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I love shellac over maple
- Thread starter BassUrges
- Start date
I'm a shellac fan too. By the way, that's a nice looking fingerboard you've got there.
Just for your possible interest.
Lately, (for about 5 years) I've been using a "new" form of shellac from an Australian company called U-Beaut,(who I have no association with) it's called 'Hard Shellac' and is blonde and contains 'crosslinkers', so while it behaves like shellac, can be applied just like shellac and looks like shellac, it is also moisture resistant, heat resistant, alcohol resistant and harder when cured than normal shellac. So far it seems to wear well, though I haven't tried it on a maple fretless fingerboard. It certainly wipes on, or can be applied with a rubber, or can be sprayed, just like normal shellac. The stated aim was to produce a durable shellac finish suitable for furniture and musical instruments, that would be durable without hampering resonance.
(The company spent several years developing their formula, partly because some early formulas tended to craze, which obviously didn't suit for most applications, though I recon it would have been ideal for some guitar/bass applications. reproducing the look of old varnish, or nitro, without the health related issues?)
I believe there are a number of suppliers in the USA and Europe and info about the product can be found at www.ubeaut.com.au (I hope providing a companies email address doesn't contravene forum policies? If it does, please delete if necessary and accept my apology.)
Just for your possible interest.
Lately, (for about 5 years) I've been using a "new" form of shellac from an Australian company called U-Beaut,(who I have no association with) it's called 'Hard Shellac' and is blonde and contains 'crosslinkers', so while it behaves like shellac, can be applied just like shellac and looks like shellac, it is also moisture resistant, heat resistant, alcohol resistant and harder when cured than normal shellac. So far it seems to wear well, though I haven't tried it on a maple fretless fingerboard. It certainly wipes on, or can be applied with a rubber, or can be sprayed, just like normal shellac. The stated aim was to produce a durable shellac finish suitable for furniture and musical instruments, that would be durable without hampering resonance.
(The company spent several years developing their formula, partly because some early formulas tended to craze, which obviously didn't suit for most applications, though I recon it would have been ideal for some guitar/bass applications. reproducing the look of old varnish, or nitro, without the health related issues?)
I believe there are a number of suppliers in the USA and Europe and info about the product can be found at www.ubeaut.com.au (I hope providing a companies email address doesn't contravene forum policies? If it does, please delete if necessary and accept my apology.)
Means2nEnd
Supporting Member
Available here as Royal-Lac I am holding a can of it right now. I haven't had a chance to use it yet but it is sort of infused with polyester and cross-links. Sounds like the same thing I bought mine from LMI. I bought the sealer and I bought the post catalyzed so it comes separate catalyst obviously and I am excited to try it.
I see your point, although the hard shellac can be used over normal shellac, so in your case the HS could possibly be a replacement for the poly top coats for durability?
For a more normal board without inlayed dyed veneer, the hard stuff is probably a good idea. And it might be a good topcoat here, too. I’m not sure what I’m going to do. Have to get the neck made first!
Made some progress on that this afternoon.
Thank you!
It’s part of a larger design continues on the bass, but the whole thing is NSFTB.
A couple of general notes:
The technique of "popping the grain" on a highly figured wood like curly maple is fairly simple. You want a finish that's fairly thin (that is, low viscosity). It can be shellac, Boiled Linseed Oil base, oil-base poly, water-base poly, or even nitro lacquer. As long as it's thinned down and compatible with whatever you are going to use for the finish over it.
That finish needs to be tinted with some color of your choice. Usually a golden amber-brown color is preferred for a "natural" look on curly maple. The shellac that BassUrges used here had a light amber tint, and you can see that it looks great. Most shellacs and oil-base finishes have a built-in amber tint, right out of the can. You can add more pigment to them to darken the tint color, if you like. Water-base poly and nitro lacquer are clear right from the can, so you need to add a pigment to tint it, to use it for popping the grain. It doesn't have to be amber, you can make it any color you want. Black, brown, purple, green, whatever you like.
The wood needs to be sanded flat, then use compressed air to blow the fine sawdust out of the open pores. That's important. In figured wood, the grain is weaving up and down like waves in the ocean, breaking through the surface as open pores, then diving back down as side grain. You need to clear the sanding dust out of the pores where it breaks through the surface.
Apply the finish by wiping it on, rubbing it into the open pores, and wiping it off before it dries. The point is to push the thin, tinted finish down into the open pores, but wipe the finish off of the side grain surface. That makes the color contrast to the movement of the grain, showing off the figure of the wood.
