Use and Abuse of Friction Polish

hi I'm the Rick and Rick turns and I'm here to talk about friction polish again how to use it and how to abuse it well maybe how not to abuse it yeah friction polish first of all how do we use friction polish if you've ever used it before I'm sure you know pretty darn simple now the first thing to remember about friction polish is always shake it up it only takes a couple of minutes for the shellac and the oil to separate out and it'll be real obvious when that happens you'll see a very clear definition between the two kind of a amber liquid up here and then a shellac ii blond liquid down here so for applying friction polish I would use a paper towel because I'm incredibly cheap I use half of the paper towel and I just fold it up into a small very small pad like this so I've got about four layers of paper towel there and incidentally for paper towel I would definitely suggest you get one that doesn't have any printing on it I don't think it would happen but you don't want to take any chance on having the the ink from the paper towel will bleed off into your wood piece this is a piece of walnut ice ended it from 150 all the way down to a thousand grit which is the family finest sandpaper that I have on hand and so what I'm going to do now is just put on the friction polish now I've seen this done in several ways the way I do it is to just wipe it on while the lathe is off for the first code only and the reason I usually do this because if there's any beads in here or any other kind of figuring you've done it can be difficult to get the polish when it's just kind of soaked into the cloth into those little grooves into little edges of it so that's why I put my tone initially with the lathe off and once it's on there I put on some more polish not much just about that much I stand back cause it's going to spit up off the workpiece initially I've got my laid going at about 2700 rpm and so I just put on another layer of friction polish on top of what I just did and I'm actually putting a lot of pressure on here enough to burn my hand there are enough to be uncomfortable but that's where the friction and friction polish comes from so there we have it this is one or if you want to count it as two coats of friction polish it looks fairly good I'm going to give it maybe 15 seconds to to settle or to harden or whatever and then using the same place on the same piece of paper towel a little more flick friction polish not very much this time same thing yo hi what okay watch out for the heat I doubt that it shows on camera but this with the third or second code depending on how your accounting finish friction polish is definitely shinier than the first so I'm going to call this the second coat and give it a just a moment to harden a little notice right up here this is still the unfinished wood that's deliberate I left it that way to show it all right let's put out a little more friction polish once again in this case just it's really only a very small amount trying to leave back on and here we go you and I think that does look even better although sometimes it's hard to tell so this is about three coats of Polish and take a look at the applicator here you can see it's got kind of a kind of a semi hard coating on it now this is the solidified shellac and oil and so forth and after it's heated up it kind of glosses over a little bit and that's really what you want to see you don't want to take your your applicator rag off of here and see that it's still wet you want to see that it's got that little shine where it's solidified some all right that's three coats I'm going to put on one more just for kicks a little bit more polish once again it's not very much okay so that's about four coats and I can't really see much difference between this coat and the previous coat how many coats on it you want to apply well that's questionable building up more coats might give it a more of a a deep finished look although I put all update coach before and didn't really notice that much difference so let's try one more coat and see what happens just a little bit this is number five and you know you're doing it right when your fingers get hot of course if you use a thicker pad that might not be noticeable and let's take a look at that looks about the same to me it's got a nice high-gloss shine on it which is what I'm looking for so that's the basic application of friction polish now let's see let's work on this piece right here I just want to try something here just wipe them to dust off at the moment okay going to go get a fresh piece of paper towel as in this so what we're going to do now is apply it with the lathe running and you know I've seen a number of Turner's online YouTube videos and everything they just drip it on while the lathe is running so I'm going to try that out I don't typically do it that way all right shake it up now you definitely want to stay out of the way of it because it's really it's gonna splatter there once again you got to get the heat on your fingers take a look and that is very nice shine really it's about the same shine as over here maybe not quite as bright so I'm going to try one more coat but hot alright let's have a look at that it looks great just like this side does as I said I don't put it on while the lathe is running because I don't think of really going