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Thanks, I dont know anything about Vodka or other such drinks. The solution for californians is just buy the alky for Vilky when you get your Royal Lacy.

I gave a link above to my first Royal Lac guitar using Robbie's video. Here's the finishing procedure I plan to use on my next Royal Lac guitar after discussions with Vijay.

This will be less work due to less sanding and less time due to not cutting the Seal Lac from 2# down to 1#. The reason to cut is to apply smoother and thinner coats. Fewer coats of 2# or more coats of 1# yield the same final finish thickness. There's no need to sand (level) between application of Royal Lac since ridges don't "build straight up" and leveling once still yields a completely level surface in the end. If you want a thinner surface just put on fewer coats.

Any type of pore filler should work fine. This is since shellac is one of the best substances for "sticking to anything" and the Seal Lac is shellac without any artificial resin additives (natural resins are added) per Vijay. I believe that any pore filler that works with shellac will work with Seal Lac. That is why the Seal Lac is used before the Royal Lac, since Royal Lac does have some artificial resins added to it so that it will cure to be more resistant to heat, water, alcohol, etc. (I pore-fill with epoxy.)

The Royal Lac in the procedure below is simply applied with a pad starting at one end of the plate and moving in a straight line from the start to the end of the plate or side. Each stroke overlaps about 1/4" or so. I use a small folded piece of cotton Tee shirt wrapped inside a 6” square piece of cotton linen. Extremely light pressure is used and the pad just glides on and off the guitar's surface. Be careful to avoid drips or runs since they require scraping off after drying to level (read - cause more work and chances for sand throughs). It takes about 2 minutes or less per plate to coat. One coat on the entire guitar including the neck can be done in about 8 to 10 minutes or less. There is no oil or rubbing or figure-eight strokes or such that a more complex procedure such as French Polishing requires. (A brush could be used to apply it, but the coats will be thicker the danger of runs and drips will increase. This means fewer coats and more time between coats would be needed than described below. Plus bursh cleaning, etc.)


DAY 1
1. APPLY SEAL LAC: Pad on full strength Seal Lac (thermal plastic polymer) with 2 coats on the non-pore filled parts to help adhesion later to Royal Lac (thermal set polymer). Apply about 3 Coats (or more) on the bare wood spruce top and/or other bare wood parts – enough coats to see that all the wood has finished absorbing the sealer and are shiny.
2. Let cure 8 to 10 hours

DAY 2
3. Wet scuff sand with 600 grit to get ridges of Seal Lac knocked down (so that the Seal Lac can’t be higher than the Royal Lac applied later. Because we don’t want Seal Lac “poking through” the finished Royal Lac.) (about 1 hour)
4. Let it get “bone dry”

5. APPLY ROYAL LAC (25% solids per Vijay) Pad on full strength Royal Lac (thermal set polymer) 4 to 5 thin coats with 30 minutes between each coat (30 min. for ~43% RH and 72F. More time needed for higher RH or lower temperature.) (About 2 ½ hours for 5 coats).
6. Wait 2 hours for additional drying
7. Pad on full strength Royal Lac 4 to 5 thin coats with 30 minutes between each coat (about 2 ½ hours for 5 coats).
8. Wait 3 hours for additional drying.
9. Pad on full strength Royal Lac 4 to 5 thin coats with 30 minutes between each coat (about 2 ½ hours for 5 coats).
10. SHORT CURE: Let cure 24 hours

DAY 3
11. Do impression test with thumb (not nail) at several places around the surfaces. If it leaves no impression, proceed to level sand. If it leaves impression, let it cure more time.

DAY 3 OR DAY 4
12. LEVEL SAND: Wet sand with 1000, 1200 and 1500. If sanded through, apply 4 to 5 additional coats of full strength Royal Lac only on the whole plate that was sanded through and go back to step #10 for the sanded-through plate only (the other areas are complete). If not sanded through anywhere, start Long Cure time.
13. LONG CURE: Let cure 2 weeks for hand buff and 4 weeks for machine buff (Note that Vijay’s furniture “proving test” waited 25 days for it to cure for being resistant to heat, water and alcohol. The two weeks additional cure time is needed to gas-off and withstand the heat generated from machine buffing.

DAY 18 FOR HAND BUFF, DAY 32 FOR MACHINE BUFF
14. Buff with 3000 grit compound.
15. Polish with automotive polish.