My overall point is that, here, BassUrges used a shellac with a mild amber natural tint and got nice mild grain-popping results. But you can get the same grain-popping effect with other types of finishes, more or less dramatically, or even other colors. It's not that you have to use shellac to pop the grain.
I generally like to stick with the same type of finish for the whole finishing process. Mostly to make sure that it all bonds together correctly. If I'm going to finish a curly maple board with, say, water-base poly then I'd do the grain popping with water-base poly. Then use water-base poly for the overall color and top coats. Likewise with other finish types.
The technique of "popping the grain" on a highly figured wood like curly maple is fairly simple. You want a finish that's fairly thin (that is, low viscosity). It can be shellac, Boiled Linseed Oil base, oil-base poly, water-base poly, or even nitro lacquer. As long as it's thinned down and compatible with whatever you are going to use for the finish over it.
That finish needs to be tinted with some color of your choice. Usually a golden amber-brown color is preferred for a "natural" look on curly maple. The shellac that BassUrges used here had a light amber tint, and you can see that it looks great. Most shellacs and oil-base finishes have a built-in amber tint, right out of the can. You can add more pigment to them to darken the tint color, if you like. Water-base poly and nitro lacquer are clear right from the can, so you need to add a pigment to tint it, to use it for popping the grain. It doesn't have to be amber, you can make it any color you want. Black, brown, purple, green, whatever you like.
The wood needs to be sanded flat, then use compressed air to blow the fine sawdust out of the open pores. That's important. In figured wood, the grain is weaving up and down like waves in the ocean, breaking through the surface as open pores, then diving back down as side grain. You need to clear the sanding dust out of the pores where it breaks through the surface.
Apply the finish by wiping it on, rubbing it into the open pores, and wiping it off before it dries. The point is to push the thin, tinted finish down into the open pores, but wipe the finish off of the side grain surface. That makes the color contrast to the movement of the grain, showing off the figure of the wood.
My overall point is that, here, BassUrges used a shellac with a mild amber natural tint and got nice mild grain-popping results. But you can get the same grain-popping effect with other types of finishes, more or less dramatically, or even other colors. It's not that you have to use shellac to pop the grain.
I generally like to stick with the same type of finish for the whole finishing process. Mostly to make sure that it all bonds together correctly. If I'm going to finish a curly maple board with, say, water-base poly then I'd do the grain popping with water-base poly. Then use water-base poly for the overall color and top coats. Likewise with other finish types.
Okay. I had to look up Chatoyance to understand what you meant. To me that's all part of the "popping" effect; adding a 3-D look to the wood by making parts of the grain weave darker in graduation, while leaving others light. Is there something special about shellac that brings out the chatoyance vs other finish types? I'm asking; I don't have a lot of experience with shellac.
Regarding the physics of it, I presume it’s related to the index of refraction.
But as for my personal choice, some years ago I lined up a bunch of half-pints and rattle cans of “clear” and put them all on a nice piece of scrap veneer to find my favorites: clearest, nicest looking, easiest to work with. Shellac looked best on the “curly” parts, and also is easy to work with.
I've use shellac quite a bit and a fundamental thing to keep in mind is waxed vs. de-waxed. Shellac has a natural wax included from the beetle shells it is made from. The wax interferes with many top-coats. Thus de-waxed shellac is preferred if top coated with something else. Among the old school flooring crowd, shellac over oak or maple is the the coveted classic finish. The higher end shellacs are sold in flakes and dissolved in denatured alcohol. Lots of discussion about this and recipes in the double bass luthier's section of TB.
Manton Customs
UK Luthier
Actually Nitro has a yellow tint out the can and yellows further over time. It has a great “popping” effect over natural wood, similar to blonde shellac, so it doesn’t need any tinting unless you’re going for something more extreme....most Water based Poly is completely dead without tint though.
I used shellac under WB Poly a few times and it looked great, but I did end up with a few adhesion issues on some builds, so stopped using it. It was dewaxed but apparently you can get some traces of wax left over in the shellac after the dewaxing process. Enough to cause adhesion problems unfortunately.
Adhesion issues do worry me a little. I want to build up the poly a little to compensate for variations in veneer thickness, and I’m debating between Home Depot spray and trying the rattle-can spraymax 2K automotive clear that costs way more and is much more toxic.
