Oil and French Polishing

[Sawyer]

Despite being taught to use light oil to lubricate the rubber, I always thought it strange to introduce a substance so incompatible with shellac and meths. Having read elsewhere that oil is not necessary, I tried this for myself, quickly agreed and have never used it since.

However I've long wondered how this idea, which seems to be the standard received wisdom on the subject, came about. My guess is that in the days when French polish was the standard finish for most furniture and carried out on an industrial scale, it was realised that lubricating the rubber speeds the process up. Since I only French polish occasionally and rarely on large areas, I can afford to take it a bit slower and avoid oil, which has the potential to cause problems and must, of course, be removed at the end anyway.

Any thoughts?

 

[mouppe]

I've always found that at some point I have to use oil (I use Johnson's baby oil) to stop the rubber sticking. A couple of drops here and there. At the end a few passes with a clean rubber to pick up the oil is all it takes.

I'd like to know how and why your pad doesn't stick, but if I cannot avoid it it won't overly bother me.

 

[Sawyer]

Once the rubber starts dragging, I stop and allow the surface to dry and harden. When I resume, no problem as I'm not pulling on soft recent coats beneath. Of course, an old-school French polisher on piecework would not have had time to wait and needed to keep applying coats as quickly as possible. Hence my theory about oil being purely to speed things up.