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I've made homemade shellac twice, both times in Jose Cuervo tequila bottles. The first bottle I left the lid off of and accidentally knocked it over and spilled it all over the place. Saturday I made another batch in another Jose Cuervo bottle bottle and put the lid on extra tight. The garage was pretty cold and I turned a small space heater which was several feet away from the new bottle of shellac. After a couple hours the (full) bottle burst due to expansion all over the place. I didn't even get a chance to use any of it. I have humidity control and a reasonable amount of stability in temperature control

I have a large attached garage that is usually around 50 degrees in the winter (haven't been there in the summer yet), and I do have humidity control. This leads to 2 questions.

1. For those of you that use shellac what do you use to store it? Obviously I've had back luck with glass bottles. Maybe next time I should use a wine bottle with a cork?

2. For those that have used Zeisser from Lowe's Is there that much of a difference between it and homemade shellac? I would rather use homemade if I could source grain alcohol but I haven't been able to find it here. That way the finish would be non toxic other than getting drunk and maybe having some stomach problems if you drank some of it accidentally on purpose. Given the fact that I'm using denatured alcohol from Lowe's that is deliberately made to be toxic (so to not be drank), is it really worth my time to make my own shellac?

For now I'm going to use store bought stuff for the first time because it's readily available and cheap. What are your thoughts?

I use mainly zinsser seal coat which is a dewaxed shellac. The home centers now only seem to sell that by the gallon. They still have the regular in the quarts. I use the seal coat for many things. It great and far more convenient then ordering flakes and mixing my own. I think their regular shellac is good too. Many out there who use this stuff for French polishing and so. I'm sure someone will have an argument to why it isn't as good. Remember these cans have a shelf life too. There is a manufacturing code that can be deciphered at there website.

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I would be more concerned with the Cuervo, that stuff is bad.

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Yeah the funny thing is I don't even drink Cuervo- or liquor for that matter. Just wine and beer. Yet somehow when I make Shellac all I can find is a tequila bottle....

If you're going to use store bought, you could give that new Royal Lac a try. The main reason I use flakes is because I'd never make it through much of a can before it goes bad. Though I do have 3 things in progress right now that will be getting FP'd, so maybe a good time for it

I mix up shellac in a baby food jar, and transfer from that to a small plastic squeeze bottle for use (same kind I use for hide glue). Room temperature generally ranges 65 to 85F through the year, and I've never had trouble with expansion. Pretty scary to have a bottle explode At least it didn't ignite. Was it sitting in front of the heater? Maybe the IR radiation was heating it directly so it could reach a higher temperature than the surrounding air.

I have used flake shellac for quite some time now and have never used the pre-mixed stuff. The reason is it has a pretty short shelf life after mixed so I only mix up a cup at a time. I have been using the same Mason jar for about 5 years now and transfer what I need into a small plastic dispenser bottle. I did just mix up a new batch and found out that my flake went bad so I have to go out and buy new. I have had it take longer to dissolve but this is the first time I have had the flake go bad. It has been 3 days now and there are still globs of it that have not dissolved. I have had this bag of flakes for over 3 years so I guess that is beyond the shelf life of flakes (I think they say 2 years).

I have not tried Royal Lac yet but it sounds interesting, It sounds more like a padding lacquer which I have used a lot of in the past and really like using it but it is a bit tricky to get the feel of right away because you don't use oil as a lubricant.

Cheers,
Bob

Was it the bottle or the original contents that affected the outcome?
Just kidding, that sound's like a mess to have to clean up.

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Joey, depends on what you're using shellac for. If you are just using it for sealing before routing for bindings and rosette work and not French polishing, the Zinnzer Seal Coat is fine. I think there's quite a few of us who use it to seal under nitro as well. You'll want Seal Coat, not the stuff
labeled shellac. The Zinnzer shellac is not de-waxed. The Zinnzer Seal Coat is. (No bottles to be esploding)
Ken

The amount of "poison" in denatured alcohol is a fairly small percentage of the whole. If you wear thin nitrile gloves you should be able to french polish with it with no worries.

I use 1/2 quart mason jars and mix my own - I only fill the jars about 2/3 so no worry about expansion/breaking. I use Everclear to mix; come on over to Tennessee we've got plenty

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I mix and dissolve in a Mason jar in 8 ounce quantities. Then I pour it into and store it in one of those 8 ounce plastic bottles with the tapered tips like they use in restaurants to put catsup and mustard on the tables. That type of bottle is very convenient for loading the pad when french polishing. I live in Virginia. I called ABC and applied for a grain alcohol permit. An agent came out to my house and interviewed me and looked at my shop to determine that I had a legitmate use for the stuff. I was issued a permit. I take it to the ABC store and they sell me a liter and a half bottle of Everclear 190 proof. It isn't cheap, but that quantity lasts me a long time. I much prefer using alcohol that is not poisoned.

50 degrees is a bit cold for dissolving shellac. Flakes will dissolve a lot more quickly in warmer temperatures.

