First French Polish Project

This is my first (and only, to date) French polished project. The box is made of curly walnut, padauk, and curly maple inlay. The box is about 11.5 inches wide, 9.5 inches deep, and 6 inches tall. The feet, clasp, and mortised hinges are brass. The interior is faux suede. Woodburned into the sides where the lid meets the lower box are my mottos: “No Reserve. No Retreat. No Regrets” and “Don’t Trifle.”

Each box I make I try to include at least one technique I haven’t tried before. This is the first time I have done inlay banding. Also the first time I’ve French polished something besides a couple of scrap pieces. That was a real learning experience. I used the article on French polishing guitars by Orville and Robert Milburn at http://milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html as a guide. It’s a great step-by-step and was very helpful for me. It’s amazing how very subtle areas of unevenness become very prominent when French polishing.

It’s pretty hard to show how amazing the finish looks at the end. Very, very time consuming, tedious at points, totally worth it.

The 4th picture shows a preview of my next project. Not quite done with tung oil finish yet.

For woods like padauk, redheart, purpleheart, etc I will coat with ArmorAll as a UV protectant and then fine sand prior to finishing to at least delay oxidation and color change.

Thanks for looking!

-- No reserve. No retreat. No regrets.