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From what I have learned is that originally French Polish was a shellac and alcohol mixture designed to be applied by hand with cloth pad. But in current times the term refers to both the material and the process of application.

Frankie's summery is correct of course but along with Bruce's initial question / post concerning the history of shellac in the US I see terms and techniques mixed up and finally used in incorrect context.

There are several levels or ways we can look at this matter but in the first place we can be sure that what we know today only is part of what was pretty common about 150 years ago. Techniques and materials have been changed as well as terms and insofar we quite fast in telling what happened these days. French Polish does not mean strictly shellac and shellac as one-component finish most likely was not used exclusively at Martin guitars. So for me without looking at all these things behind I wouldn't say that Martin guitars have been French polished in the way we understand today. That's simplified and only covers what is obvious today.

Looking at the nice story about William Zinsser there are some very interesting details mentioned that might be true but some others are nonsense. We can guarantee that CF senior not only was able to apply a shellac-containing finishes on his guitars, we can be sure that shellac (and other resins) were available in the US as early as 1833 just because of his guitars but there might have been others before him (not talking about cabinet making).

But the situation in 1833 might have been different meaning CF senior either brought resins and components to create his polish with him or he obtained it from Germany the same way he received other materials as well. This is documented well and there's no doubt concerning the trade relations to his former business partners. So we can suppose CF senior started with the same materials and techniques he was familiar with as he left Germany.

While high quality clear shellac and other resins requested for creating a polish mixture must have been quite expensive around this time, unfortunately not much survived how the old polishes were mixed and how they were obtained. This is valid for the Italian violin finishes as well. It is widely assumed that the resins and other ingredients became available through pharmacists who also mixed the various recipes. This most likely has been the case still in the early 19th century. There are several pharmacist guides featuring polish recipes to be found that document this assumption. I have seen some of this old recipes in person.

These recipes appear to be rather complicated for our understanding today, lots of different resins, substances, solutions, treatments. Even for today's polish experts not easy to follow since many of these substances are out of fashion since a while. To get an idea what I'm talking about I want to post some nice charts I found at a violin museum in Fuessen, south Germany, on of the old violin and lute centers. I posted some pics of old violins, lutes and guitars I took at the museum a while ago but I have just added some more: German Alpine spruce from the "Ammergebirge"

Here are the charts that I also posted at the long French Polish thread before.
Pigments, colors and stains
Natural resin and other substances for polishes
Oil / spirit lacquer substances based on natural resins

While these finishes might have been difficult to obtain, must have been quite expensive and requested high level skills the industrial production of chemically bleached shellac must have meant a major change since shellac as a basic substance of a polish became available in larger quantity and and a more suiting quality. This obvious pioneered the manufacture of big quantities in the big factories and of course also in furniture making. This situation seems to be the key how the usage of shellac in the US might have changed in the second part of the 19th century. Another question still is what happened at Martin since I doubt that CF senior adapted new or inexpensive methods just because they were less expensive. We know that the old business relations were continued even until the 20th century.

While in Germany polishes became available that were already mixed I would expect that Martin either obtained such polishes from Germany or they still obtained raw materials. But I think it is clear that it's not only shellac they used since resins like copal, benzoe and mastix were pretty common in Germany and still are plus the usage of brushable natural resin finishes.

I have scanned two chapters of my old German cabinet maker's guide covering polishing and brushing techniques including Viennese polishing technique. I need some time to translate - lots of special and old fashioned terms that are very difficult to translate since there's no English equivalent known to me. Anyway, here are the pages in the case someone wants to read some old German script about how to use polishes. There's no date listed at the book but it is possible to date about 1910 to 1920.

Handbuch der Tischlerei - cabinet maker's guide
2. Polishing, page 241, page 242, page 243, page 244, page 245, page 246
3. The lacquer-polishing process (brushable natural resin finishes), page 248, page 249, page 250


Willi