Thank you.

My favorite way to use shellac is with a ball of t-shirt material inside a good linen or cotton cloth. Wind up the ball and put just a bit of thinned shellac on the ball. Rub the shellac into the surface with a circular motion. It will be dry by time you get to the other side so you can start over. You are putting on a tiny amount each pass. After a few passes, put a couple drops of olive oil on the surface and include it in your next pass. Do this a few evenings and you will be amazed. It is the basic of French polishing, but I don't go to that extreme.

I watched a video on the technique you are talking about. It seems to me that applying with a brush is asking for trouble with me. I heard that shellac can be unforgiving and knowing me, i would have all kinds of brush streaks. I have a bag of t shirt material and i was just going to make the ball with that. Will i need to add denatured alcohol to my shellac? I have pre mixed shellac. (Turns out that zinsser is pre mixed 2 lb cut).

If it were me, I would put the zinsser in a squirt bottle, and some denatured alcohol in another, then give about equal squirts into the ball.

One other thing, the couple drops of olive oil is amazing how well it works.

That's what the guy on the video said too.

Here is my first attempt. These are the before and after. I worked on it for about 3 hours Sunday evening and about two hours today. I used the amber shellac for the first coat, then went with clear. I did use some olive oil. [ATTACH=CONFIG]613075[/ATTACH]
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You can clearly see where the veneer was peeled up and broken. I decided not to replace it, instead, I just glued it back down as well as I could and used wood putty for the rest.

cabinet refinish
 

Nice work. I don't use olive oil I use boiled linseed oil. I do the french polish method but for large cabinet I use 2" fine oil brush and brush the thin coats of shellac on the wood. I apply three coats then after about a week I rub down the whole with 0000 steel wool and wax. Here is a cabinet that has been brushed. No brush marks here.
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Glenn,
That is beautiful. I just don't really trust myself with a brush. One question though. I didn't really count how many coats I did, I have small bottles and added equal parts of shellac and denatured alcohol, just pretty much rubbed until the rag was somewhat dry, then repeated, is that okay? All in all, for that small piece was about 2 hours. What kind of wax do you use?