Reply To: Shellac precipitate

My understanding is that Bulls Eye Shellac is a waxed version, and thus the precipitate is the wax. The dewaxed one, the company labels Seal.

The attached link shows a French brand of wax containing shellac (marketed in Sweden). There is definitely a lot of cloudiness at the bottom.

https://www.kinn.com/product.html/vit-eller-farglos-schellack?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjqHb6e218QIVMEeRBR0UNQm4EAQYBSABEgKfJvD_BwE

This far I’ve filtered/strained dewaxed shellac (100 µm). It did remove a lot of small particles, resulting in the disappearance of the knottiness from the surfaces. According to what I’ve read, decanting is the method for getting rid of the wax; or one can simply use the top layer. Straining/filtering waxed shellac requires the wax to first be dissolved (emulsify is possibly more correct), which it seems to do readily enough. According to Jeff Jewitt’s book “Taunton’s Complete Illustrated Guide to Finishing (ISBN-13: 978-1-56158-592-2) all finishes should be strained. Presumably that includes wax containing shellacs.

Blond waxed or dewaxed shellac made no difference to my eye when they were applied side by side on the bottom of an oak box.