Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Wonders of Shellac

Attendance: Paul, Miles, Chris, Him Hiltz, Jim MacNeil, Rick macDonald

Everyone had a piece of wood and we practiced various methods of staining.

Various approaches can be used to get a good result:


Sanding the wood  to a fine finish is important regardless of methods used.

Coat with clear dewaxed shellac
Let dry: then begin to build layers of stain
Add a WATER based vinyl stain (Clear varnish) :  use a good brush
wait several minutes
wipe off gingerly and let dry
Coat this layer with an OIL based stain, wait a few minutes and wipe off and let dry
Repeat with the WATER based stain until the color is right

(The reason for alternating is because  adding  water based stain over a water based stained layer just results in dissolving the first layer: same for the oil based layer so alternating the Oil and Water based stains gives the best result)

Finally dry overnight and coat with clear shellac by spray gun using a low pressure

Alternatively:

Coat wood with Bond or the Vinyl first
Let dry
Coat with water-based stain;- wipe off after a few  minuted and let dry
Coat with Oil based stain;  wait a few minuted and wipe off- let dry
Re-coat with the water base stain until you get the right color

Finally spray on clear shellac after an overnight dry

Leo put  a piece of wood  immersed in water for 5 days that he had shellaced and the finish remains hard and dry!

For wood with voids:

Coat with Clear shellac
Use a shellac -cabosil mix brushed on to fill in the voids
Proceed to stain as above

Hint:  Adding a little Ammonia to a water stain  makes the stain eat into the wood better when the wood is pre-treated with the vinyl  or shellac layer: Otherwise the stain does not penetrate and will wipe off completely

Leo gave all hands a bottle of  Ammonia
Paul gave all hands a supply of Acupuncture needles.
We might find a use for them in the New year projects

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