French polishing

[TallDad71]

I believe hard shellac can be sprayed.

Bodying is basically building up very thin layers of shellac. The final shine is achieved with the final pad sessions where you reduce the cut of the shellac mix. I'm not sure a spray gun can apply layers off finish as thin as you can apply with a pad. My thoughts only and I havent tried using a spray gun for shellac.

Has anyone experimented with spraying shellac?

Spend some time getting shellac onto the guitar, reasonably quickly with a hvlp sprayer, then bodying to get a shine.

Repeat the process until satisfied.

I like French polishing but you sure can have too much of a good thing.

Thanks for the opinion.

The spray gun can spray incredibly finely, almost to the point where you could spray continuously on the front back back and sides and expect it to evaporate in between visits.

I’ll give it a try on some scraps I think.

[joel]

What spray gun are you using? Full size or one of those modellers ones? I've been thinking of trying spraying if I could spray shellac that'd be ideal!

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

[kiwigeo]

Ubeaut hard shellac has a posted shelf life of 18months....

What spray gun are you using? Full size or one of those modellers ones? I've been thinking of trying spraying if I could spray shellac that'd be ideal!

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

[Bob_H]

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

I asked Shines this question the other day - this is their response:

"Shellac varnish by itself has a shelf life of min 24 months. Hardener by itself will be fine for years together.
However, shellac varnish + hardener is a bit tricky. Most of our customers have reported that they usually finish the shellac+hardener mixture within 1 week. You can try with a small amount of mixture to see how long it will last.

Hope this helps.

Thank you,
Pranam"

I did two instruments, a couple of weeks apart, with the same batch of mixed hard shellac - I was much happier with the first instrument than the second, when it just did not go on as well, or dry as quickly.

[kiwigeo]

Interesting....some conflicting information.

Ubeaut hard shellac usually has an 18 month shelf life on the bottle.

The Ubeaut Hard Shellac is essentially the Shine's product. I'm pretty sure Shines sold their recipe to Ubeaut some time back and they no longer supply made up hard shellac (I was told this by Pranam last time I phoned up Shines).

Not sure what's happened to Robert..he used to always answer the phone and field questions.

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

I asked Shines this question the other day - this is their response:

"Shellac varnish by itself has a shelf life of min 24 months. Hardener by itself will be fine for years together.
However, shellac varnish + hardener is a bit tricky. Most of our customers have reported that they usually finish the shellac+hardener mixture within 1 week. You can try with a small amount of mixture to see how long it will last.

Hope this helps.

Thank you,
Pranam"

I did two instruments, a couple of weeks apart, with the same batch of mixed hard shellac - I was much happier with the first instrument than the second, when it just did not go on as well, or dry as quickly.

[TallDad71]

What spray gun are you using? Full size or one of those modellers ones? I've been thinking of trying spraying if I could spray shellac that'd be ideal!

Also, what's the shelf life of that Hard Shellac stuff?

I bought into the Fuji spray hvlp system. I went for their best spray gun and it’s amazing.
The spray pattern goes from about 12mm to 400mm. The flow control is key and finely adjustable, so that even at 12mm close up you can prevent flooding the work.

https://www.axminstertools.com/fuji-min ... ea72671cfc