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Stripped down a soundboard on the one I am making the bridge repair on. Got it all nice and clean and then decided to stain with amber to give it an aged look. Applied the stain using Stew Mac stain mixed with Alcohol - still making good progress.

Then I carefully scrapped the rosette rings, maple bindings - for about an hour, to get them all clean from the stain.

Went to apply Shellac as sealer and low and behold it picked up the stain and spread it across all the bindings and rosette again turning them all Amber. Now I have to scrape and scrape all over again.

I guess next time I will save the trouble by not doing the scraping until I am ready to apply clear top coats.

Is this possibly the result of not letting the stain dry for hours? It was pretty dry to the touch (about an hour or so, before applying shellac)?

Seems like the alcohol (solvent in shellac) simply redisolved the stain. An hour or even weeks of drying would not have made a difference .

Grant

I think Grant is probably right about the stain and shellac having the same solvent, How about using a waterbase stain under shellac ?

I haven't tried it as I don't use any stains (excpet if repairs require)

I found that to avoid this kind of bleed, it pays to mask the bindings where
possible with a nice thick single layer of lacquer brushed on carefully to
keep the alcohol stain from soaking in too easily.

After staining, then the shellac wipe, and a first thin clear coat of lacquer.

Only after all that would I scrape bindings and purflings. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

Did the stain on the soundboard still look nice and even after applying the shellac, or did it get smeary or streaky? That's another risk you take applying a finish that uses the same solvent as your dye and consequently redissolving your dye. Conventional wisdom would suggest that you don't use shellac over alcohol soluble dye stain. Instead, use water soluble dye stain (first sponge the wood with water and sand lightly to knock off the raised grain) if you're going to coat it with shellac.    

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Beyond what Frank said, I find that most people put too much shellac on the first coat. When I have oily rosewood against spruce I do at least 3 extremely light coats of shellac about 10 minutes apart to lock everything in. I'm talking practically dusting here, and not moving anything for at least 5 minutes, I've been able to avoid bleeding since figuring this little trick out.

Cheers

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I think an overnight, or at least a few hours drying may help. If the dye is
alcohol soluble, it will also be soluble in lacquer thinner, so I don't think it's
so much a matter of what you sealed over it with, as it is how you applied it.
I'm guessing you brushed the shellac, which draws the dye into the brush
and across the adjacent areas. I spray it, a couple of light mist coats. You
could also go to lacquer without a shellac coat, but don't spray your first
coat too wet. And as Frank suggested, do the scraping after that coat.Howard Klepper38719.6717361111

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Lot's of good input for the future and I appreciate it.

I did brush it on and it did not have any adverse effect other than needing to rescrape everything which I did today. Everything is coming out ok in the end. Scraping the edges was no big deal, it was the rosette that took a good bit of time. Another learning opportunity!!!

Thanks again all for your feedback.

Just to clarify my post, I was referring to brushing shellac over the dye stain, since I assumed from Rich's original post that that's what he had done. Light sprayed coats of shellac over the alcohol soluble dye, as others have said, shouldn't cause a problem.

Glad to hear the brushing didn't mess up the evenness of the dye in the spruce, Rich.

Note that, as Paul said, shellac can pull color out of Rosewood and spread that onto nearby light-colored woods, especially if you're wiping on the shellac. So, the danger isn't only with alcohol soluble dyes. Live and learn.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/