Official Luthiers Forum!

hello everyone. soon i will be embarking on my first French Polish application. for couriosity purposes, i was wondering about F. Polishing over stain. i was told it is possible. i was told to seal spruce with a vinyl sealer, apply stain & then proceed with the F. Polish applications. my question here...is there something that should go over the stain before applying the shellac?

thanks for your reply,

floyd

In my limited experience with this if you don't put something over the stain the french polish will just smear everything all around. In order to stain the wood you will have to stain before sealing unless you're going to spray on the stain after sealing.

My best results came from staining and then spraying, I think, four or five dilute coats of shellac (a little less than 1# cut to the best of my recollection), allowing that to harden for about a week then proceeding on with the french polishing. Be careful spraying shellac over stain it will flow it back out and stain surrounding areas you may not want stain on. Very thin, light coats. Don't spray any "wet" coats.

I'm sure some of the other folks on here have had more experience than me, however. Best of luck with your project.

SR

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"We might not be big but we sure are slow"

Welcome to the OLF Floyd!

FP over stain is simple, spray a seal coat of blonde shellac over the stain. Allow to cure over night and go at it