This book covers classic wood finishing techniques (roughly covering the time period between the 1600s to the 1940s). This book dedicates 4 chapters to French polishing. After reading these chapters I actually felt like I could successfully apply a French polish finish (despite having no experience with French polishing). Other chapters cover varnishes, oil finishes, wax finishes, stains, chemical staining and fuming, as well as milk paint. The chapters on varnishing and staining further include a good number of recipes if you felt so included to make your own varnishes or stains.
These recipes are based off of a few historical texts which include: A Treatise of Japaning and Varnishing by John Stalker and George Parker (1688), The Art of the Woodworker by Andre Roubo (1796), The Cabinet Dictionary by Thomas Sheraton (1803), The Cabinet-Maker's Guide (1825), and the Encyclopedia of Practical Receipts and Processes by William Dick (1875). The author frequently references these works and provides the modern equivalent recipes. Reading some of these historical texts can be difficult since many of the recipes reference ingredients that are either not safe by todays standards or that are commonly referred to by a different name. In either case the author bridges the gap between these historical recipes and the ingredients that are available to the modern woodworker.
In all I found this book to be well organized and easy to understand. Most finish application processes are aided with a lot of illustrated examples that seemed to give me a feeling of enough confidence to actually apply these finishes (however, this may be a false confidence that would be easily crushed on the first failed attempt).
I found this book far more accessible than Shellac, Linseed Oil, & Paint. This book doesn't go into the chemical processes like Understanding Wood Finishing does, however, Understanding Wood Finishing doesn't really provide much depth on historical finishing techniques so I feel that these two books actually complement each other fairly well.
I recommend this book to anyone interested in historical/classical wood finishes, especially anyone interested in giving French polishing a try. Understanding Wood Finishing is still the first book I would recommend reading since that book provides a pretty good base to build from but this book provides a good complement. If you are extremely interested in cooking your own varnish despite the fire risks then you might want to consider Shellac, Linseed Oil & Paint as that book does provide a few more details on the subject.
Pages: 128 Publisher: Sterling ISBN-13: 978-0806905136