Club Obi Wan

I got some shellac from Murphy whips http://www.murphywhips.com/MW17A015BlondeShellac.html and I don’t know what kind of alcohol I kneed, or how much to use. ? Dos anybody have a recipe I can borrow?

Wow... this has me stumped. What you got from Murphy were the shellac crystals. From my searches I was able to only find very generic descriptions of pouring the lac crystals in alcohol until they dissolve. Not very useful. I would contact Mike to see what the formula is for shellac flakes. I am curious... I will check my APWA volumes. Surely there is something in there.

What is most common (here in the States) is getting shellac in a can (already liquid) and generally what the whipmakers do is cut that with alcohol so that it spreads out real thin.

From a woodworking site. I guess it would be the same for a whip as a piece of wood:

1. In the bottom of a clean 1 pint mason jar place about an inch and a half of orange shellac flakes. If I recall the graduation marks on the side of my jar correctly, this is between a third and a half a cup.
2. Then, take the stick and use it to pulverize the flakes a bit. This isn’t strictly necessary so don’t go overboard but crushing will make the flakes dissolve faster. Orange shellac isn’t that hard to dissolve, but if you use super blonde shellac (I use it for hand plane restoration), it is much more difficult to put into solution.
3. Then pour in enough denatured alcohol to just cover the crushed flakes. The result will be an eight pound cut, approximately. That means eight pounds of shellac flakes to the gallon of alcohol.
4. Place the lid firmly on the jar and shake the life out of it every few minutes for a half hour. I usually get to this point then go and check my email. While I am reading my messages I shake the jar periodically and that way I don’t have to stare a the clock for a half hour.
5. Set the jar aside, in a dark place preferably, until the next day. Be sure not to disturb it. By then all the shellac will be dissolved and any wax will have settled to the bottom.
6. Place a funnel in the top of the 500 ml squeeze bottle and line it with a coffee filter.
7. Gently pour the shellac from the mason jar into the filter paper. Try to be as gentle as possible as it is preferable to leave the wax in the jar to be discarded later. The wax is the really cloudy junk at the bottom and it will clog up the filter paper. The shellac has to be filtered because there will be dead bug body parts and other @#$% in it (as well as wax) and you don’t this detritus in the finished product.
8. Shake the paper occasionally so that the shellac doesn’t seal and harden in the coffee filter. Then you’ll never get it through. If the coffee filter does become shellacked, just fold another and pour from the old filter into the new. Just don’t spill any junk over.
9. When done, rinse the filter paper and the inside of the funnel with some alcohol from your wash bottle. Add alcohol sparingly. If you don’t you will change the ratio of shellac to alcohol and throw off the remainder of the steps.
10. By this time I usually have a quarter of a 500 ml squeeze bottle full of eight pound cut shellac. Now I fill the squeeze bottle with denatured alcohol. This will double the volume twice changing the mix from an eight pound to a four, then two pound cut of shellac. If you want closer to a two and a half pound cut leave about ¾ of an inch of air space in the top. This is the proportion I work with.

Somewhere on Murphy's website there's a bit of info on how to use it. also rocker (http://www.rockler.com) makes a nice little kit with the dry flakes and the marks on the jar for how much alcohol to use.

That said, I've used flakes and the premade stuff and the premade stuff is great. No mixing or any of that.

I just bought a shellac spray that I havent used yet, but am going to test it out on my next whip.

One piece of advice is to use very little. You can always add another coat...taking a coat off is a bit tricky.

xoxo

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

Thanks for that, it's helped a bit, now I know what kind of alcohol to use. So were do you get the liquid stuff.

pretty much any of the big hardware stores like Home Depot will carry the premixed shellac...just go to the paint section and ask for shellac, or where their wood finish is.

Louie
http://bullwhips.org

I found that if you do use the spray shellac that using a foam brush or sponge helps, get the throw away black foam brushes and spray a little shellac on the brush and then brush it on, careful because it dries pretty fast. I spray some on the brush and brush it up and down the whip a little at a time and it works great you don't have to worry about overspray.

pretty much any of the big hardware stores like Home Depot will carry the premixed shellac...just go to the paint section and ask for shellac, or where their wood finish is.

