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I was just looking up ways of polishing my Victor L-door and I came across this article: http://www.antiquerestorers.com/Articles/SAL/rub.htm . Would this really shine the cabinet to a high gloss as stated in the article? I wanted to try wets sanding and rubbing with rottenstone but a L-door is a machine that I don't want to blindly enter polishing and end up screwing up. So what's your opinion on this process.
-Tom

Per the article: "If you cut through all the coats of finish in some spots, you have to start all over by sanding and applying more coats, so BE CAREFUL, especially on edges and corners where it can be very easy to cut through to the raw wood."

The first question is - Are you refinishing this machine? If yes, this will work. If NO, then I wouldn't attempt it on a good original finish.

The original finish is aged and dirty from years of normal wear and tear. You would have to remove the dirt and grime (some would say patina), before polishing the finish and that might require sanding which would thin the finish. That is why you start with an abrasive to remove dust particles from a new finish.

Then, you have to consider that the original finishes were probably not polished to a mirror like piano finish, so why would you want yours to be different than original? I have seen machines that were done this way and honestly, they look overdone. If you were removing an original finish that was damaged and for whatever reason you wanted a finish like this, it could be accomplished as stated, providing that you start with a completely new finish. I suppose you could apply orange shellac over the existing finish and re-amalgamate the original shellac and then polish it, but your concern was for screwing up your machine. That being said, clean the finish with a good cleaner, then wax it and I think you will be better off.

Before doing anything drastic, try cleaning the original finish with Kotton Klenser and post some photos. Jerry Blais

I wanted to answer the same questions you have for myself, so I bought a sixty-dollar VV-XI from a guy on Craigslist to experiment on. It was in about what I'd call "average" condition, which is exactly what I wanted to start with: the finish was whole, but dull due to the usual crazing of the shellac that we see all the time. I used this article (which I posted here in another thread, and which covers a lot of the same steps as the one you linked to), http://www.woodworkersjournal.com/rubbi ... tin-gloss/ as a rough guide to the process. Here's what I've learned to do:

Starting with 400-grit wet-or-dry sandpaper lubricated with mineral spirits, gently and cautiously rub an area of rough finish just enough to flatten the peaks of the "bumps" in the shellac. Use your fingertips and/or the palm of your hand rather than a block, and work slowly in a few passes, starting with minimal pressure: the object is to take away the least possible amount of the original finish necessary to smooth it down. Wipe the surface off and check your work frequently, to be certain you're not going too deep. Running your bare fingers over it, you should be able to feel a new smoothness on the surface very shortly, and that's when you should stop using the 400-grit. After wiping down the surface with a soft rag, repeat the process with 600-grit, lubricated again with mineral spirits. This will serve to fine-tune what you've already done, and should give you a very smooth surface that may -- probably should -- still show a little bit of crazing when wiped down and examined closely. Another light pass, this time with 0000 steel wool saturated with mineral spirits, may be useful here to further even things out, but, depending on the overall starting condition of your finish, is probably optional.

Apply pumice powder next, using a rag lubricated once again with mineral spirits, rubbing gently in the direction of the grain. I've been using a small piece of micro-fiber shop rag for this, though something like cotton t-shirt cloth works well too. Wipe the surface off and examine your progress often while you work, to be sure that you're developing a uniform surface. Give a bit of extra attention to any areas that don't seem entirely uniform with the rest.

Next, with a new rag, use rottenstone powder in the same way, rubbing gently in the direction of the finish. Wipe down with mineral spirits, then apply it again rubbing very lightly all over in small circles. This last part will leave a nearly-invisible scratch pattern that allows light to reflect from the polished surface in a uniform way, erasing any linear "streaks" that might have resulted from rubbing only with the grain in the previous steps. Then clean the surface thoroughly again with mineral spirits, wipe it completely dry, and let it sit for awhile before applying a good paste wax and buffing, then repeating the waxing process. Two coats of wax are necessary.

It's a painstaking bit of work, and I think it's best approached over a period of days or weeks rather than in one long session, but it's well worthwhile. The XI now looks very good, and is probably as close as it can be to its original appearance and performance; I don't think it's very obvious that any restoration has been done to the original finish at all. I've rebuilt the motor and the soundbox, and I'm about to give it to an eight-year-old who's crazy about it, along with a pile of various 78s. With any luck, he'll enjoy it for years and -- who knows? -- maybe he'll become a collector.

As usual, I neglected to take a before picture of the XI -- I almost always forget to do this. (I don't even have "before" pics of most areas of my big ol' Victorian house, which has come a long way in fifteen years, and I regret constantly not having taken them. Ya'd think I'd learn...) And my camera's on the fritz now anyway, so I can't even attach a photo of the finished work, which would of course be worth another thousand words or so.

One of this year's winter projects will be to apply these steps to my own L-Door, the finish of which is already in pretty good shape but just needs a little burnishing. I expect a good result.