to get down into the little crevices around beads and stuff like that but you've got a tapered dispenser point like this you can just follow the lasers running squeeze it right into that bead and get good coverage that way so overall I think you can apply it either way you want to put it on while the lathe is running or put it on with the lace top for the first coat and then for subsequent coats put it directly on the paper towel and wipe it off or for subsequent quotes just drip it on just like I did on this side either way seems to work really really good I've sanded this side with 150 240 and 320 grits of sandpaper on this side I sanded it with these three grips but I also sanded with 400 600 800 and 1000 so this side is sanded much much higher than this side now going to put friction polish on here and we'll see what actually happens here theoretically this side should be a better finish than this side friction polish are you separated clean up throw my applicator and wipe it on and make sure it's all covered there and I'm going to do that on both sides yeah this side head about maybe 20 or 30 seconds to dry it'll let that dry out a little bit flip my applicator cloth over so I've got a reasonably waiting surface it's actually kind of dirty but hey all right that's long enough now I'm going to apply friction polish all over the whole piece got a little bit of polish on there but okay it may not show on the camera but I can definitely tell a difference between here and here well this one's still shined up but it does not have the shine that this side has and that's only one coat of polish so wool friction polish one more coat start on this side this time to even things up that's hot all right compare the two by sliding along it to look for the shine this side is definitely better not content to leave well enough alone I'm going to put on one more coat and check it once again this site has a good shine this ice has a great shine so the rule of thumb that I've read of sanding it very fine to get a high shine I'm pretty sure that's true this side was only sanded to 320 this side was sanded to 1000 and it's a better shine but keep in mind this is still a pretty good shine and you may not want to fool around with all the extra sanding okay for my next test I want to take a look at slow speed versus high speed do you put the friction polish on with the lathe running high very fast or very slow now captain Eddie recommends slow and I've seen a number of people in videos doing it slow my first experience with friction polish the instruction said apply with a lathe at high speed so what I'm going to do here this side is going to be slow speed this side is going to be high speed I got the leg set on about 2,900 at this point so I'm going to put on the high speed first got the same applicator I've been using paper towel my friction polish which I've already stirred up to make sure it's good okay and just like I always do I'm going to apply it with the lathe off all right I've got even coverage over the whole piece so now I'm going to put a little bit more on here and put on the first coat and as always I put it on until my fingers burn all right well that looks good for a first coat anyway so one more time second coat okay play hot second color looks really good I'm going to stop there now for my next test on the slow speed first I'll adjust the length let's see what my slow speed is got about four hundred four hundred speed on this side fresh cloth bore less price anyway turn this up and first I put it on with the laid off all right that's that's got everything coated all right good now a little more friction polish turn it on slow all right I've got a good coat on there no streaks anything like that looks very nice so as I did with this side I'm going to put on a second coat okay now I never got the applicator up to to being hot not even warm actually but this looks real good so the difference I see between high speed and low speed is I think the length of time it takes to get it on this one I spent less time polishing this one took more time polishing than this site and now at the moment the high speed side does not look quite as shiny as the low-speed side so low speed might actually be better I'm not sure going to go back to the high speed side and polish it some more at high speed we'll see okay that's about 2700 this piece are still just very slightly damp I'm gonna go ahead and just buff this a little more all right okay so this got some extra buffing it's still you know it's still not quite as shiny as the low-speed side well that surprises me because it appeared to go on better although I mean it appeared to result in a better shine on the low-speed side but the difference is very very small and it probably doesn't even show in the video as I am having to get my head right down to it and get a reflection off of here to see about the shy this one's still a little bit higher than the low-speed side well that's that's interesting all right let's go on to the next test my next test is going to be the type of applicator you use I've got a fresh piece of paper towel here and I've got a piece of think these are probably at one time lightweight blue jeans but it's sort of denim not real heavy denim and I want to check and see does the applicator make any difference because I did read one comment on a