ttalma
Well-known member
I have used button lac on a couple of projects recently. I'm not sure if button lac is the correct name but it's shellac that looks like thick blobs rather than flakes. Anyway it is a deep rich red tone and and has come out great on the pieces I used it on.
As I understand it's the rawest from of shellac and when I dissolve it it's full of what I can best guess is dust. How do you filter out the impurities? I do the following:
I let it dissolve for a day or two and then let it sit overnight. By then most of the gunk has settled near the bottom. I then use a turkey baster to get as much of the "clean" stuff off as I can putting it in another jar going through a coffee filter. I can usually get about half of it this way.
The rest I filter through cheese cloth or an old t-shirt, what ever I have lying around, twice. The gunk usually plugs those up once or twice and I change as needed. After that I then use coffee filters and strain the rest, these plug up often, and I change as needed.
I make a 4 pound cut 24 oz at a time (the size of the jar I use) when I am done filtering I end up with about 16 to 18 oz of clean shellac. This means I end up losing about 1/3 of my shellac and with the prices so high it bothers me to lose so much. With flakes I lose an ounce or two at most.
Should I expect this amount of loss with the button lac? Is there a better method?
Thanks, -Tim
As I understand it's the rawest from of shellac and when I dissolve it it's full of what I can best guess is dust. How do you filter out the impurities? I do the following:
I let it dissolve for a day or two and then let it sit overnight. By then most of the gunk has settled near the bottom. I then use a turkey baster to get as much of the "clean" stuff off as I can putting it in another jar going through a coffee filter. I can usually get about half of it this way.
The rest I filter through cheese cloth or an old t-shirt, what ever I have lying around, twice. The gunk usually plugs those up once or twice and I change as needed. After that I then use coffee filters and strain the rest, these plug up often, and I change as needed.
I make a 4 pound cut 24 oz at a time (the size of the jar I use) when I am done filtering I end up with about 16 to 18 oz of clean shellac. This means I end up losing about 1/3 of my shellac and with the prices so high it bothers me to lose so much. With flakes I lose an ounce or two at most.
Should I expect this amount of loss with the button lac? Is there a better method?
Thanks, -Tim