I hope this helps. I know it goes against the grain of doing much more sanding between application of coats and cutting the shellac, but you might want to try it.

Here's a question: I will need to scrape off the finish for gluing down the bridge. Can I do that at the beginning of the long cure time (mine has been resting for about 4 days so far) or at the end of the long cure time? I would think that now is OK.

The finish is softer and should be easier to remove now, before finishing the Long Cure, in my opinion. But the finish around the bridge will also, obviously, be softer and easier to scratch or mar now than it will be later. Depending on how careful you work may be the deciding factor.

I gotta ask, what problem is this finish solving? Or is it just new and we want to use it?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

The solvent is alcohol so it is not a breathing hazard like harmful lacquer solvents. It can be cut with Everclear or other alcohols.
Without the harsher solvents of varnish.
The final look is, like shellac, very deep and some think better looking than lacquer.
It does not have a blue or other color cast like some water based finishes.
Like shellac, the finished coat is thin, which some people think sounds better than typically thicker lacquer applications
It is much harder than shellac and resists wear, denting and chemicals much better than shellac.
It is much faster and easier to apply than French Polish shellac taking less time and effort.
It can be applied by hand easily with excellent results without the need for spray equipment and a spray booth and without the learning curve of French Polish.
No expensive brushes and brush cleaning procedures and brush storage problems. Just a simple throw away cotton/linen pad.
More forgiving and easier to apply than varnish.

Downside is repairs will not "melt" in like shellac or lacquer. Repairs would be more akin to varnish. It has a long cure time like shellac and lacquer. Not as resistent to denting and wear as thicker lacquer or varnish.

Thanks for the reply Ed.
Looking at your schedule above, it seems a lot like french polishing to me with a similar time and effort to completion. I should add that some french polishes are completed in a couple of days.
It may be harder but a thin film like that is not going to add any dent protection, it should be better with fingernail scratches and such though.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Im thinking Minwipe's regular poly could be applied the same but with some sanding between and a thinned final coat or their wipe on version for the final coat. I dont know what the exact schedule would be but it would be more ding resistant wouldnt it?

It's difficult to test 'ding resistance' of a finish. Most of the time it's the wood underneath that is taking the ding.
Shellac itself is hardly a soft finish. Try scratching a button or flake with your fingernail. I think you will find that it resists it very well. But French Polish is virtually always a very thin finish, mostly why folk think it rather vulnerable.

Jim,
My schedule did not include the detail of what "pad it on" meant. It is not like French Polishing with repeated figure eights or such. The Royal Lac is simply applied with a pad starting at one end of the plate and moving in a straight line from the start to the end of the plate or side. Each stroke overlaps about 1/4" or so.

It takes about 2 minutes or less per plate to coat. One coat on the entire guitar including the neck can be done in about 8 to 10 minutes or less. Then the guitar sits for 30 minutes before the next 8 minutes of work. It is extremely light pressue were the pad just glides on and off the guitar's surface. There is no rubbing pressure applied. French Polish uses more "elbow grease" and takes more skill and experience to my knowledge. No oil or alcohol or other products are used in the procedure that I outlined. French Polish uses these adders which takes experience to "feel" the quanity, etc.

I usually use CA to drop fill any small gaps or voids in the rosette or binding that show up after the initial seal coats. Will I be able to use CA to drop fill after a few Seal Lac coats?

Also, what types of pore fillers will work under this besides epoxy and Waddy's method of rubbing the Seal Lac into the pores?

Any type of pore fill will work under Seal-Lac. And, yes you will be able to fill voids with CA.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Wendy,
Yes, you can use CA and scrape level. It will work well in my opinion without any issues.

Any type of pore filler should work fine. Since shellac is one of the best/safest substances for "sticking to anything" and the Seal Lac is shellac without any artificial resin additives (natural resins are added) per Vijay. I believe that any pore filler that works with shellac will work with Seal Lac. That is why the Seal Lac is used before the Royal Lac, since Royal Lac does have some artificial resins added to it so that it will cure to be more resistant to heat, water, alcohol, etc.

I hope this helps.

What exactly is in this Royal Lac? When I'm using a finish I like to know the basic ingredients. Going from the description it may not be all that different to so called 'table top Shellacs' - shellacs that are modified with Melamine, which have been around for a long time.

