constructordeguitarras -> Purifying Shellac (May 21 2014 4:29:08)
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I like to use exotic and colorful button shellacs, but I have had problems with them due to the high wax content. Golpeadores don't stick well to shellac with wax in it. I have found it very hard to remove enough of the wax by filtration, without it taking a very long time with very expensive scientific filter papers. So I tried extraction using a separatory funnel. I dissolved the shellac in alcohol (ethanol) and tried to extract it with naphtha. Unfortunately I got only one layer, but I was able to get two layers by adding a very small amount of water. However there was always an emulsion between the layers that partially separated only after a long time, such as overnight. I recently filtered a shellac solution three times through plugs of cheese cloth, and still noticed a fine cloud of gray wax particles settling near the bottom of the bottle. Since the wax was settling out, it occurred to me that centrifugation would be a good way to remove it. I doubted that I could afford a centrifuge, but i looked on Ebay and saw that some were available from China for around $100, so I decided to give it a try. (One vendor stated that they were for sale only to qualified people due to FDA regulations. The War On Drugs, restricting a simple machine that spins things around. But I had no trouble with another vendor.) My machine holds six tubes that hold 20 mL each. (Here it is on top of my clothes dryer, beside my new Aprilaire dehumidifier. The long metal box is what I use for soaking guitar sides in hot water before bending, or for cooking baby alligators.) I filled the tubes and spun the solution for 30 minutes. The ugly gray wax formed pellets at the bottoms of the tubes, leaving nice clear shellac solution above that I was able to decant without disturbing the wax. In fact, the wax was a bit hard to clean off. The dewaxed shellac solution had a more brilliant color than I had seen before and gave faster build in French polishing.
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