Thank you that is very helpful. If I cant figure the crystal thing I'll probably go to hardware and get some of that.

Hi ST
I use shellac flakes all the time ...for small quantities use a sealable glass jar fill it half with flakes then fill with Metholated spirits put the lid on then give it a shake every couple of minutes for about 10 minutes .
Set this aside and let it settle (this can take from a couple of days to a couple of weeks depending on the quality of the flakes you have)
Once it has settled you will see a sediment at the bottom and transparent
brown coloured liquid at the top .
Pour the liquid off the top into another jar this is the stuff you use and it can be diluted more with the spirit (1:1)
Throw the sediment away
Apply this with a soft lint free cloth very lightly and leave to dry then just add more coates till you get the desired affect you require.
the lighter the coates the better the finish...
Cheers
Chris Barr

Hi ST,

There are lots of shallac types, i buy mine off a guy on ebay and it's called bleached shallac, it's in crystal form and comes white/cream coloured rather than the amber colour...


How to mix it...

Pour about an inch of flakes into the bottom of a clear glass jar, i just use a coffee jar, then pour methalated spirits over it so the spirit is sitting about half an inch aboce the level of the flakes...screw the lid on and give it a shake....leave it 10 minutes and you'll see the mixture has gone glupy like glue.....top the jar up with more spirit till the level is again about half an inch above the level of the glup....screw the lid back on then just put it on the side, I do this in the workshop and throughout the day whenever it pop's into my mind i give it a little shake, eventually, usually a full 24 hours, sometimes longer, , everything will disolve and you'll be left with a liquid....

I pour this liquid into an old washing up liquid bottle, the type with a snap top, it stays live for up to a year this way.....


How to apply it....

Again off ebay I buy lint free cloth and french polishers wadding, cut a square of cloth about 8 inches square, then a bit of wadding about 4 inches square, pour from your squeezy bottle about a tea spoon of shallac into the wadding, then fold the corners of the cloth in and pinch them up, I tie these with an elastic band, you'll then of created a pad...

This next bit i can't give a logical explanation for but it works....tie the whip by the fall to a hook then very gently from the hitches go bottom to top, your putting it on so light that when you've done the first coat it doesn't really look any different, leave ten minutes then do the same again, leave ten minutes then do a third coat, immediately you finish the third coat take a palm full of leather dressing and coat the whip....don't rub it in just coat it...leave it an hour or so then rub the leather dressing in....

I've found that going bottom to top when you apply stops any accumulation of shallac in the joints of the plaiting, there doesn't seem any reason i can figure out for this it just works out this way for me...

With the method above what you'll be left with is leather that looks like a nicely polished pair of shoes rather than that horrible plastic look you see sometimes when somebody has put too much on....it doesn't crack either which looks aweful......

The pad you've made....

don't just throw the pad away (unless you want to of course) I use a screw top plastic container, just pop the pad into the container and screw the lid on tight, next time you need to shallac remove it and give it a little dab on the work bench, there'll still be enough in there to do at least one more whip without adding any more liquid....

I'll be checking back on this thread to see how other people do it, but this way works great for me....

Best Wishes

Tony......................

I use too shellac flakes dilluted in denatured alcohol. You have to find what cut works best for you. Here's the link to a useful article:

http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/htdocs/shellac.htm

Regards,

Bernardo

Thank you all vary much, your help is vary appreciated. I expect that your tutorial will be quite useful. I also emailed Mr. Murphy to see what he has to say, and I'll post it when he replies.

What good is it? And should it be reapplied every now and then once it rubs off?

http://www.murphywhips.com/FAQwhips.htm ... %20Shellac, denatured alcohol or methylated spirits Spencer, pour all the crystals into the jar youn plan to store the polish in and then cover the crystals with the spirit so 10mm of clear liquid sits above the settled crystals,

ATB,
Mike

Well that’s what he said.

What good is it? And should it be reapplied every now and then once it rubs off?

WhipDude check this out. http://www.murphywhips.com/FAQwhips.htm ... %20Shellac Hope it helps.