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For the French Polishers.......wonder what oil you use ? Have seen a few oils mentioned, mineral, walnut ,olive ,etc,. Wonder what are the ups and downs of the various oils?
Tom

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Mineral and Olive are non drying Oils, Walnut and Linseed are considered drying (providing they haven't had an anti oxidant added). Some people think that a drying Oil become part of the finish, if it does it's an incredibly tiny amount. I suppose it would then form a Hybrid varnish, part Spirit part Oil varnish. Oil and alcohol are supposedly miscible but perhaps somewhat limited. Maybe the Chemist types can answer that.
Whichever you use (they all work) make sure you remove (spirit off) the excess Oil. Leave it on and you'll just encourage witness lines, even with the non drying Oil - which seems to turn into a gummy deposit.

I just finished my first FP guitar using U-Beaut Shellac, for the oil I used Dr Ducks which was recommended by Steve from VA who has done a ton of guitars this way. It worked great for me, so it must be pretty forgiving considering it was my first attempt at FP.

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Kurt Thomas

"There's a first time for everything even if you do it by mistake."

Even drying oils work their way to the surface after the finish sits overnight. Drying oils dry so slow, I don't actually think they become part of the finish. If you spirit off after bodying, it takes the oil off anyway. I have tried Walnut and olive oil, and quit using Walnut oil and stayed with Olive oil. Seems to work better in smaller amounts, to me.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I've used Walnut, Olive, and now raw filtered Linseed.
They all work fine, my favorite is the one I'm using at the moment.

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I use mineral oil. It's cheap and doesn't go rancid.

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John Cavanaugh
Saint Paul, MN
"What could possibly go wrong?"

IF you use walnut (or linseed) oil, it's important to spirit off thoroughly, especially if the finish is going to sit for a day or two. Walnut has a nice feel to work with, but because of the tendency of it to seep to the top and dry, it's is a bit of a pain. I rarely use it anymore. Olive oil is less trouble overall for me.

That was exactly my experience.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

No oil at all for me.
I control the movement of the pad through the degree of charge, cut , pressure and pattern of
the pad.

Light Olive oil ... refrigerate it ... take it out of the frig as needed and decant a bit as it thaws, giving you the lightest of the light.

I'm with David. I've found I get more consistent results by not using oil.
Mike

Same here. If the pad is loaded properly, it glides smoothly, but if not, then it drags. Very obvious whether it's working or not, whereas with oil you have to watch for the vapor trail, which is usually hard to see. Also easier to see how far along you are when there's no oil on the surface to make it look shinier than it really is.

I may start using oil again sometime after I have more experience, to reduce wear and tear on the shoulder. The friction is not much with a properly loaded pad, but over the course of hours of rubbing, I think oil would be a bit nicer. But for any beginners reading this thread, I'd definitely recommend doing the first few without oil.

I'm working on #16 all have been FP.
I tried olive oil and walnut oil on a couple of them but now I'm back to no oil, too much oil can mess you up.
You really can get a good finish without oil and I think it's a good idea to learn the process that way.
Once I feel that I have it perfected I may try oil again but I don't see that happening in the near future.

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I've heard about this for years, but I still can't get my head around doing FP with no oil. I tried it a few times and the pad simply grabs immediately, I get a bunch of fuzz and a mucked up surface. It boggles my mind that this would be recommended for beginners. That said, I often use very little oil, and truth be told at times have used no more than a quick wipe of the pad on my forehead.

Sure, I've seen people french polishing without oil, but they were doing what I would consider pulling it on. That's fine, but IMO it's not FP. Still, I know some of you are quite experienced, and must be telling the truth... So how is it that you do it??? Video?

BTW I am very experienced at FP, probably thousands of hours between furniture restorations and instruments.

Ha! Yes that oil on the surface can really fool you and make you think you are done! Very disappointing when you get rid of the oil and the shine went with it!
Mike

Hmm, perhaps I shall rescind my recommendation then, and switch to "try every combination imaginable until something works" Because that seems to be pretty much how FP is.

