Plane Grand Finale

Time to get this project wrapped up.  Now it's time to start working on the wood.  The bit in the front is aptly named the knob, and the bit in the back is the tote.  Long ago I stripped the old finish off.  I could have just started with a finish from there, but I didn't think that I had done enough sanding in this project.  So, starting at 220 and working my way up to 400.

 

Cameo of the chef's knife I've been working on for far too long now.

The sanding dust made the wood appear much lighter than it really was.  Before we add any finish to it, I needed to clean off both the dust and any dirt or oils or junk that could be on there.  So I wiped them down with acetone.  I haven't really done much in terms of fine finishes.  I usually use cheap white board pine and do what I can to make it look like some other kind of wood. In this case, rosewood doesn't need any stain, but I want the grain of the wood to really pop.  So I experimented a bit.  After I cleaned, I applied a layer of boiled linseed oil, let it soak real good, wipe it off, then one more time. 

 

After cleaning

 

Just applied BLO

That's looking pretty nice!  I could have just left the finish with BLO (it dries to a dull, no gloss finish), but I wanted to be true to the original finish, so I went with shellac.  Shellac is like honey, similar color, made from bug spit.  Shellac is the secretions of the lac bug.  I'm not sure I want to know how it's collected...  Shellac was used for many many years as the main method of protecting and adding shine to wood.  It's purchased as bags of dried plastic flakes.  It's then dissolved into denatured alcohol. (I've read that the canned stuff has come along way and a fresh can is just as good as flakes, but what's the fun of that!) This happens to be one of the biggest issues with shellac but also it's super power.  If you spill solvents on it, it will soften up quickly.  But if you wipe solvent with a bit more shellac on it, you soften the previous layer and smooth it over, making it shiner.  This is called a french polish.  It can also be polished by sanding finer and finer grit until you get the sheen you want.  This is called rubbed out.

 

Blonde dewaxed shellac flakes, mason jar, scale on the ready.

 

I went with a '2 lb cut', which really means 2lbs of flakes to 1 gallon of denatured alcohol (DNA).  I didn't really need a full gallon, so I made 1 pint.  2oz of flakes, 2 cups DNA.

 

It takes a while for the flakes to dissolve.  I let it sit for 24 hours, shaking it violently every now and again.

 

24 hours later, ready to roll.

 I didn't want to go the full effort of a true french polish, but I kinda wanted that look.  So improvising, I decided to do the following.  First coat was brushed on to fill the pores.  Then sand with 220, 320, 400.

 

Dried BLO, big pores, they need to be filled or it wont be really shiny. 

 

Brushed on shellac

 

After sanding.  It's really hard to tell, but the pores are only kinda filled.  

 

If I wanted, I could have left it at this point. Sanded to 400 gives it a nice satin finish, but I want that shine!

 

Loaded up the gun, filtered first.

 

Strung up in the garage, after the first coat

 

 First coat

After 2-3 more sand/spray cycles (I lost track), the knob was looking great, so I called it done.  But the tote just wasn't what I wanted.  So I decided to try to finish it off using the french polish method.

 

The pores just weren't filling up right and it was tricky to spray on a string, so I couldn't get a good even coat.

 

So, get an old t-shirt and cotton balls.  Make a big wad of cotton balls and wrap in the t-shirt.  It would be best if I put DNA and shellac in squeezy bottles, but I didn't.  So I soaked 2-3 balls in DNA and 1 in shellac.  Wrap the t-shirt around it kinda tight and wring out most of the liquid.  Add 1 drop of oil to the pad and rub the surface.  It gets a bit tacky and sticky the first layer, but let that sit and dry for 10-20min.  If you want to learn more about french polish, go search Clickspring on youtube.com, he has a really fantastic video showing how it's really done.

 

Repeat that 4-5 times, and wammo, smooth as silk. 

 

Looking great!

 

Polish up the screw heads.  Chuck them up in a drill, use 120, 220, 300, 400, 600, 1000, 2000, then polishing compound on wood, and you're left with some sparkle!

 

Before

 

After! Mirror like finish.

I only mildly polished the iron cover, I didn't want to loose the faded out paint in the Stanley logo.  Oh, and I added 2 more coats of japanning to the cast pieces, that looked closer to the real thing and came out more black.  If I had to do the japanning all over, I would have super saturated the turpentine with gilsonite.  Start with some amount of powder in a jar, mix in just enough turpentine to cover the powder.  Heat it up and add more powder, then finally add BLO.  I think that would make a much thicker material which would give an even closer look the to the real thing.  The problem with this route is that it's sooo thin, it took many layers to build it up.  Turpentine is such a slow drying solvent that I don't think it all flashed off by the time I put it in the oven, which made lots of tiny bubbles which can been seen in the final product.  If I do this again, I'll try that method.  Time to put it all together.

 

Knob

 

Frog.  Wish I could have thought of a way to polish up the advance knob on the back of the frog.  I just left it as it was.  The lever could have used a bit of work too.

 

All bear metal got a wipe down with oil.  Iron, chip breaker, and cover.

 

Sooo shiny!

 

The money shots

 

 

Just a reminder of how it looked before:

It's been a fun project!  I now have a really great tool and know more about the man that owned it. 

One of many projects to follow:

This is a bookshelf/storage area that I'm going to build for the space by our room.  Got more planning to do, but here's the general layout.   I'd like to build a box for the plane too, but I'm guessing Laura wants the bookshelves first.