So I've decided to try shellac, the flakes and mix my own. I did a quick search on google and came up with several suppliers. Anyone have a recommendation for a brand and type? I plan on spraying the shellac as a top coat over natural and painted surfaces. I'm looking for something that is fairly clear meaning the blonde type. I don't think the shellac needs to be dewaxed.
I have a woodcraft and a rockler. Rockler is hard to get to, woodcraft easy. Prefer buying online but I've seen funny shipping charges on the denatured alcohol, so it might be best to find that locally.
I bought mine at Woodcraft. The price was competitive with other sources I found...and I always need another excuse to go to Woodcraft ;)
The funny shipping charges may have to do with shipping hazardous chemicals. I bought mine from HD (half the price).
************************************ Chris Merrill snipped-for-privacy@christophermerrillZZZ.net (remove the ZZZ to contact me)
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about a year and a half ago and was very pleased with it. Their FAQ, in particular, is quite useful to the beginner. I'm not personally familiar with using shellac over paint or spraying, but I do have a few pieces of advice from my experience:
1) I simply used the big can o' denatured alchohol from Home Depot to mix with. Some people theorize that has too much water in it, but I had no problems with it in a 1 pound cut. You may want to go even thinner than that for spray finishing (I have no idea since, as I said, I have no experience with spray finishing).
2) Rather than doing clear shellac over paint, why not do something more durable? If this isn't a kid's toy (where you'd want the edibility of shellac), you're not getting color from the blonde shellac, so why not something harder like polyurethane?
3) On the natural, I've had a lot of luck using shellac as an undercoat. I use the shellac to "pop" the grain and seal the wood, then put thin coats of polyurethane on top to provide good protection from water (which shellac doesn't provide). I used a modified version of the "Perfect Finish" described at
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in a couple of projects and was pleased with the results.
4) As I understand it, the only time you need to worry about dewaxed shellac is if you're going to use it as an undercoat and put another finish on top. The other finish won't stick well to shellac with wax in it. If you're going to use shellac as the final coat, don't worry about whether it has wax or not.
My Woodcraft has both shellac and denatured alchohol. The DA is considered a hazardous material if it's shipped more than a quart at a time, which is why you see those weird shipping charges, can't get it overnight (not allowed on airplanes), etc. I'd just purchase that locally. If 95% anhydrous isn't good enough for you, just put together a still in your shop and distill it down.
Seriously, if you want the 200 proof stuff, you might check a local paint store.
Thanks for the review for shellac.net. That was one of the suppliers I found before posting. Another response also mentioned shellac.net but didn't say they actually bought there so I wasn't sure if it was an ad or an endorsement.
I'll try it once. :) I found some pretty good info on spraying shellac so I should be ready to try why the airbrush gets here.
It's a kids toy. :)
shellac.net sells mostly dewaxed from what I've read so far. I'll look at prices and it waxed is that much less maybe I'll go with the cost savings.
Yep I didn't realize it was considered a hazmat. That would be expensive shipping for sure.
Type by what tint you want to impart to the wood, and how much fussing you want to do to get there. You'll be dewaxing anyway, so why not let the machine do it? I like the super and ultra blonde types, preferring to tint with oil or dye.
Never sprayed, but it's so easy to body, level, and polish with mock French polish technique (no filler), that I think it would take a pretty big project to convince me to do so.
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