The story so far…

Needed new table for rebuilt bit of house.  
“I’m not waiting until you make one”  (anyone else heard that?)
weeks of ‘shopping’ go by - there are a few good, well built tables out there.
There are a myriad of horrible and shoddy tables.

Passing a rural grot shop enroute to Scotland we uncovered a solidly built 6
foot table, a bit unloved, top made of three boards in 1 1/2 inch old growth
close grain pine.

A bit of haggling with the booth owner direct (she lives almost beside us, and
we’ve dealt before.)

The table came home with us.  A bit of TLC to clean it down, do some filling of
some age cracks that were showing in the top.  Not too much cleaning, so some of
its history shows up.  Crack filling with a slurry of pumice and shellac, clean
down, buff up with wax.

All is good.  I made a matching bench for one side.  They look good together.
We sit and have breakfast lined up on the bench, looking out at the world.

Until…

“This table needs cleaning - look at this”  - words to strike fear into a
galoot.  Sure enough, the edge we lean on, rest sweaty forearms on, when wiped
with a damp cloth, reveals that a bit too much of that history/patina was left.
“Needs more of a clean and some fresh finish” I say.  A good cutting over with
the 3m ‘green thing’ and the grime is gone, along with some of the finish, one
or two places are almost to the ‘scrubbed pine’ holystone effect, but it’s all
still under control.

Pay attention here.
I went over it with some 2lb cut blonde dewaxed shellac, too much of a gloss in
places, but that will be fixed.  dry overnight, repeat to cover one or two thin
patches and come to an even finish we’ll call ‘bodied’  leave overnight.
Still has a soft surface. Sticky, even, if you leave a warm hand there.
leave overnight
surface is harder, but not hard.  We all know that shellac dries within minutes
at these temperatures.  Overnight is more than plenty.
  
This is not the behaviour of shellac - it has to have esterified(sp) or be
suffering from ? what - water ingress?  - hence my question.

The shellac I used has been in that bottle for several years (ex-wine bottle
stoppered with a grooved cork) - I’ve been otherwise occupied than shaving
production lately, and 2lb cut I rarely use.  In this case because it was at
hand, whereas freshly made 1 or 4lb  is not.
The shellac itself dates back to the Paddylac era - same supplier, roughly same
dates.  The alcohol in that bottle has been there, with plenty of air above it,
for a long long time.


Now - I know I did wrong here.  Should have made up fresh and delayed the job,
but I didn’t.

My plan is to out with the alcohol and remove much of what’s there.  Also to out
with the scales and make up new.

My question is to the chemist we have.  What’s the cause?  IS it water ingress
to the mixture?  Is it the degradation of the mixture due to esterification?
Enquiring minds need to know.  Web searches haven’t come up with answers.  I
felt sure that The Porch would enjoy a bit of fun pointing fingers at the soft
top galoot in Northumberland, and then, when the laughter dies down, explain the
intricacies.


Richard Wilson
Northumberland Galoot
recently returned from the Edinburgh Fringe, where I was the only person at the
Gin distillery tour (and tasting) who holds an alcohol licence from Her Majesty,
God bless her.