manufacturer's site that you don't want to use applicators that have a real strong weed because it will leave marks on the surface now this doesn't have much of a weave and this has a little bit of a weave it may not be harsh enough for this test but I'm going to try it out so this side going to get paper towel this side going to get denim rubbing shaking this up put them along here and rub it in with the lathe off turn the lathe on that's a nice shine now I'm going to put on another coat okay good shine back to my pseudo Dunham here whatever it is and a little polish there and wipe it on thoroughly okay it's owned all over it first go to follow looks good don't don't see any marks in it second coat of polish that looks good and this looks good once again this side looks a little bit better and wandering is because this side has it's gents has had a chance to dry out a little bit more so then I'll wait a couple of minutes and then we'll recheck the results it's been a couple of minutes and there's no real difference this site is just a little bit duller than this site I think so I want to check one thing out with that it's possible that this side of the wood is not taking polish as well as the side that seems really unlikely but I think I can eliminate it by polishing again with this rag if the rag is a difference it should come out as bright is this little bit of polish and that was a lot of pressure I think this site is just as bright as this side so it may be that a rag instead of a paper towel is a better applicator this is a fairly limited test here and there's not very much difference anyway between the two sides for this test I want to test the the effect of putting a lot of pressure on it to see if that makes a difference in the the final result I noticed when I did a slow speed test versus of the high speed test on the slow speed side which was right here I really got a terrific finish maybe even a little bit better than this site and even though I put a lot of pressure on it I never really built up much heat there maybe a little bit but not nearly the side I get at a high speed so for this test I'm going to do I put the lathe on slow back on slowest back on 400 and on this side I'm going to do high pressure and this side I'm going to do low pressure and we'll see what difference it makes okay I'm going to use paper towel applicator again I got my polish shaken up put some on here and just like I've done before I'm going to put it on by hand for the first coat make sure I get good coverage not really an issue when you've got a piece like this it has no beads or any kind of detailing into it but I want to be consistent for the whole test all right it's got a good coverage there got to put a little more on my applicator slow-speed and this is going to be high pressure all right that was high-pressure I got a good shine I think one more coat a little bit more polish once again very high pressure from the very beginning to the end all right I've got a nice shine on there switch to a clean piece of towel and this side is going to be low pressure low speed low pressure low speed high pressure and put it on with a lathe off low speed no pressure beautiful shine all right one more coat great slop it all over no pressure well just enough to hold it up against the rotating piece there no pressure not very much length of time polishing and it looks great okay and we compare it to this side and it looks a little better than this side so I'm going to take this side put one more coat on at low speed and low pressure low speed high pressure it doesn't look quite as good most speed low pressure this might be an unfair test at this point this site only has two coats the size has three and okay that I think I've got the same degree of shine on both sides interesting so it appears to me that low pressure and no heat generated is given me a better surface or a better finish rather than low speed and high pressure just put it up to high speed and just put one more coat on and see what happens alright I'm back up the high speed so this is going to be high speed no pressure both sides which have already been very highly polished going to do low pressure again at high speed now let's take a look just because of the high speed I did get some heat generated even at even at low pressure well I think they're about the same I guess that's not too surprising well I've got this finish on here you realize it hasn't even had a minute to solidify but I'm going to do a wear test I am going to put the weight back down to low speed all right we're back down to about 400 and I'm going to run my hand over just to simulate we're now probably the items you're putting this on are going to get that much wear so this may not be a valid test plus it's finished hasn't had a chance to sit for an hour or a day it may not be a valid test let's give it a try I'm just going to hold it like this back and forth all along it I can definitely feel some heat there all right the finish on both sides has gold just a little bit I guess that's not really too surprising but it didn't dull significantly it's only a little bit duller than it was before so I think handling wise friction polish is just going to hold up fairly well and drip water honor to something or especially alcohol that's not the case I'm sure but just for normal handling I think