The original finish on most wrongkos is french polish, ie, shellac applied with a rubber, probably a standard piano finish of upwards of 16 applications is desireable.
A shortcut is apply the shellac or varnish with brush, kill it, and rub back with rotten stone.
Tru oil will give a good "fake finish". It requires absolutely no skill in use and gives a good hard durable finish, if you want imitate the finish of an older wrongko gently take off the gloss with 0000 steel wool.
If you do not want to re-finish, but just lift the finish a bit, silicon car polish mixed with old fashinoned turps, ie, not mineral turps, and used with a rubber will get rid of the dead varnish without damaging the surface.
Danish oil can be used in a similar way to Tru oil.
If you just want to lift the finish a bit, a hand rub with baby oil will make any wrongko look about 100 times better.
A good quality furniture wax such as Antiquax will protect the finish you have created.
A "rubber" is a small square of linen or cotton cloth packed tightly with cotton wool and the ends twisted to create a little ball , you dip this into whatever you're using to load it and then you apply the finish by working in a figure of eight pattern.
When doing a complete refinish the wood should be feathered before applying the finish. The traditional way to finish wood was with a damp cloth and a hot iron, these days we use a steam iron. This raises the grain and then the wood is polished back with steel wool, you continue until the grain does not raise any longer and your final polish before application of the finish is with 0000 steel wool.
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