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I got some LMI flakes, light blond, and put em in strait 200 grain overnight, about 15 hrs, to do a rosette wood wash, about 1 Tablespoon to 1.5 tbs grain alchahol. This morning after pouring it out, there was a glob of shellac flakes at the bottom. Is this normal, more time needed, whats up? The flakes were double sealed in low temp area.

Thanks

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

That's normal. It takes longer. Some mixing and breaking up the glob speeds it a bit.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

If you dissolved the shellac in the alcohol by slowly turning the with a stick when add the alcohol then turning the bottle every couple hours for a while, then no you should not have a congealed mass in the bottom. if you just pored the flakes into the alcohol and did nothing else then yes this is likely to happen. Slowly stir the mix with out adding air bubbles till dissolved, put a flat cap on your bottle and rotate every couple hors or so the first day. this will dissolve the shellac thoroughly.

Yeah, you have to agitate it to keep it suspended, or use the Tea-bag method of hanging the flakes in a piece of cloth suspended in the alcohol.

When I mixed my batches, I put it in the bottles, then every 5 minutes or so, I'd to by and give it a shake. It took a long time to get it completely dissolved. After it was about 60% dissolved, which took a couple of hours, I just let it sit. It was fine by the next morning. You can speed the process by grinding it in a coffee grinder.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I use a cheap coffee grinder to grind up the flakes before mixing it with the alcohol. The end result is a very fine powder that disolves quicker than the flakes.

Well, I was thinking of a morten and pedistal, but nothing is too cheap on ebay...

Thanks all!!

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I

I used to have the same problems with shellac. No matter how fresh the flakes were, no matter how I ground them (or didn't), no matter the cut, no matter the alcohol used to disolve them, I always ended up with clumps of various sizes.

then I bought a cheapie magnetic stirrer on ebay. No more clumps. Fresh flakes dissolve 100%. I still strain it a couple times but virtually nothing is trapped in the filter.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

You can also speed things up a lot by keeping the temperature of the alcohol a little higher. I do this by putting the bottle into one of the forced air heating vents in our house. Blowing warm air on it makes it dissolve much faster.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

Anyone ever tried to do the grind or put them in a processer and then a slow speed blender?
I usually just go and stir the jar every now and then and turn it upside down and right side up. Usually mostly gone in 24 hours. I've had some old stuff that never did desolve too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al88SggJOrw&NR=1



A $1.99 electric motor, and some inovation, and a 3.00 stir magnet might just do the trick!

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Here is what a Parlor Guitar is for!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEa8PkjO6_I