Official Luthiers Forum!

When spiriting off between FP bodying sessions, a low solid, high solvent pad is recommended. Do you keep a separate muncea for this step, or just load with straight alcohol?

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Gabriel Regalbuto
Carlsbad, California
Freedom 35!

I will asume you are using a 2# cut. See if I can explain this with a bit more than just the direct answer.

The intent of spiriting off is to remove lube oil, level out any ridging and harden the film. If all we used was a cloth and alcohol we would cause the shellac to transfer to the cloth and the cloth would stick. but since we use the 2 part muneca with residial shellac stored in the inner pad. even as we spirit off we actuall wick out a small amount of shellac as we do so. However the intent here is not to build additional thickness but to firm up and level out what we have. In general when i load for spiriting off i apply one eye droper of 1# shellac and 6 drops of alcohol and 1 drop of walnut oil and spread the oil over the face of the muneca. It may sound counter productive to add the oil but this is only to prevent the muneca for taking off shellac with this quick firm with the grain stroke. depending on conditions if you go too wet with alcohol the as you first glide on the rapidly melted shellac will be pickup by the muneca. we do not want this so the one drop of oil is to hep insure that this does not happen.

And like with all other boding and glazing be sure to tap the muneca on the back of your hand or on a sheet of clean white paper before you use a muneca that has been newly loaded.