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I'm attempting french polishing my neck. Everything was going good until I started to use olive oil and then spirit off with alcohol and now 1/2 of the headstock is shiny and the other half is dull. I tried to apply more shelac, I tried to clean it off with alcohol and start over,I tried sanding but still 1/2 shiny other half dull. AHHGG!
Any ideas??

CLinton

I think it is most likely that your muneca was oversaturated with alcohol
and removed a lot of the finish. My advice would be to let the headstock
dry out for a short while and then polish on some more shellac.   

However, I am a relative beginner to french polishing - hopefully, a more
experienced mind will chime in here.

Cliton one drop of oil and 2 -3 drops (from an eye droper) of Alcohol per load and you may need to add shellac to you inner pad now and then. The object of the srit is to level and polish a bit. So those strokes should be firm but quick. Like Simon I think you are probably useing too wet of a muneca (pad) or too dry (as in shellac) inner pad.

The other possibility is that the alcohol has raised the grain ?

Did you raise the grain and resand before begining ?

When you cleaned off the finish did one side feel rougher than the other ?

If so clean off and sand with a fine paper then re applyRussellR38850.8477662037

I've encountered this same problem before, and discovered that the dull area was dull because I had removed all the shellac, and that I was in fact down to the bare wood. I think you'll find that if you just go back and apply more shellac, then be a bit more judicious in the spiriting off process, as those above have suggested, that this will take care of the problem.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Many people use naphtha instead of alcohol to "spirit off" the oil. It will remove the oil but not the shellac.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

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Naphtha,huh, I'll try that. You guys are right, I removed my shelac! That's par, my brush on lacquer on the top looks like I was drunk ?@#
I'm going to have to strip it back off. Any ideas, lacquer thinner? The can said brush on, but the top looks so bad, and the wierd thing is that the sides and back aren't bad. Maybe it'd the fact that the top is so light. I don't know, I'm just really frustrated right now. Thanks for suggestions on the french polishing.
Clinton

Brush on lacquer is a mother...I tried it on my electric and it's just very
difficult to deal with. If I was to do it again I'd thin it by half and try much
thinner coats. Then again, I'm not doing brush on lacquer again! Just
doing straight shelac on the current acoustic.

Problem with that isit will not level or polish the shellac as you sprit, and that is one of the main functions of spriting.MichaelP38851.5784606481

FP back & sides and lacquer top? Hummm that is a backward from the typical hybrid combo. Usally its lacquer B&S and FP top

No, I'm FP the neck and headstock. Everything else I'm lacquering. Just not as successful as I wanted. Weird thing happened with my top. I started to scrap and sand the lacquer off the top and I took some alcohol to clean it and it smoothed out and had a nice handrubbed finish to. I didn't think I could go with shelac at that point so I picked up some laquer spray cans which I had reasonable success with other projects. I really liked Robbie's idea of end grain sawdust and shelac, so I just got to come up with a top coat that works for me. Clinton