Spraying Shellac

[Victory Pete]

Originally Posted by Fathand

I have seen where you have sanded between coats. What is your final process for the last coat? Do you wet sand then buff etc?

I have sprayed a guitar with aerosol shellac and have a similar "pebbly" surface to what you show in some of your pics. I have previously on sprayed shellac on headstocks to embed a decal. I used a wet sand, buff process there.

For the final coats I sprayed multiple thin wet coats. This reduced the rough finish but I still had to do some more sanding and then I buffed by hand. I do not wet sand.

[Quickstep192]

I finished a banjo using shellac and wet sanded it using naphtha as a lubricant. I did the final sanding with Micro-Mesh and finished up with Meguiars Show Car Glaze. All done by hand.

[Fathand]

Originally Posted by Quickstep192

I finished a banjo using shellac and wet sanded it using naphtha as a lubricant. I did the final sanding with Micro-Mesh and finished up with Meguiars Show Car Glaze. All done by hand.

I just came up from doing the backside. I tried wet sanding with olive oil, EVOO, absolutely no corning at all. #600 then #1000. I was tempted to leave it there as a matte finish but buffed it with tripoli then a fine compound, sort of a satin now. I have 2 more grades to go if I decide I want it shinier after I do the sides and back.

[Quickstep192]

Pete,

The guitar looks and sounds beautiful.

My curiosity is renewed about some of the themes discussed early in the thread regarding why you preferred shellac.

I'm at least partially curious because I've had decent luck spraying shellac, but I can't spray lacquer worth a darn. (By the way, I'm also using a QualSpray gun)

Do you think shellac has better tone qualities? I'm really curious about this and maybe other reasons for your choice.

[Victory Pete]

Originally Posted by Quickstep192

Pete,

The guitar looks and sounds beautiful.

My curiosity is renewed about some of the themes discussed early in the thread regarding why you preferred shellac.

I'm at least partially curious because I've had decent luck spraying shellac, but I can't spray lacquer worth a darn. (By the way, I'm also using a QualSpray gun)

Do you think shellac has better tone qualities? I'm really curious about this and maybe other reasons for your choice.

I find shellac to be way more difficult to spray than lacquer. What I like about shellac is its history and its somewhat natural composition. It doesn't seem to ever check like old lacquer. Also alcohol fumes are much safer than lacquer thinner fumes. As far as tone I think it being a bit more brittle it doesn't restrict the woods vibrations as much.

[hubcapsc]

Originally Posted by Victory Pete

I find shellac to be way more difficult to spray than lacquer. What I like about shellac is its history and its somewhat natural composition. It doesn't seem to ever check like old lacquer. Also alcohol fumes are much safer than lacquer thinner fumes. As far as tone I think it being a bit more brittle it doesn't restrict the woods vibrations as much.

I remember fondly the smell of laquer thinner and other paints and solvents ...



... but I'm pretty sure the inside of my Daddy's lungs were
the same shade of green that the whole sign shop eventually
became...

-Mike