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Question is in the title. I have some Higgins India Ink and by itself it's quite black but I am not sure it would work in shellac as I would have to use so much of it that the shellac chemistry would change. And it needs to be totally opaque and jet black.

Anyone ever do this before? Do you have a formula? It's just for touch up on a 19th Century Viennese guitar.

Regards.

Black polish shellac is commonly used for pianos and I would be tempted to look for something proprietry for this.
High gloss, jet black.
Our black piano was repaired by a professional french polisher after damage was sustained during a move.
This is excessive in size at 1 ltr, but this type of thing https://fiddes-usa.com/shop/wood-finishes/shellac-polish/black-polish/
Or you can get a black shellac repair stick.
Sorry I haven't got a recipe for black shellac.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I have tried this:

https://www.shellac.net/cgi-shellac/sb/productsearch.cgi?storeid=*1249fea48a520871965071&search_field=black+shellac

but could not make it dark enough. They are showing Behlen's black dye there - you might ask them. Looking back, I should have tried Fiebings black leather dye in it. Since the shellac is black you would not need much dye to darken it.

Ed

What about adding lamp black into the mix?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I always thought it was hhg and ebony dust. Any kind of glue might work. Epoxy might be ideal, clear and sets hard. I know you will try it out on scrap first.

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Why be normal?

That looks like the real deal there. I wish they had it in smaller batches. I wonder what the shelf life is because I could see using it on future projects.

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The black flakes on shellac.net are confusing. I cannot tell if they are saying it's opaque or not.

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I had not heard of lamp black before but when searching for it, it does appear that some use it to make black shellac. Now I just need a formula! Or some time to experiment. I wonder how they did it in 1810 or when ever this instrument was made.

It's not to fill, it's for actual finishing. The entire neck on this guitar including the headstock is jet black except where there is excessive wear from playing on the neck and the black was worn through. Someone along the line converted it from a double course guitar to a 6 string but they put the pegs so close together it's hard to turn them. So I am dowel filling the holes and redrilling them in a better location. To finish around the dowels I used black CA which looks great but now they just need to be polished over to be perfect and match the rest of it.

Mixol pigment may work, it’s great in lacquer.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Ahh.
This guy does nice work making old stuff. A black ebonized neck using black shellac. He uses it on 19th century guitars using shellac and lamp black, and pads it on. Scroll down to "Another Voboam"
I don't know his mixture.
http://schreinerlutesandguitars.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2018-02-15T00:19:00-05:00&max-results=7&start=4&by-date=false

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Why be normal?

Yeah that's the stuff Ken, thanks.

Probably not long if it contains pre-dissolved shellac.


No, it's just a shade darker than button lac.


Lamp black is the pigment used in India ink, and likely what is on the instrument. It's also possible that your Higgins ink contains shellac. You could email them and ask. But if so, it would probably be a good idea to add more shellac to increase its durability rather than brushing it on straight from the bottle, since drawing inks are generally focused on maximum opacity.

Lamp black (a.k.a. carbon black) is created by poorly adjusted oil lamps and other sources that produce soot. Here is a video on how to create it intentionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxkR2m-6H3A

I suspect lamp black would be best, as that was probably what was used originally.

However, I have purchased alcohol-soluble black dye (via eBay) quite cheaply and used that to produce black shellac. This instrument has a birch ply body which is just finished in the black shellac. It's pretty much opaque, though if applied too thin (or in my case sanded a little thin) you can see the underlying wood through it with a blue cast.

In hindsight I should have dyed the wood black and then applied my black shellac - I think that would have worked even better.



You will see that finishing is not my best skill - this could have been done a lot better, but I wanted to play it! But it does show you the final effect.

Hmm Interesting. I could do that. I wonder if I can even get some for free out of my oil burner firebox.

I saw oil burners listed as a source for carbon black. I would try it if it wasn't too much trouble. Making it with canola oil as they did in the video looked doable also.

You can buy lamp black from LMI. or you at least you used to be able to. I'm sure there are other sources too.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I've used shellac/lamp black on period guitars. If you read French polishing/ varnishing methods from around the beginning of the 20 th century you'll find that it was a common method for japanning or ebonising.