david weaver
By the way, the white spots that look like they might be open grain are smooth to the touch after three padded coats of shellac (which is what I've been doing prior to lacquer on my kitchen cabinets).

The lightness of those spots is exacerbated by camera flash.

Sharpening process was washita stropped with blue shop rag (paper towels), my strop is set aside waiting to be scraped as there's something in it somewhere.

No funny business and not a trick question. I sanded VERY thoroughly with the final 3m 220 in the direction of the grain on the sanded side to and inspected the surface a few times to make sure there was no stray area left undone from coarser early steps.