John, Your web page on French polishing must be a century old or more. It is quite entertaining but even the names of materials and solutions are so archaic that it would be impossible to find them by those names today. This is what has kept French polishing out of the mainstream. It looks too daunting and it does not have to be. Those involved in furniture repair of dents and scratches today could not make a living using such techniques. Konig and to some extent, Mohawk products have moved light years ahead of the old traditional techniques of the 19th century. Most dents and scratches and even entire finishes can be restored in minutes to hours with newer products. Please don't get me wrong. I respect the old timers and traditional methods and have tried most of them. I just find them difficult and obtuse and wonder if that was not intended to protect their enterprise. Just to make my point- after fixing some dings and scratches on a S&S for a client in about 30 minutes, they asked me to repair the finish on their antiques. I spent a day in their house and restored 14 pieces in 10 hours. I used a variety of products but most final finishing was done with French polish. They were amazed and elated. I had saved them thousands in refinishing costs and the results were better and most of the antiques ended up looking like perfect original finishes and not a new refinish job. There is a large industry focused on furniture finish repair and today's materials are quite good and results can be obtained very quickly. Douglas Gregg Classic Piano Doc Southold, NY 11971
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