> In theory I should be able to put another coat on and it will
> > partially dissolve the old finish and,
>
> yes, it will.
>
> > if I don't add new brush marks,
> > it should pretty much wipe out the old ones. The problem is how to
> > avoid new brush marks.
>
> Try a thinner cut (1#) as your final coat -- it will dry slower. >
> I've heard that wet-sanding with alcohol will give you a
> nice final coat...but I haven't tried it, yet.
No, alcohol would just make a mess. Try mineral spirits or water.
Montyhp
> --
> ************************************
> Chris Merrill
> snipped-for-privacy@christophermerrillZZZ.net
> (remove the ZZZ to contact me)
> ************************************
>
Tim, I have no idea who told you to use a foam brush with shellac. Hopefully they have died a horrible lingering death. If you're going to brush shellac convincingly, you'll want to use the right brush. I see where a badger brush was suggested. I've used badger brushes with some success over the years. And then I switched to a taklon brush... it rocked my little shellacky world.
Remember when brushing shellac you are "laying down," a finish. And you must move very quickly. As previously mentioned, DO NOT tip-off the brush. You'll pick-up partially dried, gummy finish from the lip of the jar and it just isn't necessary. Give the brush a gentle shake just after loading it, and you're ready to go.
You're gonna work quickly, right?
A quick google search turned up this article. Enjoy
I'll look for a good brush. Actually, in trying to recall it may have been a NYW episode where Norm suggested the foam brush.
The real issue seems to be on a large, flat, surface where I can't cover the entire thing quickly enough. I brushed it on quickly across about 12" of one end then went to do another band across the next 12". The first part had dried so much in just the 30-40 seconds that I couldn't get the next part to blend without creating serious marks when I touched the partially dry stuff. All my previous experience is with poly or standard varnish, where you have plenty of open time to brush it out smoothly. The shellac was dry to the touch within 5 minutes and sticky inside 30 seconds - I just couldn't work fast enough to keep up and still get any kind of even coating.
Well, I tried to. How quickly is quickly?
just take my fabled lint-free rag and soak it well with shellac then wipe it quickly over the entire surface? I do pretty much that with oil finishes and end up with good results. I'm a bit concerned about the rapid drying just gluing rag and all to the work and creating a worse mess than I started with.
Current thoughts are:
1 - thin to 1# cut.
2 - use good brush and work fast with a fairly heavily loaded brush. c - wet sand to smooth (generally sounds like a nasty amount of work to me)
4 - wipe on one or two more coats.
5 - work in early morning before the temp in the shop is so high. Last time it was probably around 90 and the humidity was in the low teens or lower. f - some combination of the above.
I really want this to work, the oil and shellac combination gives exactly the look I want.
and get a golden taklon brush. Tell Jeff I sent ya. Hmmm. Make sure you have the price first, before you tell 'em that..
This sounds like a candidate for wiping. For me, I'm of two mindsets on this. If I brush, it's because I know I'm going to come back later and scrape the finish flat with a hand scraper. The best scrapers for this, hands-down, are the super flexible offerings from Lie-Nielsen. The advantage to scraping a finish, versus sanding is that the finish will not corn-up on you, as a partially-cured finish is apt to do.
So, ya load-up the brush, shake, lay on some finish. Repeat. This process is repeated literally every 5-10 seconds at most. If you're taking longer, you're working too slowly. Light touch, loaded brush, lay down the finish with a feather touch. When the brush strokes begin to streak, time to reload. When working a long surface, begin three inches in from an edge. I'm a righty, so I like to begin at the left edge. I brush out to the edge, then quickly brush back the other direction until I get to the right edge, then immediately reload and begin the next "strip." Using a thin cut does two things. It almost eliminates drips, runs and sags, and it quickens the dry time. Ok, it does one more thing, it reduces the effect of the lap marks.
Remember, do not brush-in the finish. Lay it down. The brush contacts the surface of the wood as though it were an airplane doing touch-and-go's.
This shouldn't be a problem. Dip your lint-free rag in the shellac (a 1# cut is all ya need) in a wide bowl of shellac. Squeeze it out so it's just damp, and wipe down the surface as though you were drying off your car. You should be able to cover it in a few seconds without having to dip the rag again. A light touch is best. You're putting down an incredibly thin layer of shellac. That might seem a bit tedious and slow. It's not, because you're ready to recoat in a minute. Keep doing this wiping thing. When the rag begins to stick, you have a couple of options. Stop for an hour or two or make a pad (wrap the rag around something absorbant like a wool sock or old diaper), apply a couple drops of mineral oil to the outside of the pad, dip, squeeze and keep going.
This takes a little more skill, but only a little. You also use a bit more pressure on the pad. When it begins to drag, you're ready for more shellac. Some folks (myself included), prefer to charge the pad using a squeeze bottle. Open the pad, squirt some shellac into the wadding, wrap your pad back up, give it a healthy squeeze to dispense the excess, and you're back in business.
As long as you work with a thin cut, fresh alcohol and quality shellac, you shouldn't run into huge-gummy-mess issues.
One thing about shellac - your finish, the air and the wood should all be close to the same temperature. If not, you can end up with a blistered finish, as air trapped underneath it expands too quickly for it to outgas through the curing (evaporative) film. Apply it in the shade, early in the morning before things have heated up, or later in the afternoon, once things have maxed-out temperature-wise for the day. Do just about everything you can to avoid applying shellac in direct sunlight.
Lunch is a tradition invented so that we could take a break and allow the morning's shellac application to dry while the air temperature stabilizes in the middle of the day. That's my story and I'm sticking (no pun intended) to it.
Tim Douglass wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I have been using shellac lately myself.(1 to 2 Lb cuts made from flake) I have had no problem applying it with a brush, but the largest surface area I have used a brush on has been
24" by 10" or there bouts. I have had good results consistently, using a cotton rag, like a cotton t-shit, with a rolled up wad of wool in the center of the cotton rag. I found that using cotton fabric with the "wool center" worked MUCH better. The wool stores the shellac, and dispenses it to the cotton outer via capillary action, and allows for precise/even flow. It was a more controllable process, than the other processes I have tried to date. You might want to try it out.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.