Shellac can be applied by practically any method -- brushing, padding, or spraying. My favourite method is padding, which many woodworkers may not have heard of. This technique takes advantage of shellac's rapid drying and allows the finisher to apply a finish in a much shorter time than varnish, polyurethane or oil finishes. It works best on flat surfaces, and in a nutshell, here's how it's done. Use a 2 lb. cut shellac and some padding cloth, which is available from finishing suppliers as trace cloth or French polishing cloth. It should be as lint-free as possible. Do not use cotton T-shirt type cloth or cheesecloth.

Cut a piece of cloth roughly 10"-12" square. Fold it up into a pad so that there are no creases on the bottom. Pour about 1 ounce of alcohol on the cloth and work the alcohol into the cloth. Then take a squirt bottle of shellac and dispense approximately one ounce of shellac into the pad.

Starting at the top of the board, bring the pad down on the surface like an airplane coming in for a landing, then lift it slowly off the board at the edge like taking off. Repeat this motion in stripes down the board. When you get to the bottom, the shellac that you put on the top will be dry enough to wipe again. Keep doing this until the surface is tacky and the pad starts to stick. Between wipes, pad the edges. The trick to this is to apply light coats of shellac by keeping the pad moist, not dripping wet. (If you can squeeze shellac from the pad it's too wet). When finished with padding, store the pad in a jar with a tight cap and re-use it. If this is the first application on new wood, the shellac should penetrate quickly and be dry enough to scuff-sand with 320 sandpaper to remove the raised fibers in about an hour. Repeat the same process as above until the pad starts to stick. Let this application dry overnight and then scuff sand with 320 grit sandpaper and then steel wool with maroon synthetic steel wool or 000 regular steel-wool. Repeat the padding application one more time and let it dry overnight. Then rub the finish out with 0000 steel wool, using wax thinned with mineral spirits as a lubricant. After the wax dries to a haze, wipe the excess wax off with a soft cotton cloth. This leaves a very mellow, hand-rubbed satin finish.

This padding technique can also be used on sides, legs aprons and drawers, provided they are relatively flat, but on complex surfaces I like to use a brush. A brush can also be used on the flat surfaces as described below.

Brushing Shellac

Brushing shellac is very different from brushing oil-based finishes such as varnish or polyurethane. Part of the difficulty is that because shellac dries so fast you can't come back later with a brush and even it out. It takes some practice but the following pointers should help. The brush that performs the best for flowing on finish is a fitch brush. Fitch brushes used to be pure skunk hair, but some have soft badger hair on the outside to produce a smooth finish and a center of skunk hair to give the brush body. Most sold nowadays are very fine, soft china bristle dyed to resemble badger-hair. If you've never used an expensive brush before, you'll quickly realize that it's worth the price. My second choice for a shellac brush would be pure white china bristle.

A different type of brush called Golden Taklon is also a great brush for shellac application. The advantage of this synthetic bristle brush is that it can be used to apply light, quick applications of shellac. The chisel, square edge allows precise application. It's a very good brush for complicated surfaces. Synthetic bristle also cleans easier than natural bristle.

Before brushing, dip the brush all the way to the ferrule( the metal part near the handle) into alcohol and then wring it out. This makes the brush easier to clean later. I like to use a 1-1/2 lb. cut shellac solution for brushing. Take one part of the concentrated solution prepared above and add 4 equal parts alcohol. This light cut minimizes brush marks which are hard to rub out later. Dip the brush about halfway into the 1-1/2 lb. cut solution and bring the brush out and let the excess shellac run off, then drag it lightly across the top of the jar or can your using. Starting about 2" in from the edge, drag the brush lightly to the edge, then come back all the way to the other edge. Brush once and quickly come back to even out the finish if it's uneven, but don't work it too much. Brushing shellac doesn't create air bubbles so these should not be a problem. Brush another coat next to the previous one, slightly overlapping it by about a 1/4 inch. Work down the board until it's covered and then do the edges. After the shellac is dry, (1 hour for the first coat, overnight for subsequent coats), scuff sand and steel wool like the padding schedule above. Three coats should be sufficient for close-grained woods like cherry or maple, but you may want 4-5 coats on open-pored woods like mahogany. Rub the finish out with wax and steel-wool as above.

To clean brushes, you do not need to use expensive alcohol solvents. Household ammonia cleans shellac brushes because the alkaline ammonia dissolves the acidic shellac. Washing the brush with soap (I use Dawn dish-washing detergent) and water afterwards keeps the bristles soft.

Spraying Shellac

Shellac handles very much like nitrocellulose lacquer. The best cut for spraying is a 2 lb cut which is roughly a 20% solids content so it will build faster than lacquer. It may flash too quickly - especially when using a turbine, which will affect leveling of the wet film- so I usually add a retarder to the shellac. You can use butyl or isopropyl alcohol as retarders, but lacquer retarders like Butyl Cellosolve can also be used.

Shellac also is prone to "fat edge" where there is a discernible build up of a heavier coating around edges and sharp corners. This is caused by surface tension gradients that occur during the drying process and can be remedied by chamfering sharp corners and keeping the work away from drafts during drying. Add a wetting agent like Homestead's Shellac-wet to eliminate this problem.

Shellac can be rubbed out like other finishes, but using a power buffer is dicey. Shellac softens at a much lower temperature than other finishes so it's easy to burn the finish.