shellac flake storage?

[Silvan]

I finally sucked it up and got a bag of ye olde shellacke flakese to try my hand with the real deal, instead of the canned juice I had been using.

I did alright with the canned, but it didn't seem to cure quite right, and I fear it had gotten too close to going over. Flakes/buttons/etc. are the universally recommended way for Real Bona Fide Wood Dorkers to applicatify their shellacke, so I threw some onto my last LV order. (Which I ostensibly did for the gardening items for SWMBO, see... $25 for her, $675 for me, that's a fair trade, right?) (Yeah, I *wish* I had spent $675.)

So... I have one De Luxe bagge ofe ye olde orange-e shellacke flakese to play with here. I figger I don't wanna mix it all up at once, and I probably want to store the flakes some place special until I'm ready to grab another two scoops of orange fluffy goodness from ye olde bagge.

What should I store this stuff in? Hot, cold, wet, dry? Fridge? Freezer? Outside? Inside? Crawlspace? Attic? Tupperware? What?

(Yeah, I could go find a book or sumpin, but asking annoying questions in an irritating dialecte is more funne. :)

[George]

Measure it out into ounce baggies as if it were dope, then take the baggies of what's waiting and sneak it back inside a tight container with one of those freshened desiccant bags. Cool and dry, same-o same-o everything.

[Dave Balderstone]

Mine's in a plastic jar in a cupboard in the shop.

No complaints so far.

[Nate Perkins]

Silvan wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Keep it in a sealed airtight container at room temperature.

The key is to keep sources of moisture away from your flakes and out of your alcohol and your storage containers, etc. Also, it's best to mix it in a small batch ... the flake form lasts a long time, but once it is mixed it only remains fresh for a couple of months.

The typical signs of bad shellac are failure of the flakes to dissolve in the alcohol, and failure of the mixed shellac to dry to a hard finish.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert Real Bona Fide Wood Dorker. In fact the thing I like best about shellac is that it's pretty easy to fix mistakes when I make them.

[nospambob]

[Charles Spitzer]

what's room temperature? my garage in the summer time with my glass kiln running is about 130F, and in the low 30's in the winter.