I seem to recall watching a vid on finishes and I could swear there was a lighter colour shellac. I wouldn't take everything they tell you at Bunnings as gospel... some of their staff are amazingly ignorant. I have been using a water based poly meant for marine applications.. it has a cross linker you add to it... it starts off looking like jizz but it dries very clear.
Bunnings is not necessarily the place to get buy shellac IMO. Also, you want to be sure you buy "dewaxed" shellac flakes, which IIRC, tha Feast Watson ones at Bunnings are dewaxed despite not saying so on the package.
The best places to source good (fresh) shellac flakes are proper woodworking supply stores. Many will have a choice of flakes or "buttons" and a range of colours.
When it comes to dissolving the flakes, you want to source methylated spirits that are "industrial" (100% Ethanol) not the 95% Diggers you'll get at the supermarket (or Bunnings).
I'll post more on this later, I need to go out for a while...
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
<rases hand> erm, NO! 100% ethanol is *not* mentholated in any way shape or form, and what you are probably thinking of is nenatured alcohol. Via diatillation 96% is the best you can manage.. 100% is harder to do and costs a lot of money and requires certain licesnces to obtain. Since you are using it for a coating rather than to drink, and you want to go the no water route you would go for dessicated denatured alcohol . from memory it's 95% ethanl and 5% methanol. We used to buy 20L drums for the lab.Originally Posted by McCreed
Sorry, I meant Methanol (aka methyl alcohol) not ethanol. What a difference 1 letter makes!
It's about $10 a litre, but it makes a noticeable difference in dissolving the flakes.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Methanol, got 200L of that in the shed for my son's drag car.
Not sure of the chemistry of it though because it has an additive to stop it absorbing water and smell different at the exhaust but still makes your eyes water and hurt.
As you were, back on topic
This is all brilliant information. Thank you.
I did a bit of research and bought some dewaxed "platina" (also called ultra-blonde) Shellac flakes. Which sound like they will give the pale pale finish I want.
In the meantime ... was wondering how my Dingotone finished Tele has held up as I have not played it for ages and its been sitting in its case. It is an earlier build than the LP and the finish still seems OK - like new. Not at all tacky and certainly not treacle. ... and its a crime leaving it in the case so its been liberated 🙂
Last edited by DJP; 13-12-2021 at 09:01 PM.
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I think platina/ultra blonde is the least colored of all the shellacs. I have so far only used the blonde (from flakes) which adds just a little amber tint.
FWIW I use denatured alcohol to dissolve the flakes. I know some people non-denatured ethanol to make their shellac, but it's illegal in the state of Florida, and it's taxed as consumable alcohol everywhere it is legal in the US. It's theoretically possible to get lab-grade ethanol here, but I have no idea how.
I didn't know people used pure methanol for shellac. I have tried to avoid the stuff, and resented that the US Government forces mfgs to add 5-10% of the stuff to ethanol to *make* it toxic. This is one of the residual bad ideas that got its start in prohibition. Probably the time it killed the most people. It's a cat 3 toxic substance (which is mild), unless you ingest it. If you do that, it jumps to cat 1 because of the severe organ and neural damage it can cause.
Is there an advantage to methanol over DNA?
Methylated Spirits in Australia IS what you in the US call Denatured Alcohol.
I am not a chemist, and it seems I have managed to confuse myself (not hard to do these days) but I was correct the first time when I said Ethanol.
This is Methylated Spirits which we use here, and the run-of-the mill 95% stuff you get at supermarkets and hardware stores:
It clearly states 95% v/v Ethanol
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Well, I *am* chemist, and in a laboratory metho in Australia is called denatured alcohol.The stuff you get from Bunnings will be 95% ethanol, some methanol, some water and some other trace amounts of crap to make it even more undrinkable than the methanol makes it... although I suspect for the purposes of using it to solubilise shellac it probably doesn't makes much difference. Unless you get desiccated denatured or absolute ethanol (that's 100% and *very* expensive) there will always be some water in the mix. lab or industrial grade (like the pic> will not have the extra impurities they add to metho, just etrhanol and methanol. by 100% methylated spirits that does *not* mean 100% ethanol, or it would not *be* methylated spirits :P. But yeh... the industrial stuff is probably better than the domestic stuffMethylated Spirits in Australia IS what you in the US call Denatured Alcohol.
I am not a chemist, and it seems I have managed to confuse myself (not hard to do these days) but I was correct the first time when I said Ethanol.
This is Methylated Spirits which we use here, and the run-of-the mill 95% stuff you get at supermarkets and hardware stores:
It clearly states 95% v/v Ethanol.
From what is obviously my tenuous understanding of this, it is the percentage of water content that makes the difference.Well, I *am* chemist, and in a laboratory metho in Australia is called denatured alcohol.The stuff you get from Bunnings will be 95% ethanol, some methanol, some water and some other trace amounts of crap to make it even more undrinkable than the methanol makes it... although I suspect for the purposes of using it to solubilise shellac it probably doesn't makes much difference. Unless you get desiccated denatured or absolute ethanol (that's 100% and *very* expensive) there will always be some water in the mix. lab or industrial grade (like the pic> will not have the extra impurities they add to metho, just etrhanol and methanol. by 100% methylated spirits that does *not* mean 100% ethanol, or it would not *be* methylated spirits :P. But yeh... the industrial stuff is probably better than the domestic stuff
This is why shellac flake that has been improperly stored and subjected to moisture, will have difficulty fully dissolving.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
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