It was circa 2018 and our friends came to our house for one of our first Tiki parties and told us that we should check out this bar they saw the day before, We were in the store at 10am on Sunday, They weren’t officially open when we arrived, but they opened the doors wide when we told them we were there for the bar.
I knew we paid too much when they offered free delivery and threw in some extra Filipino heads and other items.
It had a couple of chips, but it was in pretty good shape when we bought it. However, the top was getting a little worn after being put into service as our main bar for six or seven years. Every spill created a white spot or streak and I tried many tricks to hide the damage.
Here’s some pictures of the top from 2018:
This is a project I’ve been scared to do for YEARS! But I finally bit the bullet and decided it need to be done. I was so worried about screwing it up, I never took any pictures until I was deep into the process.
Step 1: Find out what kind of finish we’re dealing with.
Shellac was the finish of choice up to the 1920s and everyone discovered that Lacquer was a better choice. We figure a serviceman brought the bar back from the Philippines sometime after the war. So anything built in the 1950s should have a lacquer finish and I always assumed that it was Lacquer.
Turns out it’s shellac 🙁 This is the worst possible finish for a bar because shellac dissolves in alcohol. I guess that explains why the finish was degrading, and why all of my temporary fixes never really worked.
Step 2: Repair and revitalize the existing finish
I had many sleepless nights fretting over this stage. How are we going to fix the problems and keep the color? I finally decided to give it a deep clean before a light sanding and then see what we are dealing with. There were a couple of deep gouges and and I spot filled them with shellac to build up some of the missing volume.
Now we had obvious repair spots and it was time to cover it up with some fresh coats of shellac, which should dissolve the layers beneath and bond them together. I made my standard 1# shellac mix with my fancy shellac flakes dissolved in Everclear to make sure no weird modern chemicals in denatured alcohol would mess up the application.
I pulled out my fancy shellac brush and Lina helped me lay down the first coat. It went on pretty well, so we went for a second coat…which turned into a disaster. The shellac went on nice and smooth, but pooled up into a weird texture I had never seen before as it dried. We tried another coat and it kept getting worse!
I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was going on, so we started from scratch again. I sanded all the new stuff off and tried again, but this time I used a wiping cloth instead of the brush. Same problem.
We tried again, but this time I pulled out a fancy finishing pad….same result.
I started researching French Polishing techniques, which was THE technique for making those fancy polished-looking finishes on wood before modern urethane and water-based versions were created in the 20th century. This has never worked for me before, but I was desperate to try anything. That just made it worse.
I sanded it down one more time and made a new batch of shellac, but this time I made a 2# cut in case my original batch was too thin. It was ready a couple of sleepless nights later and we tried again. Same result.
Now we’re screwed! [I didn’t take any pictures.]
Note: I figured out the problem as I was writing this. Modern woodworkers use almost exclusively use de-waxed shellac because it is a fantastic sealer and will prevent bleed-through between different finishes. De-waxed shellac was invented in the 1990s! The 1950s bar was made with WAXED Shellac! My de-waxed shellac couldn’t stick to the waxy part of the finish. This also explains why I’ve never been able to French Polish anything successfully…there’s no wax in my shellac to lubricate the polishing process.
Step 3: Remove the existing finish
This was always the backup plan, but it sets up a slippery slope. Will we be able to match the existing finish? If we can’t match the existing finish, will we have to restore the ENTIRE bar?
I always knew this was a possibility, but I assumed that the bar was made with mahogany, so it should look good regardless. But I got a little nervous about the wood when I was sanding in the previous step. I had accidentally burned through too much finish in a couple of places and the wood looked too white to be mahogany on those places. Also, I was really getting sick of the original color at this point and was thinking “This isn’t even nice wood!”.
We started removing the existing finish with a soy-based finish remover. I was worried it would stain the wood, so I only let it sit for 20 minutes instead of the recommended 30; but this stuff is AMAZING. We were able to scrape off 90% of the existing finish. Then I started sanding through the grits to 180 while trying to get rid of our scrape marks.
I couldn’t have been more wrong about the wood. It was a BEAUTIFUL piece of mahogany. It’s very hard to find a solid piece of mahogany this big today.
Step 4: The Base Finish
My go-to finish is Rubio Monocoat after pre-aging with their Smoke Intense dye, which is what I wanted to use here. I usually use a pure finish that doesn’t add any extra color, but we could also use a dyed version that would be a better match to the rest of the bar. I decided to try and create a compromise by adding 30% of a chocolate-colored version, but it seemed to be too dark to let the beautiful wood shine through. It was a shame they put that ugly finish on the mahogany to begin with, so we decided to add 5% chocolate to the pure finish to add just a hint of color and let the glory of the wood steal the show.
I pre-aged the wood, waited a day, buffed in the 10% Chocolate/Pure Rubio mix in, waited another day, then buffed in some more pure Rubio, and then waited seven days for it to cure:
Step 5: Nano N3
Rubio has been doing a fantastic job on the wet-bar, but I want to prevent any problems before they happen; so I decided to go with a ceramic coating that will repel water. I had to put the base coat on, wait an hour, and repeat two more times. Then I waited a day and repeated the process three more times with the top coat.
Then we had wait another week before we could test it out. Water just get’s repelled now!
Step 6: Wax On-Wax Off
Then I applied some black wax to add some aging and fill all the cracks. The bar-top, stools and wet-bar look great and are basically waterproof now.
I also had to fix the finish on two barstool seats. Can you tell which ones they are?
Step 7: The Footrest
I should have been done, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone. The footstool looks age appropriate, but it had some stains along the top. I decided that since I was there, I might as well clean it up. It turns out the stains weren’t that easy to clean and I had to pull out some Bartenders Friend to get the stains off, which also de-aged the bars:
I’ve tried to age metal a bunch of different ways and it has never worked out. I decided to try something that gunsmiths use called Birchwood Brass black and….HOLY CRAP! It works great. It took less than five minutes with almost work to bring the bar patina back to the proper period. I LOVE this stuff!
The bar top looks great! I only wish I had the guts and time to strip the rest of the bar to look as good as the top.