Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Repairing very old french polished finish on burr walnut

Does anybody have any tips on how to refinish an antique burr walnut piano please?

there are polish (shellac or mixed shellac and nitro) rejuenators that work very well to restore shine and even get rid of small streaks.
But generally under the shellac the wood have whitened due to UV.
There are some "oily" products sold to repair water traces, that penetrate the polish and goes under it, raising a little the wood color (and darken it).
They could be used (after cleaning/degreasing old gunk, waxes, etc)

The real solution is to strip, stain and make new French polish or other finish, Not easy ....

Refinish or repair?

If repair: simply add some shellac to a pad and 'continue' the french polishing process (i.e., by spreading the original finish around and by adding slightly more). This is the reason why shellac is so awesome: it is so easy to fix/repair/polish, even if it is 100 years later!

You can darken the wood, with the existing shellac in place if you add a darker coloured shellac during the process. If it is unevenly bleached by sun/light exposure, and you want that corrected, then, indeed, you need to strip with alcohol and start from scratch.