I'm testing a few different finishes for a new cherry project I'm working on
and one involves shellac. This is my first adventure in shellac and I'm not
sure what's going on in the mixing. I'm using blonde dewaxed shellac flakes
from Hock, which I just mixed with 8 oz of the denatured alcohol they
provide to make a 2lb. cut. I've read that it's best to crush the shellac
flakes to speed the process, so I had an old coffee grinder in the garage
that was unused and used that. I thought I was on the cutting edge of
shellac flake grinding until I was doing a ng archive search today on this
problem and came upon a post from Paddy describing the same thing. In any
case, it's been mixed for about 12 hours and right now I have a lightly
colored alcohol solution with about 3/8" of goo in the bottom. I've read
the suggestions to immerse in hot water, which I haven't tried yet. Am I
being too impatient? I expected the whole thing to dissolve by now, even
without the addition of heat.

todd