And, I store my flakes in an airtight jar in the fridge. They don't last forever that way, but they last a lot longer than when stored at room temperature.

So I guess I bought the wrong stuff. I don't have the de-waxed stuff. Is that still ok for sealing rosette channels and pore filling or not? Those are the 2 main things that I want to get done this week/weekend. I'd really rather not wait for new flakes to arrive and I don't need a huge bucket of the seal stuff.

I do have some garnet flakes and a bit more denatured alcohol but I don't think that will do well on Sinker Redwood and RW. The garnet flakes are over 2 years old but so were the amber flakes I made the last stuff with, which looks great all over my workbench!!!

Thanks for posting this. That is really great information. I'll be calling them tomorrow. How much is the application/permit fee?

Don't use shellac with wax. You may end up with finish adhesion problems later. If the hardened puddle on your workbench is hard enough, you may be able to scrap up enough flakes from that to make a small quantity of shellac to get you through the weekend.

I don't recall that there was any fee, but that was a long time ago (The permit never expires).

Unfortunately I tried to make lemonade out of the lemons and said- hey, I'll just use it as finish on my workbench...or maybe half the workbench...and the floor....and sandpaper....part of a radius dish...my shoes...you get the idea.

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Other alcohol alternatives:

1. If you travel by car, see if neighboring states allow the sale of Everclear. I live in West Virginia, which does not allow Everclear, but I regularly visit Kentucky, which does.

2. Behkol, the denatured alcohol produced by Behlens, smells pretty good to me, smell being my best indicator of whether I will like working with a type of alcohol.

3. I have not tried it, but I hear that the "green" formulation of denatured alcohol sold at Woodcraft stores is OK.

I really don't like working with hardware store denatured alcohol. It smells foul to me.

Small plastic squeeze bottles work fine and don't shatter. The kind with a plastic cap reduce evaporation to a non-issue.

I don't get it? The bottle blew up? Like exploded?

Like others have mentioned I use a Ball jar and if the stuff thickens up then I just add alcohol to it. I've got the same stuff in a ball jar going on a year now. I'll mix up fresh if I am going to FP a guitar but for regular use the old stuff rekindled with alcohol in the Ball jar is good enough.

bobgramann thanks for the tip on that. I live in Virginia too and when I went to esquire about it at my local ABC they had no idea what I was talking about. But since I go to Savannah GA every year I just pick up a bottle of grain on the way home.

The folks in the Virginia ABC store probably don'tknow how to get the permit, but find the closest ABC office and call them. Headquarters is in Richmond. A call there will get results. Many businesses have these permits. Some clean their food equipment with grain alcohol.

Hey Bud ... If you will wait several hrs AFTER emptying it to fill it you will have less trouble !

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I use tall olive jars and I only mix small batches at a time. I never have the olive jar more than about half full with mixture.

I once had a batch where the flakes were very slow to dissolve and where there were a few blobs of solids in the mixture. I strained them out with a coffee filter and was going to use that batch for tasks other than finishing. I posted a question about it here and was asked if I was using an opened can of alcohol to dissolve the flakes (Yes, I was). I was told that the alcohol had taken on moisture out of the air each time the lid was off, and that was my problem. I purchased a fresh can of alcohol and use that to dissolve another batch, which went effortlessly and very nicely. Same flakes. No blobs.

I don't do instrument work constantly, so I only make a new batch of shellac two or three times a year (when I start a new project). I usually wind up dumping a bit of old, unused mixture. I go buy a small can of fresh alcohol each time and I always use the fresh stuff.

I cannot say whether there is any truth to the assertion that my alcohol was taking on moisture, but I can say that I'm still on my same can of flakes and I am able to dissolve good mixtures as long as I use fresh alcohol.

Like others, I mix shellac in mason jars and transfer it to plastic bottles with spouts. I know a fellow who mixes his in plastic peanut butter jars, which removes the shatter hazard.

You should be able to find the manufacturer's material safety data sheets for denatured alcohol online. I know that Sunnyside makes a denatured alcohol that's 95% ethyl alcohol. A lot of other formulations are around 40% methanol. Of course, Everclear is 0% methanol.

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Saint Paul, MN
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I just mailed in my application for an Everclear permit today. It will be nice to not have to worry about breaking the law traveling state to state or hunting down illegal stills here in rural VA. The folks at ABC (Central Office) were very helpful and there is no application fee. Thanks again for the tip, I never would have thought of that.

Dadgum revenuers.*



*Authentic Appalachian gibberish

Good news. They told me that I would have to give the store warning when I was coming so they could get the Everclear in stock, but the store always seems to have it. You might not want to joke about drinking it when you get your interview. Aside from the obvious use in the shellac, I have found having clean alcohol around quite convenient. It's a good cleaner. I still use the denatured when I can clean things outside where the fumes don't matter (I take the spray gun out for it's final cleaning pass). It's a lot cheaper.

And in all seriousness, while I would use the better brands of denatured if I had to, working with Everclear is a real joy. It smells the best.