This is a post in a series of 31 Days of Wood Finishing. See the intro post with all the topics here.
Above is a table I recently French Polished.
There is a mystique about French Polishing. Some claim that it is the most beautiful finish ever created. It has it’s own vocabulary like “Charging the rubber“, or “spiriting off“. You touch down, and lift off when you apply it, and even use figure eights. Maybe it is just the name that makes it sound elegant.
French polishing has a long history. A lot of antiques have survived hundreds of years because of this polish/ technique. The name describes the finish, and the technique to apply it.
I use french polishing to renew old, damaged finishes on antiques.
French polishing has a reputation of being difficult to apply, or arcane, but it can get easier with practice (I promise).
In the next article in this series I will discuss how to apply this finish on wood.
Zeke Willard