Many of the modern polys are not compatable with shellac. Some manufacturers
will even recommend you use only their matching sealer.
"Brian Mahaney" wrote in message
. ..
Hello,

I've never tried a water-based poly until today, and I have run into a
problem. Admittedly, I am experimenting a bit. The problem is a crackled
finish. Here are the details of what I did.

I volumteered to refinish my parent's kitchen table as payback for my Dad
helping me deliver finished projects to customers. I started out by
sanding the entire table top down to bare wood. I finish sanded it up to
220. I applied a coat of shellac as a seal coat. That dried over night.
Next day I applied a water-based glaze tinted with Transtint dyes. That
dried over night. I was only doing the top, so I was trying to get to the
color of the rest of the table and chairs. I felt that I needed to warm
up
the tone a bit, so I tinted the water-based poly with Transtint dyes, and
sprayed a coat. It sprayed great despite being a brushing product. As it
dried I began to notice some issues. Slowly it began to crackle. It
looks
kind of cool, but this is not what I was going for. Any clue why this
happened?

Other contributing factors may have been: Temperature in the shop (it was
very cool in the early day, but I had the heat on for hours before I
started). Heating with kerosene. Could that have contaminated the
surface? Anyone experienced this?

Thanks,
Brian