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I've french polished Royal Lac on my last 4 guitars and I usually let them sit 3 or 4 weeks before I put the bridge on, install frets and so on. In this case I'm trying to get this one done in 2 weeks before I go in for a new hip. Ideally I would give it 3 or 4 days to cure then get it finished up.

You folks that are doing Royal Lac, what are your thoughts?

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

A couple of weeks has worked fine for me on Royal Lac. Good luck with the hip!

Dave

Thanks Dave. This one is mine, not a commission, and I want to play it for our Christmas concert on Dec 12 but I won't be able to get to the shop for most of Nov. I guess the worst thing that could happen is that I'll have to repair the finish later. Hoping someone will say "I do that all the time"

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

First, good luck with the hip!

I’ve done 4 with royal lac. I intended to wait 3-4 weeks after FP to assemble and set up. I never ended up waiting. I would say a week is fine. Just like regular FP I t will be hard enough to handle a day or two after your last session and continue to harden from there. The only difference e is that after about 30 days it will s impervious to water and alcohol.

Waiting is probably better but also probably not a huge deal.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Thanks Brian. I’ll give it a shot and let you guys know how it goes.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Great looking guitar!

What exactly are you waiting for?

I have been struggling with RL myself. I have been wanting to treat it more like Nitro in that you get all your coats on, sand back, then buff out. But it has not been working out that well for me in that mind set. I have waited 6 weeks before wet sanding and buffing out and I ALWAYS get some oddities in the finish. Either the sanding or the buffing 'pulls out' some of the RL material from the wood. In some cases, probably my bad, I sand through.

I SUCK at finishing but it's something that has to be done. IT could all be my technique but so far the only acceptable finish that I have had with RL is to treat it just like FP but since it doesn't behave like FP I get a less than desirable finish with it and would rather resort to FP.

James, steve and I are both French polishing with Royal-lac. I can’t speak for Steve but it is a little different than regular shellac for FP but not prohibitively so. For me, o find that it likes a bit more oil than regular shellac. Also it is a bit harder to make adjustments on the fly. That may be my lack of experience with it though. When doing FP with regular shellac o was always adjusting the amount of alcohol and shellac on the pad based on what it seemed like it was doing. For some reason, this is harder to get right with Royal-lac. I can’t really describe it. You know how, when doing regular French polish there are times when it is a little frustrating but you get through it and it starts being pleasurable again? Seems like with royal-lac, there are more frustrating times.

To me, the little bit more frustration is worth the water resistance.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Thanks James. I’m waiting for the finish to harden. Based on the comments here I’ll give it a couple of days and then start the assembly.

As far as FP Royal Lac, it is different from regular shellac. Like Bryan, I’ve found it needs oil and early on I was putting too much RL on the fad which made it sticky, only need a few drops.

Here’s my process:
I seal with 2 coats of shellac then lightly level. My fads are 2 layers of t shirt material around a piece of gauze and secured with a rubber band. I load the fad with 3 or 4 drops of RL, 1 or 2 drops of alcohol and a touch of walnut oil. I put it on a little heavier at the start so it will build. I’ve found that Robbie’s fly on, fly off method works best for me. I’ve tried going in small circles but it leaves little swirl marks. I level with 400 (600 might be better) after about 7 sessions and then again,very lightly, after 15. I did a total of 20 sessions for this one.

Finally, mine is by no means a perfect finish, it still looks like wood

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Best of luck with the surgery!

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From what I understand the Seal Lac is just regular shelac. Can anyone confirm that?

So what I was wondering, since RL is so expensive, why not build up the finish with regular shellac then top coat with RL?

Also, my process is, seal with shellac color of my choice, then brush on at least 3 coats of RL, sand flat, then finish with the FP technique. As others mentioned for me it requires more oil too and a slightly different technique. I like to swirl and figure 8 still but it always has to be finished off whit stiff straight line strokes.

I can’t confirm that seal-lac is just regular shellac, but that is my understanding as well.

I just use regular shellac as my base coats them FP over that. I have been tempted to try brushing on a few coats of royal-lac, sanding then starting the FP technique over that. I probably will try it next time.

My FP method always used strokes along the grain at the end of my sessions so that is not a departure for me.

Royal-lac is expensive, but not a whole lot more expensive. The issue for me is that I can’t use it all up before it gets old so I have a lot of waste. With that in mind, building with regular shellac would actually cost me more money than not. If I made guitars faster, that might not be true.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I do wish it came in a bottle with a cap rather than those cans. They don't want to seal very well. I guess I could just pore it into a bottle.

According to Vijay, Seal Lac is 2# shellac.


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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Vijay told me the same thing. Seal Lac is just shellac, made with denatured alcohol.

Just curious - what expires about it? It’s shellac based right? Is it just adding back some solvent? Sorry for the naive question.


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I don’t actually know the answer to that. Conventional wisdom is that mixed shellac has a shelf life too. That is always the claim when luthiers talk about the need to mix your own. The store bought stuff has additives to extend the shelf life.

I would expect a shelf life for Royal-lac, which is mostly shellac. It could also be that over time part of the solution starts to react in whatever way the product changes once cured to make it impervious to water and alcohol.

I frankly don’t know. I do know that the last time I FPed with my current can (that is now pretty old) I felt like I was having more frustration than before. I suspect a fresh can would make things go more smoothly. I intend to buy a new can when I get to the finishing stage of my current project. I guess my jigs and shop made tools will start getting old Royal-lac finishes instead of old shellac finishes

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

You put finish on your shop made tools I always mean to but never do.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Mixed shellac can definitely go bad over time. I don't know about the proprietary stuff that Vijay puts in Royal Lac, but I figure if he says it goes bad after a certain point, then it is probably true.

A test for whether mixed shellac has gone bad is to dab a bit of it on a glass surface with your finger. The outside of a glass jar is fine. Let it dry overnight. If the dried shellac is hard, it is still good. If the dried shellac is gummy, it has gone bad.

This whole "going bad" business is about the resin itself, not a lack of solvent. So, adding more alcohol won't help.

There is a wonderful article in the GAL Big Red Book #5 about Eugene Clark. Lots of good information about shellac in there.

Big Red Book #5 is the best of the bunch, IMHO.

Not always. Sometimes, I don’t want glue sticking to it. Sometimes, I want it to look like a useful item instead of scrap. I have often made quick and dirty items from scrap and then forgot what they were when cleaning up and gotten rid of them. Then I have to make it again. A quick application of shellac or something makes it stand out from getting tossed in the burn bucket.

Sometimes I’ll decide to make it out of nice scrap so I feel like a real luthier when I use it. To be clear, I am not a real luthier.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I went ahead and finished the guitar with no problems. Finish is a bit soft but certainly not too soft to work with. I still have to buff it but I'll wait a month for that. Grabbed the wrong pick guard, I’ll have to change that.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Looks great. Good luck with your recovery!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.