Pocket door at Mom and Dad's place

Hello out there in internet land! As usual, it's been WAY to long between posts. Actually, I've been pretty busy with school, so the blog has been idle for quite some time. I have a few projects I've done since then, but nothing too crazy. Here's what mom and dad's living room lookes like this week:

 Pepa helping buff the new wax finish. She's one hard working chicken, especially with all the international travel she's done lately!  It turned out way cheaper to order a door from Jerry's than to build it myself, plus, I didn't really have a whole lot of time. It came unfinished, so I decided to use one of the oldest finishes around: oil, shellac, and wax. The linseed oil goes on pretty easy with just a rag, then excess wiped off with a dry rag to achieve an even application. Normally, you should let the oil cure before moving on, but following instructions from Fine Woodworking's Finishing Guide ($9.99 well spent) the shellac is applied immediately after the oil in this circumstance, giving it a bit of surface lube.

 After several coats of amber shellac, I then finished with a clear wax finish applied with #0000 steel wool. The steel wool helps to even the shellac out as it applies the wax, giving a kind of wetsanding effect as the wax goes on. It was a real bugger to get into the corners. Using a new clean rag, it's buffing time. Just like you'd buff shoe polish, it takes a lot of elbow grease to make the wax really shine. When I go back in a few days, I'll take a special rotary brush that fits into a cordless drill, and do a high speed final buffing.

More to follow!

I hope to have pictures of my antique desk upgrade, more of the chicken coop, some pictures of mom and dad's kitchen remodel, and some other tinkering I've done since June. So stay tuned!