the less poly it will absorb, and the quicker a gloss will develop. So I currently sand starting at 100#, then 150# over the whole dulcimer. The edges are sanded... Read More →

Darkening Cherry With UV Light

May 23, 2013 Leave your thoughts

At upwards of $12.00 per board foot for the good stuff, Walnut has gotten too expensive. We used walnut for all our bridges and the rails of the Phoebe hammered dulcimers for 20 years. Wood prices run in a cycle based on whether dark woods are in style, or light woods. For the last 20 years, light furniture, light kitchens, pickled woods, white on white were the vogue, so walnut was affordable. But now the trend has reversed. So we... Read More →

Shellac Finishing Small Parts

March 4, 2013 Leave your thoughts

I have to thank the guys at Woodsmith on PBS for this great technique. It needs to be shared with the world. Since shellac is a universal sealer, and will stick to anything, you can put it right on over wet oil, and it will seal the oil in. Pretty amazing. Hand rubbed oil finishes are the deepest and most beautiful, but take a lot of time. But with shellac in the mix, you can do a complete finish in... Read More →

Spraying Shellac Revisited

December 23, 2012 Leave your thoughts

I have been spraying shellac in production finishing of our hammered dulcimers for a year now, and have come up with a few more tricks, so thought I’d update. Read the former post on the same topic, this is additional material to that. I have found that shellac sprays best if it is mixed at an EXACT one pound cut. This is pretty easy to do. I have a jar that I dissolve the flakes in that is something less... Read More →

Spraying Shellac

May 2, 2012 1 Comment

It was impossible to find any info on this on the net, and since I have been working on it very hard for several months, and have it figured out, thought I’d post my experience. I have been spraying lacquer on the hammered dulcimers that we build now for over 20 years. Figure I have finished at least 5,000 of them myself, so am pretty good with a spray gun. But lacquer is toxic, and even though I protect myself... Read More →