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.

sounds pretty much exactly like the story of the old guitar I was 
working on last fall
   Try fresh alcohol.

Reserve the old stuff you still have left for scrubbing down/off the 
sticky finish
  (and washing brushes later)

  Get some "hot stuff" for mixing up your new shellac
    Bet you all will be well
        yours scott




-- 
*******************************
    Scott Grandstaff
    Box 409 Happy Camp, Ca  96039
    scottg@s...
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/sgrandstaff/
    http://www.snowcrest.net/kitty/hpages/index.html

A bit late, I know, but agree with Scott.  One suggestion I will pass on
from previous discussions on the porch.  When you are going to use older
shellac. first lay a bit on glass.  If it dries as it normally would,
you're good to go.  Probably what has happened is the alcohol in your mixed
shellac has absorbed water from the air and messed up the drying ability.
A few years ago, I bought and used alcohol that was 98% anhydrous (moisture
free).  A couple of folks thought I was a bit anal in using it,  I still
use shellac I mixed back then with perfect results.  I also mix and store
my shellac in pint or quart canning jars.  I think doing that also helps
retard water contamination.
FWIW.
Bruce Z.
Des Moines, IA

On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 9:32 AM, scott grandstaff 
wrote:

I use Everclear and mix up a ketchup-squeeze-bottle’s worth at a time.  It sits
on my bench (basement shop - pretty constant 72-76°) for sometimes over a year
and still works great.  I keep the little snap lid on the bottle.


Ed Minch

On Aug 22, 2018, at 07:01 AM, Ed Minch  wrote:

I use Everclear and mix up a ketchup-squeeze-bottle’s worth at a time. It sits
on my bench (basement shop - pretty constant 72-76°) for sometimes over a year
and still works great. I keep the little snap lid on the bottle.

I use Everclear for shellac as well, and store it in half-pint canning jars.
I've used stuff that's two years old without drying problems, for what it's
worth.

My favorite innovation is putting Everclear in Tabasco bottles, which makes it
really easy to shake a drop or two out on the shellac pad (fill it using a
hypodermic syringe cylinder as funnel).

-- adam
(who keeps forgetting to pick up more shellac thinner at the likker store)

Thanks all, and to Ed and Adam.  

I was using shellac pretty steadily on restoration work as well as new stuff,
and went with the traditional wine bottle with a grooved cork.  A bit like your
modern sauce bottles, but 200 years ago - you grab it, upend it, and just enough
comes out onto the fad to keep polishing - or you shake it over a saucer if
you’re working the pad face first.
I too had stuff mixed and usable after a two year spell, but I used the 2lb cut
for this - because it was still there - instead of mixing fresh.  I bought a new
50 litres of alcohol two months back ready to get back into ‘production’ but
hadn’t mixed up fresh.   I’d forgotten the glass - I’ll go try some on the last
of that bottle.

I knew better then, and I know even better now.  Just spent time with neat
alcohol and cloths removing the surface.  See what tomorrow brings.


Keep on shining…

Richard
Wilson
Yorkshireman galoot
  in Northumberland

Great idea

Ed Minch

On 2018-08-22 11:05 AM, Ed Minch wrote:
> Great idea
>
> Ed Minch
>
>
>
>
>> On Aug 22, 2018, at 11:27 AM, Adam R. Maxwell  wrote:
>>
>> My favorite innovation is putting Everclear in Tabasco bottles, which makes
it really easy to shake a drop or two out on the shellac pad (fill it using a
hypodermic syringe cylinder as funnel).


Good for small quantities. The guy who taught me years ago was a 
full-time refinisher. He used a cork with a groove cut along its length, 
stuck in a wine bottle. He was Italian, so the components were readily 
to hand!

Don

-- 
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