Back from vacation

Missed a week down at the house because we spent 10 days up in Newfoundland. When I returned to Wildwood, I resumed work on staining the rest of the built-in, this time focusing on the closet portion. I also continued patching up the holes left in the wood from HVAC work.

Staining and shellac continued as normal although this time I tried to avoid any of the reddish colors in the stain/shellac blends after pushing the bench away from the brown color. Another technique I try is padding the shellac on using cloth rather than a brush. It seemed that on the bench the brushed shellac built up to a thick coating too quickly. All of the books I’ve read on shellac say that many thin coats of shellac is better than thick coats so I try padding the shellac on because it seems to lay down less coating compared to a brush.

While the stain and shellac is drying I move to plugging up a hole in the wall at the top of the stairs. This hole is smaller than the ones I made a panel for and I attempt to use some salvaged beadboard to plug this up. I read a lot in Fine Homebuilding about scribing wood to make templates that can be used to cut wood using a coping saw. I put a piece hardboard in the hole and trace the contours using a pencil. I then cut a template out from the traced lines. After I have the template fitting into the hole nicely (with a few sanding of the edges to get a good fit), I then use that template to cut out the actual wood using some scraps of beadboard.

Traced template for the hole

Adding some strips so I have something to nail the patch to

Before attaching the patch, I nail in some furring strips that will be used to attach the patch to. After I nail the patch in, I then use Restore A Finish to try and match the patch to the rest of the wood. I then apply a few coats of shellac with dye to keep blending things in. Eventually it’s pretty blended in but a bit too shiny, but for now I’ll leave it. I want the shellac to cure for the week before sanding down and waxing.

Installed patch