Jazz bass Mod becomes Build?

[XP Rider]

Thanks. Haven't heard from Mick for a while, but I know he does it right. Mixing flakes probably gives you some control over consistency? I am one of them non-drinkers up here, so I might get a raised eyebrow if she found a bottle of Everclear in my closet, but I might enjoy the project even more.
Last spring I looked at a tutorial from Driftwood Guitars about using epoxy as a pore filler on open-grained woods. I have an ash body coming, so that is something to think about.

[fender3x]

...Mixing flakes probably gives you some control over consistency? I am one of them non-drinkers up here, so I might get a raised eyebrow if she found a bottle of Everclear in my closet, but I might enjoy the project even more.

I just realized that I had not responded to this. Sorry for the delay! My wife is an environmental engineer. I suspect she'd have less of a reaction to Everclear than to more toxic painting products. If you can't get Everclear in Florida, I suspect that it may be even harder in Utah ;-)

As to control... If you use Zinsser Seal Coat in a rattle-can, you get what you get, of course. If you use the Seal Coat in a can it's advertised as "100% dewaxed shellac" and is a 2lb cut. That is about twice as thick as what I use. The good news is that if you want to make it thinner, it's no problem, just add alcohol. To make a 1lb cut, add alcohol at 1:1.

What you can't do with the canned stuff is vary the color. It's pretty much all blonde, but shellac comes in more colors than that. I use blonde (same color as Zinsser) to do maple necks, to given them a light amber color. (In a store-bought neck this would be considered natural). I used garnet (the darkest shellac) to color my tele build. I think it came out OK, but I found it a bit difficult, so may not use it again.

What I use the most is "platina" or "ultra-blonde" shellac which is the clearest. It has a little color, but not much. I use it between different products and as a sealer when I don't want the color changed. In the test swatches for the Jazz bass project, I colored platina shellac with alcohol dyes. I am hoping to create a stain-like effect that I can use over a thick seal coat/hardner.

Aside from that, flakes allow me to make just as much shellac as I need. The shelf life of shellac flakes is virtually forever.