Three things about lacquer:

Pros (which is why they are often used in production furniture)

+ Fast drying, even the slow drying "brushable" lacquers dry in 30 minutes or less

+ Wide variety of sheens available from flatter than dead flat to high gloss (0 - 85+) and hard enough you can adjust sheens easily with abrasives or polishing compounds

+ Easy to repair because adding more melts into existing

 

Cons

- High odor during application

- Not quite as resistant as varnish to chemical damage - solvents and white water rings

- Can blush in high humidity application

Thanks Keith, some questions I have some holes in my laq and want to repair them can you suggest a method?  The laq is clear satin finish.  Will poly stick to laq after it has been applied?  Where laq fails with common solvents poly does not.  Can I top coat the laq with poly.

Lacquer on top of lacquer will adhere and bond much better than poly. It will melt in and form one layer.   You might need to sand or use a card scraper to level once done, or apply another coat.  You will then need to match the sheen by polishing or even applying a light overall coat.

 

By "holes," what do you mean?  If they are just small pits, you can put in some lacquer right on top, for example with an eye-dropper or syringe.   For large areas, you can sand the top and just re-coat.   You can get Deft and Watco brushing lacquers at most of the big boxes.   What makes it "brushing" is it has a slower drying rate (30 minutes instead of 5).   The only time I've seen poly applied over a lacquer is it peeled off terribly, like 1/4 of a table top.   I did not do it, so I don't know what the prep or application technique was but it was one of my few "jobs from Hell" to get it refinished.

Thanks I was just looking for something that was more resistent to what eats laq.

I will try the eye dropper.  Great tips please keep them coming.