Singulum's ST-1M

[Singulum]

Then came the filling coat. It was my first time applying shellac in my life to any object so I was curious if I can do it. I worked with a brush by the way.



I did a good a few coats (actually 6 coats), each has 7 days between them.



At last it was time to give it some color. I applied a 1000 grit sanding with a baby-oil (odorless, thin, evaporates quick-ish and contains paraffin) then the surface was ready to color.

[Singulum]

I cut a cork into half and used as a sanding block. It's practical to use a little pressure with it and since it has a round outer surface it can also be used in curved edges easily...

[gavinturner]

Looking great Singulum. Love the decal you came up with, looks very professional to me! The shellac also looks great. How are you plannng to apply the colour?

cheers,
Gav.

[Singulum]

I always wanted a hot rod red Fender Stratocaster since high school. So I decided to finish this with red. Coloring shellac was a question for me but I did some research and boiled my formula again with food coloring powder (I couldn't find the word sorry )



The red color was O.K. but I didn't get a satisfying result on my scrap bass wood pieces. Then I tried to give the color transitions.

I boiled 3 colored shellac formulas. Yellow, Orange and Red. Light to dark, I applied them till I get each of them good in color.

[Singulum]

The Yellow was easy to work with and 3 coats (each of them has two ways - going down / going up - and all of them has 1 week delay)

Then came the orange... I couldn't guess it was the trickiest color



I did a first coat of it but I was scared. It wasn't good. Anyway, I went on.



Second coat was merely ok but there were lots of spots to be retouched.

[Singulum]

Then the 3rd layer. The color was now beginning to get set.



4th one

[Singulum]

This looked pretty to me so it was The Red calling me

[Singulum]

I did a 5 layer of red color. Each of them had 7 days delay and after the final red I waited for 2 weeks to get it set. After 2 weeks, I covered my red color with 5 layers of my primary (filling coat) colorless shellac. I waited 7 days between each layers and after the last layer I gave 2 weeks to get it set.

After that, I did another oiled sanding upto 2000 grit. Beginning with 1000 followed by 1200 - 1500 - 1800. When finished 2000 grit, I applied another layer of colorless shellac, sanded again, shellac again and one final 2000 grit sanding with baby-oil.

It was now time to begin a polishing phase, I boiled another shellac formula but this time I used brown shellac flakes. The filling coat and the colors were white shellac gums.



Polishing balls. It just has cotton pieces inside ( I didn't use wool ) and an old t-shirt on the outside.

[Singulum]

I didn't always work on my project with an empty stomach

[vh2580]

That colour and finish looks amazing Singulum.