you can expect it to keep a good shine on there for this test I want to test basically polish that has been capped and not really allowed to evaporate I hope against polish that I have left sitting out now this should be a little thicker some of the alcohol should have evaporated off I've had it sitting in this cup for hours now so this test is going to be to see whether a more dilute solution shines better or worse than a thicker solution this side is going to get it from this bottle which I don't believe I keep it capped all the time I don't believe it really has much chance to evaporate standard protocol for me put it on with a lathe off first okay that looks good a little more polish on there I'm going back to burning my fingers all right looks good one more coat you that's hot all right my shine now this side is going to get the pollicis been sitting open for a while and I'm going to stir that up without slopping it and a try and get just a little bit on here from the cup whoops that's more than I wanted to get let's shake some of that off I want to keep the conditions of the tests the same so rub it on laid off this is actually getting a good bit more polish so I'm not going to refresh the polish on here it's still pretty damn high pressure looks good or more hi ha ha okay both sides look fantastic I don't think I can see any difference at all on that particular test now that may be because I've only had that polish sitting out for a few hours and maybe maybe it hasn't evaporated enough to make a difference or maybe it just doesn't make any difference but I'm going to call it at that I don't want to wait another day to let it sit out overnight but it certainly looks good right there okay let me try and silver eyes what I've found out from this test or what I think I found out from this test first of all how much polish is enough polish I tried putting on too much polish I really try slopping it all over the place and then other than getting it sprayed all over my face when I didn't move in time I didn't see much difference between putting a very heavy coat on at once or putting a really light coat on at once so that would seem to say you want to conserve your polish just put on a little bit and you'll probably get better results or at least you'll probably not use up your polishes fast secondly sanding what degree of sanding is really necessary or not necessary perhaps what degree of sanding is useful and my sanding test I sanded one side down to 320 and one side down to 1,000 I could definitely tell a difference between the 320 and the 1,000 sites the 1000 side was much better okay do you put the friction polish on at a low speed or at a high speed as I mentioned before I always thought high speed was the way to go but when I ran the test on this chunk of wood the low speed did just as well and maybe better than the high speed it was pretty close but it the low speed did not seem to come up with an appreciably pourer finish than the high speed did that's the applicator I normally use paper towels so I tried it this time with paper towels and a piece of not coarse woven cloth but also not really fine woven cloth and I couldn't really tell well that's pretty hard to tell at that point I I think the I think the cloth actually gave me a little bit better finish but that could be due to other factors that the cloth not absorbing the Polish quite as fast when you first put it on or something like that in any event if you put it on with a cloth it's a safety issue right there because if the cloth gets stuck up in here it's going to be whipping around and everything long as it's not attached to you you're probably okay let's see pressure do you need to put a lot of pressure on it or is just a little pressure going to work hot versus cold in effect because low pressure you don't generate as much heat coming up my conclusion on that once again it was very close but I would say really that a lot of pressure does not seem to be needed even though it generates more heat now that may be because it doesn't take a lot of heat really to to set that polish a little bit of heat generated from low pressure is going to work as well as a lot of heat generated from high pressure so I would say that's that's kind of a draw there and find like putting on thick polish so there's been sitting out for a while and putting on a basically fresh polish that hasn't been allowed to sit and evaporate it's pretty hard to tell right there as well and and I think that maybe that I just haven't I just haven't left my polish out open long enough for a significant evaporation to occur so I don't know the answer to that anyway so there it is put it on faster slow put it on heavy put it on with a lot of pressure put it over the top and put it over the rag put it on with a paper towel basically there are some differences but not a lot so you can probably put it on any old way you want to and it's still going to look really good there were a few differences and I might change my polishing from high speed to low speed so put it on any way you want to as long as you put it on alright see you next video

Channel: RickTurns

Views: 86,720

Rating: 4.8103638 out of 5

Keywords: woodturning, woodturned, friction polish, shellac, finishing

Id: LN3XO91iRuM

Length: 34min 44sec (2084 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2015