"miamicuse" wrote in message
...

"RicodJour" wrote in message
oups.com...
miamicuse wrote:
What a Father's day surprise!

I opened my garage door today to do some yard work, shouldn't be more
than
half an hour total, and suddenly I heard a loud "clunk"...I went back
to
the
garage and I have a full can of shellac now laying on the floor. It
was
on
the top shelf of my rack and I have no idea how it fell, could be a cat
or
squirrel when inside the garage while it was opened...don't know. All
I
know is when it tumbled down, it splashed on my walls, shelves, tools,
tiled
floor, some older furniture near by and everything on my shelves and
made a
huge mess and a strong odor.

I never place liquids on top shelves as I've already made that mistake.

It dries quick and I was not able to clean things off fast enough
before
it.
I have been working at it for the last four hours and it's not getting
anywhere. I tried water, alcohol, mineral spirits and other solvents.
Not
sure if any of it combined with Shellac will be poisonous, but the mess
is
not going away. It even stained outside of my garage where the
concrete
driveway was about four feet of it have spots all over. Even metal
brush
does not get this stuff off. I am giving up and thinking I should just
go
to a bar and get a few beers instead of going to Home Depot.

Any advise if there are any solvent I can use?

Shellac flakes are dissolved in alcohol to make a brushable coating.
Alcohol will work, but it evaporates so quickly that it's tough to work
with. You can try making a poultice - lay a rag on top of the shellace
to be removed, wet the rag down with alcohol and cover the rag with a
piece of plastic (garbage bag). Let it sit for a bit to soften the
shellac, then remove the poultice and have a go with it.

You could also try one of the citrus based strippers. That'll give you
more working time and you won't have to worry about the alcohol fumes
and flammability issues.

R


Thanks now I have another question. Since it has been four hours since it
spilled it has sort of dried on most surfaces that I have not wiped down.
Now I am so tired and spent can I wait till next weekend to do this or
will
the job be much more difficult if I wait?

Also how about the porous surfaces like my concrete floor in the garage
and
the concrete driveway they are both stained and since they are not smooth
surface is there a way to clean those? Mop down with alchohol too?

Will ammonia do anything?

Thanks again,

MC

Shellac is dissolved by alcohol, doesn't matter if it's dried or not,
alcohol will dissolve it. It won't dissolve it on contact, it's not that
simple, but the age of the shellac won't affect it. If you want to let it
dry overnight you might as well, it's been long enough just looking at the
posts on this forum that another 12 hours won't make it worse - in my humble
opinion.

People like myself who restore WWII and WWI battle rifles use alcohol to
restore the finish on old shellac'ed guns, like the Russian/Soviet ones and
a few of the Enfields. A quick wipe of the alcohol softens it up and aids
in spreading it around on the unfinished portions of the stock and evens out
the finish. In these cases the shellac has been sitting on the rifle stock
for almost a hundred years, and it still gets affected pretty well by
alcohol.