The Hollow

A sunburst-veneered tilt-top table restored by Ben Parry, Oxford, Pennsylvania

Witness Marks

On restoring things made long before you and built to outlast you — a morning with Ben Parry, who restores old rooms and old furniture the old way.

Witness Marks

On restoring things made long before you and built to outlast you — a morning with Ben Parry, who restores old rooms and old furniture the old way.

One-pound bags of Chestnut Hollow Aruna Super Golden button shellac, first vintage 2026

How to Read a Bag of Shellac

Grades, forms, harvests and cuts — what every word on the label means, and which one to reach for.

How to Read a Bag of Shellac

Grades, forms, harvests and cuts — what every word on the label means, and which one to reach for.

A Channapatna artisan coloring a turned toy with a stick of lac at the lathe. Photo: Kartik Mistry, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

A History of Lac Turning

The paper trail behind coloring wood with a stick of lac on the lathe runs from a traveler’s account of 1596 to a Victorian dictionary to the workshops still doing...

A History of Lac Turning

The paper trail behind coloring wood with a stick of lac on the lathe runs from a traveler’s account of 1596 to a Victorian dictionary to the workshops still doing...

Lemon shellac flake, the wax-containing grade the old trade padded with

The Wax Was Never the Problem

A can-label warning from the polyurethane companies, three careful books, one convenient product, and twenty years of forum posts: how a narrow rule turned into “always,” and what the rule...

The Wax Was Never the Problem

A can-label warning from the polyurethane companies, three careful books, one convenient product, and twenty years of forum posts: how a narrow rule turned into “always,” and what the rule...

Lac Turning, In Practice — How to Use Friction-Lac Sticks

Lac Turning, In Practice — How to Use Friction-...

The lac-turnery technique of Channapatna, at your own lathe: pressure, the burnishing leaf, and the smallest dab of oil there is.

Lac Turning, In Practice — How to Use Friction-...

The lac-turnery technique of Channapatna, at your own lathe: pressure, the burnishing leaf, and the smallest dab of oil there is.

Penny a Stick: A Brief History of Burn-in Sticks

Penny a Stick: A Brief History of Burn-in Sticks

Victorian cabinetmakers called it beaumontage and bought it for a penny a stick. A short history of the shellac burn-in stick, and the one numbered color line still made the...

Penny a Stick: A Brief History of Burn-in Sticks

Victorian cabinetmakers called it beaumontage and bought it for a penny a stick. A short history of the shellac burn-in stick, and the one numbered color line still made the...