Thomas Mitchell wrote in message ...
So I've decided to try shellac, the flakes and mix my own. I did a quick
search on google and came up with several suppliers. Anyone have a
recommendation for a brand and type? I plan on spraying the shellac as a
top coat over natural and painted surfaces. I'm looking for something
that is fairly clear meaning the blonde type. I don't think the shellac
needs to be dewaxed.

Thomas,

I ordered some from http://www.shellac.net/ about a year and a half
ago and was very pleased with it. Their FAQ, in particular, is quite
useful to the beginner. I'm not personally familiar with using
shellac over paint or spraying, but I do have a few pieces of advice
from my experience:

1) I simply used the big can o' denatured alchohol from Home Depot to
mix with. Some people theorize that has too much water in it, but I
had no problems with it in a 1 pound cut. You may want to go even
thinner than that for spray finishing (I have no idea since, as I
said, I have no experience with spray finishing).

2) Rather than doing clear shellac over paint, why not do something
more durable? If this isn't a kid's toy (where you'd want the
edibility of shellac), you're not getting color from the blonde
shellac, so why not something harder like polyurethane?

3) On the natural, I've had a lot of luck using shellac as an
undercoat. I use the shellac to "pop" the grain and seal the wood,
then put thin coats of polyurethane on top to provide good protection
from water (which shellac doesn't provide). I used a modified version
of the "Perfect Finish" described at
http://www.io.com/~richardr/writing/APerfectFinish/ in a couple of
projects and was pleased with the results.

4) As I understand it, the only time you need to worry about dewaxed
shellac is if you're going to use it as an undercoat and put another
finish on top. The other finish won't stick well to shellac with wax
in it. If you're going to use shellac as the final coat, don't worry
about whether it has wax or not.

I have a woodcraft and a rockler. Rockler is hard to get to, woodcraft
easy. Prefer buying online but I've seen funny shipping charges on the
denatured alcohol, so it might be best to find that locally.

My Woodcraft has both shellac and denatured alchohol. The DA is
considered a hazardous material if it's shipped more than a quart at a
time, which is why you see those weird shipping charges, can't get it
overnight (not allowed on airplanes), etc. I'd just purchase that
locally. If 95% anhydrous isn't good enough for you, just put
together a still in your shop and distill it down.

Seriously, if you want the 200 proof stuff, you might check a local
paint store.

Good luck getting shellacked!

-BAT



Thomas