Melted French Polish

The Achilles' Heel of Luthiery
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rcnewcomb
Posts: 359
Joined: Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:04 pm
Location: San Jose, CA, USA

Melted French Polish

Post by rcnewcomb »

While traveling by car the case was on the sunward side of the vehicle for about 3 hours.
When I pulled the instrument out this morning it was stuck to the fuzzy lining of the case on the bass side lower bout. I am confident I can fix this since I did the original French Polish. But is there anything else I can do to toughen up and or protect the finish to prevent this from happening again?
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- Randall Newcomb
10 fingers in, 10 fingers out - another good day in the shop
Diane Kauffmds
Posts: 3246
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2014 8:13 pm

Re: Melted French Polish

Post by Diane Kauffmds »

You've got me on this one. Shellac is a resin, so I can't think of any way to make it heat resistant, short of cross linking in a lab. But, there is a site that claims to have a formula that's more heat resistant.

http://www.ubeaut.com.au/hardshell.htm

I'm sorry, this happened to you.
Diane Kauffmann
Country Roads Guitars
countryroadsguitars@gmail.com
johnnparchem
Posts: 2354
Joined: Sat Apr 10, 2010 10:50 pm
Location: Seattle
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Re: Melted French Polish

Post by johnnparchem »

I have had good luck with Royal-Lac another crosslinking shellac. It can go on top of shellac. It makes it hard, and more water and alcohol resistant. I do not know about heat though.
Danl8
Posts: 733
Joined: Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:50 am
Location: Chadds Ford, PA

Re: Melted French Polish

Post by Danl8 »

rcnewcomb wrote:While traveling by car the case was on the sunward side of the vehicle for about 3 hours.
When I pulled the instrument out this morning it was stuck to the fuzzy lining of the case....
Like a canary in a coal mine, the shellac is tweeting that the storage conditions were not good. Thanks for this heads up; I will keep my cases out of the sun, esp. in the car.
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