Solvent for Shellac

According to my copy of Understanding Wood Finishing by Bob Flexner, you can use just about any kind of alcohol (methanol, ethanol, or isopropanol) to dissolve shellac. As you may know, denatured alcohol is just ethanol that has been made poisonous to avoid liquor taxes. Flexner states that the advantages of denatured alcohol are that is cheap, less harmful to the enviroment than other solvents, and it evaporates more slowly than methanol, giving you more time to brush the shellac. Actually, isopropyl is even better in this regard, as it evaporates even more slowly than ethanol.

Bottom line, you should be fine.

todd

Thanks, todd. I'll end up getting the denatured anyway, but I'll try the IPA as well.

Tanus

This is not my area of expertise but I would not use drugstore Isopropyl. (I use that stuff all the time to clean recording equipment and such). Even the "lab grade" stuff has 9% water in it. AFAIK "Denatured" alcohol contains no water, save that which has coalesced into it from the atmosphere.

As Todd said, isopropyl will work fine, but if you can stick to the 99% variety, which may be even better in certain circumstances, such as when spraying on high humidity days.

todd

Very little time.

Shellac is most commonly dissolved in denatured alcohol which is ethanol with some denaturant that is poisonous but still appropriate to the application. For shellac we prefer, as denaturants, a small amount of methanol (less than 5%, I believe, I don't have that spec handy) and another small dose of isopropyl added to keep you from drinking it (and thus avoiding paying all those sin taxes to the Feds.) But shellac will dissolve in other alcohols and even acetone and those will effect the drying time of the solution. Acetone dries way fast and isopropyl dries much more slowly and is often added as a drying retardant for spraying. If you use isopropyl, get the highest percentage you can find as most rubbing-alcohol types have too much water in them.

Hardware store denatured alcohol works well with shellac but c> I've never mixed shellac from flakes before, and decided to get some and > try it. >

I'll take your word for most of this but 1+1=1.96?

Sun, Sep 10, 2006, 10:20am (EDT-1) snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com (todd) doth speaketh: ethanol is very hygroscopic, I wonder how long it takes to get to the same water content when exposed to the air.

No prob. Use Everclear. When the project is done, safely and sanely dispose of the leftover. Get a new supply next project. No prob.

JOAT I am not paranoid. I do not "think" people are after me. I "know" damn well they're after me.

Sun, Sep 10, 2006, 8:13pm (EDT+4) snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net (CW) doth wistfully query: I'll take your word for most of this but 1+1=1.96?

New math. Guaranteed 96% accurate.

JOAT I am not paranoid. I do not "think" people are after me. I "know" damn well they're after me.

Yep. More or less but always < 2

CW wrote: : I'll take your word for most of this but 1+1=1.96?

No, 1.92 (four percent of 2 is .08).

-- Andy Barss

Volume.

It's a little harder to change the mass. I guess my OP should have said "equal volumes" instead of equal "parts". "Parts" being too ambiguous for this forum.

This from wikipedia:

"Several unusual phenomena are associated with mixtures of ethanol and water. Ethanol-water mixtures have less volume than their > Volume, weight or mass?