The top came back from the pro looking gorgeous. Unfortunately there were places where the finish had been damaged in shipment and I was going to have to do the finish over. I used the same technique as on the sewing machine case – a couple of heavy coats of straight shellac, wet sanding with 1000 grit paper between coats, then several applications of thinned shellac to get that silky, French Polish finish.
The music box sat on a frame with four legs. The legs were soft wood and were beat to hell.
To rehabilitate the legs I started by making a mold out of scrap wood lined with oiled packing tape.
I used epoxy to rough out the shape and give it strength, then finished the minor imperfections with bondo.
I tried some different ideas to match the black satin finish on the base and legs. In the end I settled on good old fashioned Rust-Oleum Black Satin. The gloss level is almost spot on, but this stuff is finicky. It reacts with everything – even itself – so you have to wait 48 hours to recoat. No matter how much I cleaned I had trouble with it reacting to the existing black finish. I resorted to coating the black parts with automotive primer/sealer before using the Satin Black.