Originally Posted by
Mickey2
What is it you call French polish for sewing machines? I was tought French polishing for wood furniture. In the class I took the high gloss finish you see on guitars and violins was not called french polishing, but it's the same process; multiple layers of shellac dissolved in alcohol, and inbetween layers we sprinkled on a very fine milled stone dust to fill in the grain in the wood, sort of buffed up between applications. Shellac dries rather quickly. French polishing was finished by sanding down the gloss with the dust we used. It gave a flawless silky smooth finish which made the wood look very nice. The high gloss shine was made exactly the same way, but finishing of with a layer of shellac. We used woven cotton fabric, made into a ball for the buffing up between layers. On the web now, I have noticed they use the term French polishing for shellac treatments in general. These cabinet restorers had all kinds of traditional recepies for different polishes, waxes and treatments. I suspect Singer only dipped the machines in black dye and spray painted layers of shellac solution (there is a video on the web some where, but I have never found any detailed description of the process).
Glenn has info in his sticky specifically how to French polish an old sewing machine. You can use all your class methods if you don't have decals to worry about. Besides decals, shellac is what you are dealing with on the antique machines. Glenn is speaking from YEARS of much professional experience and he was taught in Germany by a master. A class is only going to show you how to do one project and give you some vague idea how to do something - same with sewing machine repairs. As you know, a class doesn't necessarily give you a whole lot of experience. A class can only give you knowledge, experience will give you wisdom. Wisdom goes a lot farther than knowledge in my book. You can spout off knowledge all day long with out exhibiting very much wisdom.