Airless is a dog of a thing.
You would be better off going to Auto one and getting a small Air tank. Plus by doing this it has tons of other uses and you can mix and match guns.
You can get them very cheap now.
Airless is not good with lacquer or varnish.If your just painting odd bits at home in paint they will do it ,
But no good for nitro lacquer or varnish.
Also with Air you have more control.

Hi Pete,
So what you are saying to do what I want to do which is preserve the orginal look and feel with minimal changes keeping it "Daggy" as you put it, I would need to do a spray job?

Hello Goerge,
Sorry about the delay .
No Goerge we have no intention of stripping it at this stage.
What we are going to do is re-activate that origanal finish and keep it origanal as possible.
The problem is we need to find the easiest way for you to do this with no spray gun and no experience in this method.
But dont worry ! I Will write up a post with step by step instructions of how its done,just wait for me as I have some work to finish off first.

The reason I asked if you have a spray Gun is because thats the easiest way to re- activate the finish and still keeping it original. , you see the danger in you re activatiing it with out a gun and by hand is, you have never done it before and you may remove the finish instead of re activating it.
But with a Gun its far less of a chance of that happening.
In regards to the top of it,,, if the top did not re activate well, we just mask off the top and finish that separate.
So hang in there and just let me finish of these 2 jobs I'm doing and I will be back onto it with you.
Ps roughly where are you??
All the best pete

Hi Pete, sorry I was not meaning to sound impatient but was trying to clarify if the spray gun was something I need to consider, I do not do much painting etc, so not inclined to rush out buy one at this stage. I agree I think the top looks like it might need to be treated differently, I also wonder of it has been worked on post orginal manuafacture.
I am now based North West of Sydney, what about you?
Cheers
George

Hi George,
I'm over near Dee why.
Have a read of this and a think about where you want to go ,

THE PRINCIPLE OF REACTING A NITRO FINISH.

Nitrocellulose lacquer never fully cures, there for old finishes can sometimes be melted again into a wet soluble form and then left to dry .Then sanded , than coated again with lacquer, the left to dry , then sanded than pollish using car buffing compond. How it works is a wet new coat of lacquer mixed with a higher amout of thinners eats into the old finish making soluble again.
Its called a hot coat.

The problems of doing this method are
# nitro is designed to be sprayed on, If you were to do it with a brush you may remove the old finish and spead all the stains in the wrong places
Also you will be doing a lot more sanding back to sand out the brush marks and it takes two week to dry hard.

# spraying it on , reduces that risk and leaves far less marks to sand out.

OTHER ISSUES
# The finish is 70 years old and it may or may not be successful, because of ,experience and other factors ,EG not all nitrocellulose lacquers mix with other brands well.
Eg not all the checking will be removed .
It will still be aged.

There are some other methods but at this stage I feel its going to boil down to trying one of those 2 methods first .

So what do you want to George?? If you give me some directions ,I can write up a how to do

All the best pete

Hi Pete, sorry I was not meaning to sound impatient but was trying to clarify if the spray gun was something I need to consider, I do not do much painting etc, so not inclined to rush out buy one at this stage. I agree I think the top looks like it might need to be treated differently, I also wonder of it has been worked on post orginal manuafacture.
I am now based North West of Sydney, what about you?
Cheers
George

Hello George ,
No you're right mate, all good . Have a read above at what is added

Hi Pete,
So if I have understood the two options, one involves brushing on the Lacquer (Nitrocellouse- from Wattyl ?) the other Spraying it on using the right ratio of thinner.

The both require a number of layers each with up to two weeks drying time per layer.

The non spray applications has more risk for novice like me and requires more sanding.

Key caveat that regardless of application method, due to age and compatibility of Lacquers this still might not work.

If that summary is correct, then, I have cost benefit consideration,
a. If spray gun is used and Wattyl Lacquer,plus thinners , thiis could cost me over $300.00 plus my labour of love.(since I need to invest in a spray gun)
b. If I apply with a brush, then it is the cost of the Wattyl ,thiners , fine quality brushes, say $120.00 plus even more labour of love.

Considering the Key Caveat above, then I am more inclined to give the brush application a go.

Or

I know you suggested the Howards restorer was more of clean up, but could it suffice for the body and for the top could I not lightly sand this and use a low sheen shellac or vanish oil? (Probably a dumb suggestion)
Then at some latter date review my options once I have the radio fully functional. I know it sounds like a cop out and it is.

Hello George,
Yes there are options along those lines yes, but you said to me you wanted it original and done in the manner it was when built.so I was looking along those lines.

You could put a shellac finish over the top of it, and it would keep its age.
The process is done in many ways and with all kinds of mixtures, but basically what you do is make a pollishing pad from soft cotton and then use a solvent and also ad a buffer to take away the harshness of it. Eg, Acetone and some oil is one formula.
You then pollish the old finish off or smooth again in a french pollishing type of action .
This takes a bit of skill ,because the stain will become wet as well and there for you will need to be able to blend it back into a nice finish.
Once this is done , you can then apply a shellac top coat by pollishing it on. You dont need a spay gun for shellac and it can be done at home.