Can I use Royal Lac on top of regular shellac?

After talking with Vijay at Royal Lac, my understanding is that he was looking for a solution to the issues that were faced by U-Beaut. He felt that the practice of adding plasticizers to the shellac created a chemical instability that may have been the cause of crazing and that even though improved, the plasticizers were not really compatible with shellac. Instead of plasticizers he is using resins to achieve the same or similar results of more water and alcohol resistance to the cured finish. I don't know the chemistry, but he does. I stand to be corrected on this in case I misunderstood his explanations.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I guess it must be something like Melamine. I'm not aware of any natural resin that would act much differently to Shellac. Certainly not the usual suspects of Sandarac, Mastic or Benzoin.



You might have to do some long term tests to see if that is safe. The usual rule is softer on top of harder, not the other way around. I suspect it will be OK if the Shellac is just used as a sealer coat i.e. it isn't done to any significant thickness. Then again it may work perfectly well.

On the question of whether you can use Royal Lac on top of regular shellac:

I'm pretty sure you can do that without a problem, but if you are in doubt, just contact Vijay. He is very approachable.

Justification for my speculation that regular shellac will be OK under Royal Lac:

Regular shellac is a great seal coat. It stick to everything and everything sticks to it. That's what Seal Lac does, too. Seal Lac just might be more durable (due to the additives that Vijay puts in). Really, it is just shellac with some extra stuff to make it harder. If Royal Lac sticks to Seal Lac (which it does), then it should stick just fine to regular shellac.

I asked him that question, and the answer is definitely "yes".

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

According to Robert Rae, the guy who came up with "Hard Shellac" and then licensed it to U-Beaut, the U-beaut guys didn't want the plasticiser in it, as it was intended for furniture use. So he took it out for them. He always kept it in the product he sold directly to me under the "Shines" brand and I've never had a problem. U-beaut then wanted the plasticisers put back in when the crazing started. I don't know what the plasticisers are in either the Royal Lac or the U-beaut/Shines products, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were actually the same. Robert's main business is food grade shellac for pharmaceutical and confectionery coatings. And if you've ever wondered why some apples are really shiny....

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Good info, Trevor! I was just parroting what I was told. I don't know any specifics about either one of them myself. I have used U-Beaut without issue. Easy to use. I will say, though, this Royal-Lac sure goes on easy and the solids in the Seal-Lac actually fills pores. Pretty easy stuff to use.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I am currently doing a French Polish with U-Beaut shellac based on Steve VAs process. His recommendation was to cut it with Everclear or Denatured alcohol which was about a 1 lb cut as I understand it. I live in NY and according to what I found on the internet when I googled Everclear, it is not legal here. I thought I could pick up some in Fla on a recent drive to our place down there but the same site said it was not available in Florida either. I ended up finding an on line liquor store, Elephant Liquors and Wine in New Jersey. They had Everclear available in the on line catalog, so for the heck of it I placed an order, figuring it would give me an error message about not being able to ship to New York. No message came up and a few days later the UPS guy was here and just required a signature to verify you were at least 21 because it was alcohol. I don't know if I just got lucky but here is the address if you want to try www.elephantwine.com/
Good luck!
Kurt

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_____________________________

Kurt Thomas

"There's a first time for everything even if you do it by mistake."

If anyone is interested, you can't buy Everclear in West Virginia (my home), but it is legal in Kentucky. I had to visit over there recently, so I made a quick stop in a Liquor Barn and picked up a healthy supply.

My Royal Lac experiment guitar is looking great so far. Still a week or so away from final buffing, but I got the bridge glued on, neck adjusted, nut & saddle tweaked, all that jazz. I'll post some photos after buffing.

This is NOT a recommendation, but when I was testing Royal-Lac, I didn't bother to wait the two weeks before wet sanding out with Micro-mesh and then polishing with Meguires Swirl Remover and Show Car Glaze. I waited a few days, and did the work. It came out just fine. Perfectly good gloss finish.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Most of the time when you rub out early it will result in a less flat surface. Over time the finish shrinks and hardens. Rubbing out after a month or so allows the finish to shrink, so you eventually end up with a more permanent flat finish.
Then again rubbing out early and that less than flat surface isn't always a bad thing, depending on the effect that you want. What the finish looks like after one month isn't necessarily what it will look like after 2 years.