Reply To: Wood Finisher

[phil]

if you want o adjust whats in your profile, you have to be logged in.

then click your name , then let the page load and you will see two rows in red up near the top, click the second one along the top row it says “profile”
let the next page load. you ll see profile turn black indicating it is selected.

then you should see your personal info , adress etc.. You can change it to what you want. maybe some want their addresses published. I think you have to be logged in to see the profiles. Im not clear if you have to be a member of the CVRS to see that info but collectors may not want their house numbers in there. It’s easy enough to ask for addresses if you are involved in shipping things or having people by in my opinion. but everyone can put what they wish. some don’t care. I think it’s good to have your area especially if you are buying and selling as people need to know if you are close if they are going to respond to an ad for a console for example.
I have some stuff called amalgamator I got it from mohawk finishing supplies under the north en of the knight street bridge. some can clean radios and respray them. lacquer melts into previous coats. My experience trying as that it is easy to mes it up and need to start again but you can take it all off with some lacquer thinner if you want.

It may be possible to do some work by padding , similar to french polish but it takes practice. whats on the radio is usually yellowed so I normally believe adding some toner and making the lacquer like coffee color in the spray gun inmitates this.. if the objective is to restore a radio I would normally think people aim to make it look like it is well preserved and not like it just rolled out of the store back in 1930.

one quick fix that is pretty foolproof is to mix 1 part clear linseed oil or clear danish oil, one part turpentine one part vinegar.. the vinegar wont; intermix really dont; worry just shake it as you use it .. it’s just in there for cleaning.. rub some on and then take clean towels and rub it all off. it will go into whitish scratches and put a little finish anywhere the lacquer is missing,, the stuff wont really stick to where there is lacquer too much. buff it down..
I don’t go for all these brand name furniture polishes and things , they are secretive of ingredients, If they have silicone in them it doesn’t always say and you dont; want silicone on your radios because if you ever refinish youll fight with fish eyes. some things like armor all are bad for it. other stuff like pledge , Im not sure.. I know some like howards paste wax or carnuba wax and things.. dont; use auto polish it’ll be sure to have silicone. antique stores might do that.
the oil and turpentine wont’ mess up future refinishing

as an example I just refinished my living room floor,, sanded then went with three coats of dainish oil scrubbed in the oil with 320 wet or dry,, then did three coats of poly the poly coats combine because they are done within hours of each other, then I let it harden and scrubbed with 320 wet with solvent then I did my final coat of poly. Of course you arent’ going to put poly on radios, no one likes that but my point is the products play ok together and you can do an oil finish and then put shellac or lacquer on top of it. sometimes people use shellac as a sealer before they start with other finishes and stains to close the pores so that tints, toners, or stains cant’ collect in the scratches or the natural porosities of the wood.
note here that sanding with mineral spirits wont hurt my polyurathane. that’s because it hardens by polymerization.. but yet the mineral spirits are a solvent that you can reduce the poly with in it’s liquid state.

with the blonde cabinet I’d start with maybe just vinegar or even some hand cleaner as you want the dirt off the surface, not embeded in your finish.
you want to try to avoid rubbing dirt or pigmented finishes like stains into scratches or it gets in the scratch and amplifies them.

paint ( except lacquer paint) but acrylic enamal , the stuff in spray bombs from the auto store, or (cured) polyurathane are examples of finishes that go on layer by layer, they don’t dissolve underlying areas each coat dries and they overlap. lacquer or shellac melt into the below layers because the solvents can re-melt them. I think the amalgamator is to assist that.

when I first got into spraying lacquer, it took me a while to realize this difference but it’s an important difference and how you spray and how they combine changes things quite a bit as a result

If I was to spray using a spray bomb with auto paint. I’d clean and spray a fairly light coat and wait about 5 minutes until that paint is tack but not dry , then I’d spray a bit heavier coat and what happens is the tacky paint sort of clings on and accepts the next layer without it getting to the runny stage.. if it runs you put on too much. If you try to recoat before it dries properly after that layer it will bubble up and be a big mess. this is because the underlying layer is still off gassing as it hardens and that gas gets trapped and has no where it go so it bubbles the coat above up.

lacquer dries fast so you can load up the surface by doing light coats every 20 minutes, because they melt into each other but loading the surface and waiting for it to tack up like I described above, you can do with enamal but that technique won’t work with lacquer..

Phil