Shellac Without Nitro?

[TheNewSteveH]

I am getting ready to finish my walnut Telecaster. I was going to seal it with shellac (from flakes) and then hit it with nitro, but I just read a post that said shellac, all by itself, will work, and that it won't react to plastic like nitro.

Can this be true? I have no desire to do more work than I have to. I just want a durable, attractive finish which can be repaired (unlike poly).

[ponce]

I need that information too

[TheNewSteveH]

I'm still not sure what I'm doing. A little voice inside me is saying, "USE EPOXY!"

[Hoopermazing]

Isn't that called a French polish finish?
...like on a million dollar cello.

[TheNewSteveH]

I just want to squirt it and sand it. If that qualifies as French polish, then "yes."

[middy]

Shellac will work fine, and it is easily repaired.

Some will tell you that it is too brittle and susceptible to water damage. I say poppycock. It was used for decades for furniture and even floor finishing. That's why everyone used to use furniture wax, to protect the shellac from water. Shellac is better than almost anything at sealing out water vapor, which is the true enemy of your wood.

Wipe on a dozen or so coats of a 1# cut of shellac (a 2# cut is hard to get smooth without the french polishing method), rub it up with carnauba wax, and you have a nice, protective finish. No, it's not super durable, but it's not any more fragile than nitro.

If you want it glassy smooth, I can't help you there. I don't know how it reacts to sanding.

[Hoopermazing]

Originally Posted by TheNewSteveH

I just want to squirt it and sand it. If that qualifies as French polish, then "yes."

I'm no expert, but I believe to be a French polish, you have to rub it for 3 years or so.

[Arbiter]

It's not going to be "factory gloss". That being said, there's a reason the violin guys have been using it forever. It looks great, it's a "live" finish like nitro, it SOUNDS great, and it just works.

[Hoopermazing]

Originally Posted by Arbiter

It's not going to be "factory gloss". That being said, there's a reason the violin guys have been using it forever. It looks great, it's a "live" finish like nitro, it SOUNDS great, and it just works.

The arbiter has spoken

[flatfive]

On this tele the neck and body were french-polished.
No nitro or other finishes used. (Sorry to post these
pics yet again...)

Some complain about shellac being delicate, but nitro is also
pretty delicate (like middy said). I think it looks a lot like a
nitro finish.

You don't have to rub it for three years!
But I did find it took a long time to get the knack of
french polishing.

You can get a very similar result by spraying or brushing
on the shellac, then doing wet sanding and buffing as if
it were lacquer.

[schoolie]

A few coats of wipe-on poly will help protect the shellac. That's what I did with this guy, and it's held up pretty well, over four years:

[Arbiter]

Flatfive, you're making a liar out of me. That finish is gorgeous.

[TheNewSteveH]

I gave up and slapped some epoxy on it. I hope I didn't ruin it. I used West System epoxy and a squeegee, plus paper towels and alcohol.

I was shocked at how easily it went on, but the drips were scary. I decided to go for broke. I took a paper towel soaked in alcohol and used it to wipe the drips off and smooth the epoxy onto the radiused edges of the guitar.

The goo collected in the electronics hole. I should have made a piece of plastic small enough to use as a spatula to get the epoxy out of there. I decided to use a paper towel with a screwdriver inside it to make an edge that would get into the corners. It SEEMS like it worked.

I don't know how many coats I have to apply, and I'm wondering how I'm supposed to handle the edges of the guitar.

[Hoopermazing]

Originally Posted by flatfive

On this tele the neck and body were french-polished...

That looks great.

If I ever buy another archtop hollow-body guitar (where I assume it would really make a huge difference) French polish it is.

[chrisgblues]

Shellac is...

- EASY to repair (probably easier than any other finish)
- Quick drying (like...in minutes)
- Non toxic (you can actually eat it, it's used on some candy)
- Durable (except when exposed to alcohol)

So..besides the alcohol issue, it's a fantastic finish. I would call it "underrated" except that it's been used on thousands of instruments over many centuries. I suppose it's only underrated in our little electric guitar world...that would be more accurate.

JMHO.

[flatfive]

Originally Posted by TheNewSteveH

I gave up and slapped some epoxy on it. I hope I didn't ruin it. I used West System epoxy and a squeegee, plus paper towels and alcohol.

I guess you were determined to use epoxy? What did
you give up on exactly?

Epoxy is used a lot for grain filling -- can't say I've ever heard
of it being used as a finish per se.

What do you plan to do once you've finished with the epoxy?

Once the grain is filled you could sand it flat, wipe on a thin
sealer coat of shellac, then finish with shellac, lacquer, or
whatever you like.

[TheNewSteveH]

I gave up on mixing and spraying shellac, and constructing a makeshift vented booth!

Then I read that I can't put nitro on it unless I spray it first with shellac, so I guess I didn't save myself any trouble.

This is going to take a long time. It takes 10-15 hours for the epoxy to cure, and I have to apply at least two coats. So two days for the top, two days for the bottom, and two days for the sides.

[Silverface]

Steve, you really needed to ask ALL your questions (or actually search for answers) before just slapping on coating. IMO that epoxy needs to be stripped, the body sanded completely, the subject fully researched...and THEN finishing work performed.

And NEVER apply a coating to something that you haven't tried on some scrap wood first. You'll have no clue what to expect, and then when something goes wrong, you're screwed.

I just want to squirt it and sand it. If that qualifies as French polish, then "yes."

This was my first clue that you were bound for problems.

You cannot short-cut your way to a good finish unless 1) you have YEARS of experience or 2) you get EXTREMELY lucky. You had neither going for you.

Impatience in finishing leads to disaster. So do little voices in your head that say things like "epoxy" for no sane reason.

I'm not smacking you around for fun. You really need to understand that just about everything you did was wrong, from procedures to practice to not knowing the definition of one of the most widely-used finishes on fine instruments in history.

I really recommend you step back, take a deep breath (not of paint fumes), then spend at least a week doing nothing but reading/research. Then if you don't understand something, search first...and if you don't find the answer, ask a question. Then once you are 90% sure of what you want to do, TEST it first. If it doesn't work, test it again. If the third time doesn't work, either investigate other methods or just pay someone to do the finishing.

PS -

Then I read that I can't put nitro on it unless I spray it first with shellac, so I guess I didn't save myself any trouble.

I don't know where you think you may have read this, but it's wrong.

Like I said - please save yourself a LOT of trouble and take the time to educate yourself before you wreck a guitar, use products unsafely and/or just basically go about things in a haphazard way. Your guitar(s) will thank you. So will your health.

[TheNewSteveH]

I've been studying this for months. I didn't just pour crap out of a can and hope for the best. If I did it wrong, I screwed up with the best information I could find.

Help me out here. Why do I need to sand it and strip it? I sanded it relentlessly before I applied the epoxy, and I cleaned it with DNA and then a tack rag. I don't think it could get any smoother and still be wood.

When I was researching this, the sources I found said to sand the wood as well as possible with something like 120 or 180 grit (I used 220) and then apply 2-3 coats of epoxy carefully with a squeegee. That's what I did. What did I miss? It looks great, given that I haven't sanded the cured epoxy yet. The pores aren't gone yet, so I assume that has to be fixed with more epoxy or shellac, but it's very uniform with no gobs or runs.

[jjpish68]

Do you have any pics of this project that you can post?