Shellac Streaking/Beading Issue

[Ed King]

Hi guys,


I have been working on my basement bar for some time now. Just got around to making real progress and I'm on to finishing. I hit a snag, I think. I'm seeking your generous advice.


The plan is to dye the wood, seal it with dewaxed shellac (Zinsser Seal Coat) and top coat it with GF High Performance.


I applied my first coat of seal coat last night. It streaked when I first put it on. I just kept going figuring I should worry about it after I let it dry for a bit. After a few hows I added another coat. The wood soaked up the shellac pretty good so I felt it was best to get a little build before sanding for fear I'd cut into the dye.


After 2 coats you can see on the right of this pic what I'm concerned with. The bar top is 2 parts. This only occurred on the one piece and only after the first few brush strokes.





Is this an application error? I had my brush conditioning in mineral spirits prior to the application. Maybe I didn't get enough spirits off of the brush? By the way the brush is a new Wooster Pro China White Bristle.


Should I panic? Because I'm panicking. Lol.


Any insight to what I did wrong and how I can fix this will be MUCH appreciated.


Thanks!


Ed

[Prashun Patel]

"I had my brush conditioning in mineral spirits prior to the application.."

I believe this is your problem. Shellac is alcohol soluble, not MS soluble (that's to say, it doesn't solubilize WELL in mineral spirits). Your brush probably transfered enough mineral spirits to the surface to bead up under the drying shellac.

Not to fear. You can fix this.

By this time, the shellac should be pretty dry. I would wetsand the surface with 400grit sandpaper lubed generously in mineral spirits. This will make it cut less aggressively. You want to level those streaks. Let all the MS evaporate, then clean the surface thoroughly.

If you have uneven coloring, spot-apply a little more dye, attempting to feather it out with an alcohol moistened rag.

Once your satisfied with even color, then apply the sealcoat again. However, don't brush it. You risk moving the dye around. Spray it.

How are you applying the top coat? If you are spraying that, you can skip the shellac altogether.

[Ed King]

Thank you Prashun!!

Ouch, can't believe I made that mistake.

I plan on brushing the finish. This is just a home DIY project. I do not have the means to spray, as much as I'd love to. I plan on picking up DNA this afternoon. I appreciate the tips. I'm going to attempt them this afternoon. I will report back when I do. Hopefully my reply won't involve more "how to fix" questions. lol.

[Prashun Patel]

Ed, you should wetsand with mineral spirits, not DNA. This will reduce the cut of the sandpaper. Lubing with DNA would create a mess as the shellac and dye would be remelted.

You just want to level the surface and then remove all the residual mineral spirits; this means dry wiping with a rag and giving the MS time to evaporate.

You'd only need DNA to clean your brush, if you intended to brush on more shellac.

To be honest, as a barrier coat, brushing shellac is more of a pain to me than just going straight to the top coat. It doesn't brush easily, and in my unskilled brushing hands requires more post-application fix up than do slower drying top coats.

[Ed King]

Thanks Prashun.

That was my plan. To wet sand with MS. I'm not going to apply DNA to the piece. I'm grabbing it to condition a new brush. I should have worded my reply differently. Thank you very much for catching that potential mistake!!

[Prashun Patel]

In fact, if you want to make it easy on yourself, buy a rattle can or two of Zinsser blonde shellac. Use that to seal your dye a little before going to the topcoat. Don't sand until you're a couple coats into your GFPoly

[Ed King]

Ya know I didn't even consider the rattle can. I didn't know it was de-waxed otherwise I certainly would have. I'm going to tough it out with brushing at this point. I'd have to re-arrange my entire space to use spray. Right now this is in my garage next to lots of things that would be a hassle to cover or move.

Certainly appreciate the tip. I'll definitely consider this in the future.

[Ed King]

Prushun, Your suggestions worked like a charm!! Thank you very much!

I wet sanded the top with 400 grit. Slowly. My first attempt need more work.


You can see on the right that the streaks are still there.





I gave it another go and got them out. I cut the dye, but only on the edges. I was initially worried of course. Then tried touching it up. It was much easier to touch up that I would have thought. Then as luck would have it the areas that were affected are on the rail sides. Whew.





Laid down a final coat after using a new brush conditioned in DNA and it went on like glass.





I will post a thread with this entire build once it's finish.


Thanks again!

Ed