Those are so very cool! Geeking out over here. Have you tried throwing any of those?

It's crossed my mind, but no. If you saw one up close you'd see the level of finish I take them to (400 grit). It's hard to convince my friends to even use them for kindling. They want to hang them up but tools are to be used IMO

They're really nice. Love the handles! Enjoy the work. That's a heck of a piece of rosewood!

Hey Steve, I found it. You still want a Stanley No. 8 cabinet scarper? Get me me your address again.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1710198407.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1710198407.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1710198407.jpg

Instruction sheet for above scraper - one of which I own:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1710198965.jpg

Thanks tons, fella. PM sent.

Nice thanks.

I think pretty much anything will work as a burnisher, right? Probably even a screwdriver or ratchet extension.

I've got a steel for kitchen knives, that would probably work as well, I think.

I've used a smooth screwdriver shank and also I've got an old valve stem. Anything that would be hardened - and preferably smooth. Socket extension would be fine.

I just use a screw driver. It still pretty sharp after all these years sitting in those old boxes in my shop.

Got your PM. Swamped this week, but will make it out to the post office sometime next week.

No worries. You're doing me the favor. Take all of the time you want.

Your kitchen steel likely has mini groves. To roll a burr you need a very smooth round object. Shiny smooth. I don't go to the 75º extreme. I just start level and make 3-4 passes to about 30 degrees. If you are clever you can make a burr on both sides and flip the thing over when needed. That way you have 4 edges before rolling the burr again. Every other or 3 rd time you should use the file to square up the edge for new burrs.

New wood a burr might last a long time. Using it to remove finish and the burr can go away in a few scrapes. It pays to buy good scrapers. One I have is from a restaurant supply and used on griddles. It's very stiff so the corners could dig in. The thinnest in the kit is about a 16th. You can flex that to scrape just an inch wide path.

Our Steel is round, but only has the ridges that you mention on half and is smooth on the other half (kind of weird and unusual, I know).

Then it's good.

I often use a utility knife blade. Works great. For larger surface, I just use my random orbital sander and step down in grit. Of course, with a glass of wine on one hand and a cig. on the other.

Grandpa Amu makes a lot of creative things using only hand tools:
https://vid.puffyan.us/search?q=Grandpa+Amu+

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711726669.jpg
From this^
to this

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711726799.jpg
1.5'x5' end/display table, whatever. Wanted to keep it simple and delicate looking but strong. 5"x.5" stainless steel doweling tight fitted with epoxy plus a little detail on the tapered legs. All Rosewoodhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711727450.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711727450.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711727450.jpg
Avoided leg bracing with the steel dowels which also add a decorative feature. In the finishing process now. A few more coats of Tung oil and done

That a beauty, Greg. I can say although I work with wood often, I don't actually build anything. So my hat's off to you for a really nice piece. I do finishing though. Not refinishing per se, but conservation in a sense. In reality, I do a lot of just saving what is there w/o wholesale stripping.

The reason I post is because in the last couple or 3 years I've been inundated with MCM furniture, walnut or teak, and sometimes I get rosewood on other pieces. My last restoration was an inlayed rosewood lid from at least 100 years ago.

So I use oils as you are. My suggestion is, if you don't mind, is too use some rottenstone on a couple of intermediate coats. Try that on a scrap and let me know. I've had tremendous success using RS and pumice when the finish is a little more coarse.

Most of the time I get a glass smooth finish that isn't high gloss. Wax does come into play, but that's another paragraph. One thing I do know is that it takes more time than patience. I can easily spend some time each day for 10 days on a finish. (In good weather.)

Thanks. Never tried a stone but I will. I abrade between coats with 600 grit paper and hit it with 0000 steel wool after the final

With just 2 applications of Tung oil the finish will be adequate yet not glossy. I wanted this piece to shine so I'll do 6 or 7 wipes. As I'm sure you're aware, Tung oil is a really hard protective finish, not what people think of an oil

Wow, rottenstone and plumice? That's old timers talking. I had an old timer back in the mid 80s show me a few trick. I was making furniture back then trying to make a few bucks going to college. He was often hired to finish my pieces.

The same time, I learn about the art of French polish.

I often do French polish. Funny, but there are as many ways to do that as there are finishers. As I explained to another member here a while back, there is a trilogy or synergy to 3 things: shellac, oil and wax. You can combine any 2 or all 3 in numerous compounds. Denatured alcohol is involved as well as mineral spirits (or turpentine), so it can get creative.

Ya know, with all the new tech finishes I always seem to be going back to the old school natural stuff. I use Shellac (made from beetles) a lot, it's extremely durable. It's what hardwood floors were finished with back in the day. I use bees wax with orange oil for certain projects and the only thing I finish my vehicles with is Carnuba (made from palm trees). Mother nature often provides the best materials I guess

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711900389.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711900389.jpg
Ok, I think 8's enough. This is 8 coats of Tung oil. You need to wait 24 hours between coats 1 and 3 but for all of the following coats I do 2 per day. (It dries much faster after the initial couple coats) Hard to see in the crappy phone pic but it starts to give depth and look like clear plastic. It's fairly hard now but doesn't fully cure for about a month. Tung oil comes from the Tung tree

I’m going to need to read back up on French polish soon as I’m making a veneered jewelry box for our woodworking guild’s annual show- should have started much earlier, but who doesn’t work a bit better under pressure?

