mason jars... shellac...

[fredfighter]

Shellac begins to deteriorate as soon as it is disolved in alcohol and continues to degrade until it is used and all the alcohol has evaporated.

As the degredation process is slow but continuous and varies with temperature and possibly impurities in the mix it is impossible to say how long the shellac will stay 'good' after it is mixed.

So the general reccomendation for best results is to ony mix as much as you will use on your current project, assuming that you will do all the finishing over a reasonably short time frame like a couple of weeks.

As to safety issues I agree that there is no reason to suppose you could not clean the jars adequately for later use for food, but why reuse them?

A more important safety consideration is that glass jars break easily, and the mixed shellac is inflammible (also flammible ;-0 ) which is one reason why most solvents are sold in metal containers, not glass. That's another reason to not mix large batches.

[Silvan]

I do? I guess whatever it was, I'm over it now. :)

[Silvan]

Not for what jars cost. I wouldn't drink out of a sterilized toilet bowl either, no matter how sterilized it was. :)

[Todd Fatheree]

Since I usually keep my jars right-side up, I wouldn't know. Why don't you do a test and report back?

todd

[George E. Cawthon]

Apparently you have never worked in a chem or physiology lab. Nor do you have any idea about what is in the food you eat (hair, rat droppings, insects, weeds, etc.. The risks from any meal during the day is thousands of times worse than from any denatured alcohol or methanol left in a mason jar after thoroughly washing and rinsing twice.

[George E. Cawthon]

And how is a dishwasher related to boiling water? Do you know of any dishwashers that use boiling water? The dishwasher with heat augmentation get to a water temp of about 140 degrees; but many just use the water as it comes through the pipe. I mentioned boiling because boiling water is typically used in hot water canning, and then of course there is even hotter than 212 with pressure canning. World of difference between a bit of 140 degree water sluicing over the dishes and fully standing fully in boiling water.

Guess its time to go coat some glasses since I have a little 2 pound cut left over after a project I finished yesterday and see if it stays on the glass in my dishwasher. If it does, no problem, I'll just put the glasses in a pan of BOILING water.

[firstjois]

Just as an aside - I had poured some Minwax stain into a mason jar and applied a plastic cover (white screw-on) and about 6 mos later the plastic cover had a rather nice lump in it, not unlike a dome. Didn't open it but brought it to the dump's hazardous material section. The stain didn't reach the cover, either.

Josie

[Charlie Self]

Four days into a waterless desert and you see a sterilized toilet full of water?

Charlie Self "Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power." Eric Hoffer

[Larry Jaques]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 22:11:03 -0600, "Todd Fatheree" calmly ranted:

You don't shake your shellac to stir it, Toddy?

-- Sex is Evil, Evil is Sin, Sin is Forgiven. Gee, ain't religion GREAT?

---------------------------------------------

Sin-free Website Design

[Silvan]

Exigent circumstances. That's different.

[Todd Fatheree]

Perhaps your definition of "soak" is different from mine, Jacques-ass. Webster's seems to define it as "to immerse in liquid for a period of time" or "to be immersed until thoroughly saturated". To answer your question anyway, even though it doesn't apply, one source I found says the gasket material is latex rubber. So, if you really want to know the answer to your question, look up the solubility of latex in ethanol.

todd

[sandman]

A fellow around here inadvertantly took a swig from his shellac bottle. He died....but what a finish...!

[George]

Might want to check the melting point of shellac before you do that.

[George E. Cawthon]

Damn, that's a lot of information. But what is your point? My point was that soaking in boiling water would get rid of the shellac and that a dishwasher wouldn't.

Table III of your excellent reference gives the softening and melting point. The table shows that the melting point is 77-90 C, that's 170 to 190 F. Don't know where you got the 140 but the melting point is NOT less that 140 F. The low end of the softening point is 104-122 F.

[George]

[Silvan]

Jacques-ass. That's priceless.

[Larry Jaques]

On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 20:21:55 -0500, Silvan calmly ranted:

Yeah, I liked it so much I finally plonked his ass. NO loss.

-- Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ---- --Unknown

[Todd Fatheree]

Whatever, jerk. I guess you only like your rudeness in one direction. As my mother would say, you can dish it out, but you can't take it. I didn't notice any pearls of wisdom from you in this thread, by the way.

todd

[Silvan]

Well, I didn't mean to step in shit or anything Monsieur Jacques. I just thought that was funny. You can be a real Jacques-ass sometimes. Especially when somebody talks about using poly and Minwhacks on walnut. :)

[Larry Jaques]

On Wed, 22 Dec 2004 20:36:06 -0500, Silvan calmly ranted:

True, or even on jummywood. ;)