Pete

I do appreciate that we were discussng the original approach and just to clarify my last post, when I refered to a shellac finish it was only for the top of the unit, which seems to have been treated differently but I could be wrong. In my suggestion I had no intention of touching the front or sides other than using the Howards Restorer.

I felt the top which is a little unsightly could be given a protective coating of sort without changing the orginal look to much.

So if that makes sense, could you recommend the the mixture formula and understand it will require care to keeping a uniform coverage of the existing stain. So can I assume this polishing technique you a referring to does not involve any sanding at all.


Thanks George

G day George

Now its on a better track and this is why I suggested to using Howard's to clean it up first because ,I know that there is a high chance that re-doing just the top and tidying up the cabinet will more than likely be good enough for the picture you have in your mind.
Now I realise that all these posts I have posted would seem overwhelming for any person thats about to do their first restoration on a cabinet ,,, but now you have a good understanding of the basic structure and process or the 3 finishes .
Im probably not the best teacher , but I have been spraying and Restoring for about 27 years and I started in the sports car industry and then moved into furniture Restoration.

So lets get into this now and will we make one change .
Buy Horwards in the Walnut colour.
I say this , because now we will be doing more than cleaning and the walnut works the best.

THE PROCESS
1 / using 0000 grade steel wool and Horwards Restoring finish in the colour Walnut. Rub the complete Cabinet down only going in the direction of the grain in a back and forth motion, After a few seconds Rub it of with a White cloth going only with the Grain.
This process will make a huge difference to the cabinet and also remove 80 years of grime , plus it will to some extent re-activate the old finish

Ok when you have done that and if your happy with the front face and the sides ,we will now repair the top of the cabinet

2/ lay the cabinet down on its back to prevent drips going on the front face or sides

3 mix up 200ml of Acetone and put a few drops of mineral oil in it too serve as a buffer.

4 make a pollishing pad using white cotton rags

5 wet the pad and just start going with the grain and pollish the old finish smooth again or out, we would like to leave the stain on if possible ,this may mean that you will have to go in circles motion with your pad to achieve this ! Thats fine you can go in a swirling motion here in this process.
The idea here is to make that clear coat a nice smooth and even colour again.
When you have achieved this and your happy with the colour and the smoothness ,just let it dry .

6/ After it has dried. Lightly sand it with 32o grit dry paper ONLY in the Direction of the grain.
Dust it down and check it again for colour and being smooth and clean

7/ Buy some shellac in Golden flake form at bunnings , its about 30 bucks
Read the label and put the shellac in a large Glass jar.
Add the amount of metho to the shellac in the jar and let it sit over night before using it .stire it from time to time to make sure it is all desolved.

8/ make a pollishing pad again out of a nice soft white cotton.

9/ pour some shellac into anther jar ,, but strain it through a cloth or a old stocking from your wicked past.

10/ put the strained shellac on the pad you have made and begin slowly rubbing it into the timber in a circular motion ,
Shellac dries fast so it does not take long to build up your coats to get the desired finish. The object of the game is to use the shellac to get a flat surface, you will note timber is not flat like glass it has pores and grain lines and open grains ,we are aiming to fill them all like a flat peice of glass , when this surface is flat and even, This then gives us a hard shellac finish that can be rubbed back and shinned up to create the finish we desire.
Shellac finishes can be easy removed using metho if you make a boo boo,

Well that should keep you busy for awhile ,Im about here if you need me .
Enjoy it George , thats what its all about .

All the best Pete

Thanks Pete, you are better than a teacher, more like a wise mentor.
I think I now have a clear path and a plan, I am looking forward to starting this and will post some pics of the finished work once it is done.
If I get stuck , I sure know where I can get some help.

Thank you so much Pete.

Hi Pete,
It a bit wet around here, I going out pick up the list of things I need to get this project started, I notice on one side of the cabinet some white paint marks, do you have a technique for removing them, the seem like accidental brush marks.
Thanks George.
P.S From you previous post, As I did not have a wicked past (yeah right!) I will steal some of my wife's stockings for filtering the shellac...

Naaar more fun sealing someone else's wife's stockings.
Cheese cloth works the best George as a strainer.
As for the paint on the cabinet, ,if its raised and is a drip from painting a room etc etc,use a paint scraper to get it flat. If it is a brush mark just hit it with 0000 wool and howards,
Yeah the weather is not the best ,but today I'm working on a Garrard Rc121 , 1958 turntable so its a good day for doing that type of thing,
Keep in mind what ever you strain that through can cope with it being Alcohol based and wont melt the material.
Ok George , just yell out if you need too.
All the best pete

Hi Pete,
Hope Garrad RC21 is Resto is going well. Love to see a photo when it is done.
I have done the Howard's restorer on thr STC and it looks great all paint marks cames out with a little elbow grease and the steel wool/ Howards. I get a couple of photos post if your interested. I am quite happy, could not get any shellac flakes from my local Bunnings so did not get the top domes the way you suggested. But I did cleaning it up with the steel wool Howards looks ok, but I will still do the Shellac polish I think.
Do you are anyone else know where to get speaker cloth similar to the period, I can post a photo of the removed cloth if that helps.
Cheers and thank once again.
George