I'm still basically a noob, and have only polished one ukulele and two guitar soundboards since switching to oil-less, but all have gone very well compared to hours of struggle for mediocre results on my first two guitars with oil. The rest of my instruments have been wiped-on shellac, which I personally like, but is probably too "rugged" for most people.

If the pad grabs and fuzzes, you probably have too much shellac and not enough alcohol, or you were moving too slow when you made contact with the surface. Starting is the trickiest part, because you need to be moving fast horizontally, but gently contact the surface so it doesn't splat. Once you're on, just rub in circles with plenty of pressure on the pad and it's just like everyone says it should be.

What I like about it is that it's obvious when it isn't working, so you don't waste time rubbing only to find out that nothing was happening, or worse that you were removing shellac.

Greg B,
I think the key here is the sequence and direction of pulls not using oil.
The pad without oil is quite unforgiving if you lap over a pull that hasn't been laid down in the last 30 seconds or so.
I use a sequence of straight pulls.
For instance, here is the sequence for FP'ing a guitar top with the bridge on.
You can easily see where I avoid lapping anything not laid down immediately prior, hope this makes it clearer to you:

Ah, a "finish with the bridge already on" guy.

I'm with Greg, can't imagine doing it completely without oil, but I have to say that I never put enough oil on the pad to constitute a true drop - something that would actually fall from the nozzle of the applicator bottle by itself. It's always more like wiping a slight droplet off the end of the nozzle. I don't go to the effort to wipe it on my forehead first though

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Yes I would love to see a video with no oil. Do you still do a circular application.

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Mike McNerney

Early stages you can do the circles, figure of eights etc. Once the polish has built up you can't stay on the surface for very long, the tackiness of the finish doesn't allow it. It then becomes 'apply and move', you'll soon find out how much the surface will allow. If it grabs, forget it. Allow it to dry more. An extra thin shellac cut helps as well, it flashes off a little quicker. It's the idea of very thin layers drying faster than one thick layer.
You don't have to bother with the circles either. If the underlying wood surface is flat enough the straight lines will work perfectly fine. The circles just help to fill the micro voids and micro pores by pushing the shellac into them. You can even fill real wood pores with Shellac using cross grain directions with the pad (not that I'm advising it), it just takes a mighty long time but nowhere near as long if you were doing just straight lines. That's basically what the circles do, help even out the surface a little and it does it faster. Most French Polishers (at least these days) use abrasives to level, so the circles are somewhat less important.

Actually Jim I'm a "bridge off" kind of guy in my own new construction (classicals) but I've redone a number of guitars recently (tops only) at client request for which the "bridge on" technique was the way to go.
I think as Michael reiterated, the straight pull approach is what works for the oil-less technique.
For a top without a bridge simply substitute parallel pulls for 6-20 on my diagram and you pretty much have it.
Best

When not using oil, a technique that is invaluable to me is to orient the muneca "bow up" in the direction of travel. Seems obvious, but took me a little trial and error to figure it out, and it really makes a difference,
Mike

I'm with the rest who can't imagine not using oil, it makes it so nice and smooth. A little dab will do ya. I've only ever used olive oil because that's how I learned it. Taste good too and there is always some in my cupboard

Thanks for the responses on this newfangled oil-less technique. That's very helpful. It sounds like what you guys are doing is kind of like a hybrid between pulling and (what I would call) glazing. I suspect that it is rather slow, and I am impatient, so not sure it's for me, but I may try again sometime.

DennisK: you're kind of right about "try every combination imaginable until something works" method. It does help if you can get an old timer to show you, but there's not many of those left around.

I agree that the two most common beginner problems are a pad that's too wet, and too much oil.

There's not a lot wrong with the Oil technique. Just make sure you remove it (spirit off) after each and every session. You don't want Oil (whether drying or non drying) sitting on the surface for hours at a time. There's a chance you will encounter problems if you don't remove it, certainly don't let it sit overnight.
The Oil-less technique isn't really glazing (glazing uses an very dry pad with hardly any shellac and a touch of alcohol). In the later stages (or even from the off) It's more like brushing it on with a pad! You get the advantage of very thin 'layers' that dry fast, which isn't really the case with a brush.