I have 21 sheets of Indonesian Madrone Burl that I will quad match and book match to cover the plywood carcass.

Because the sheets are knife cut and extremely thin, they end up being virtually identical, so by using two mirrors at 90 degrees, you can get an idea of how 4 sheets will form a pattern when cut at that spot and joined together.

Here’s how I have chosen to join these.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711901737.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711901765.jpg

Looks fantastic.

Stumpy Nubs (James Hamilton) did a vid on tung oil and said most were not very good and some not even genuine. You have to had found the good stuff. I'd like to get some.

Made 3 sets of veneer sheets that match: one for the top, one for inside the lid and the other for the bottom- just in case anyone looks underneath!

I sand the sheet edges in pairs to get a straight edge on this sanding shoot board I made that lets me get a straight line while running angled aluminum with stick on sandpaper on it.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711905001.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711905051.jpg

You can find pure Tung oil. Minwax Tung oil is mixed with varnish but i think still produces a beautiful hard finish

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711909416.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711909416.jpg
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711909416.jpg
Preview
Rwest, this is a German clock box I restored. I replaced missing inlays and added the back veneers, fenials (and crow). I finished with a rattle can of lacquer. The flat white spray tips on rattle cans these days work really well. I've rattle canned a perfect finish on furniture out of a can. A spray finish is easier to apply on intricate pieces. Lacquer is very stinky for a couple of days though. The jewelry box is a 100 year old prison art piece I stripped and refinished the same way. French polish is a great, tunable finish. It's Shellac thinned down with alcohol. You can make your own with Shellac flakes

Beautiful work Greg!

I’ve done a fair amount of shellac work and have flakes here although they are a few years old and I have heard various things about shelf life of the dry flakes. I’ll probably mix a batch and see if it drys hard.

Just completed a frantic glue up and got the sides of the box into the vacuum bag.

I smartly decided to do the lid and bottom separately to save my sanity.

The pump unit was built by me from plans. It only runs if the vacuum drops, so it isn’t running non-stop and has a buffer tank setup to hold some vacuum in reserve.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711916011.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1711916068.jpg

I have an Northfield #4 table saw with a sliding table and today I did the 5 cut test to see if my crosscut fence was square to the blade. Damn, over a 29.5” board, I might have been out.0005 that is 5 ten thousands! Super happy as I wanted to make this box very accurate.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712090037.jpg

8 coats looks great!
You can get real tung here https://www.realmilkpaint.com/
I was wondering if yours was one of the mixes.
Wow, fantastic. I can't wait to see once you get the pieces out of the vacuum and put together!

I let the veneered panels sit for over a day to make sure the glue was completely cured and then I sanded them to 220 grit.

The deep red color of the veneer completely sanded away, must have been age or oxidation on the surface. I did a sample with shellac and the color comes somewhat back; maybe a bit more brown than reddish.

I used my old blonde flakes and after 3 nights of eating pasta to empty a jar, I mixed up a small batch to test if the flakes were still good. They were stored in a dark cool place with controlled humidity. I also ordered a fresh batch, why take chances?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712090420.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712090508.jpg

Keep those flakes in a jar instead of a zip lock baggie and they'll be good indefinitely.
I've done glue ups in a vacuum before and the pressure is astronomical (literally since it's atmospheric pressure doing the work). I pin nail my glued up pieces to keep them from slipping out of position and the vacuum bag works better than a plywood press.

I'm surprised about the color change, but also not.

I've seen it in a video (Rob Cosman, I think), and I've seen it myself to some extent. It seems like cutting wood with something very sharp (chisel, hand plane, whatever) produces (at least when raw) the best looking wood. Sanding often seems to dull the color/contrast/appearance of the wood. Now I'm not sure if the dullness is only partially or completely brightened up with a finish is applied. I would assume that applying a oil, wax, or other finish would brighten up a dulled/sanded surface. I don't know if it would ever be as bright as a planed/scraped surface or not.

I think one of the big ww magazines did a test of sanding vs hand planning and found that once a film building finish was applied, they couldn’t tell the difference.

There is definitely a visible difference before the finish is applied though.

Got new shellac flakes and mixed them up. The veneer color comes back once they have finish on them. I made one board a sample board to do finishing and cutting test on.

I put my plywood and veneer blade on the saw and did a cut- even the unsupported side where the blade is forcing the material down came out almost perfectly. In reality, I should be able to make most of the cuts in supported mode.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712625812.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712625855.jpg

Cut all the sides down to size. 5” tall, long sides are 13” and the ends are 7”, but they will be between the front and back, so the side will be 8” long total.

I only veneer the insides when I build a veneered box because when I cut the top free, I don’t want to lose the outside grain match to the saw kerf- inside isn’t noticeable and would be very difficult to glue in after the fact.

I will be assembling the sides with 4mm Dominoes.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712701071.jpg

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1712701161.jpg

Time to cut out for the bottom and top. Veneer is so easy to get chip out in, especially burls. I have found using a marking gauge to slice it before cutting or routing stops chip out.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1713041415.jpg

Finally, cut the slots, sized the bottom and glued it together. Did it on a granite surface plate, why not stack the odds for a straight, square and true box?

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1713041579.jpg