Wood stains under shellac!

[scoobs6170]

Hi gang,
Can I please get some advice. I have recently become somewhat addicted to the joys of shellac. I have however come across what seems to be a common problem for beginners in that using certain types of wood stains is not compatible with shellac.
From the various forums posted it seems that you need to use an oil, water or turpentine based stain as a rule of thumb and not a spirit based one if you are planning to apply shellac coats. Is this correct? If so my question is how do you identify what stains have what type of base?

With the variety available at Bunnies etc its all a bit confusing.
<O
Am I to assume that if the “clean up” instructions say to use water then this a water based stain and so on for turps etc?
I know some of the local products such as Cabotts Interior stain state that they are oil based but not all products have this.
Can anyone help with a general guideline on how to choose the appropriate stain.
<O
Thanks for helping out a newbie.
Cheers,
Andrew.

[ubeaut]

G;day scoobs6170 - Firstly... Please don't cut and paste from Word. If you must do it that way use use word pad. Word mucks everything up and puts those little images into the post.

OK down to the question.

Best of all under Shellac is water dye or water stain. As you suggested, it will mention water cleanup on the can. Cabots have some really good water stains. For small surfaces you can use our Water Dye or go to the chemist or supermarket and get yourself a selection of basic colours of the Dylon water dyes. (used for fabric dying. You can also use chemical dyes, and old fashioned or natural water dyes like coffee, tea, cochineal etc.

Next best: most stains that clean up with turps. This includes some oil stains but make sure thet ths can says clean up with turpentine as some of the so called oil stains or dyes are actually more closely related to spirit stains and will often pull off into the shellac.

Best way to use them is to follow the manufacturers instructions or get one of these,

Hope this is of some help.

Cheers . Neil

PS There are probably better places to buy your stains and dyes than Bunnies.

[mickelmaster]

Or if you are using word, click the little AA button with the crosses through it in the top left hand corner of the reply, i takes away font, colour and size so it becomes just like normal forum posts, dont know if it removes the little images though...

[44Ronin]

The short and skinny on this is basically that Alcohol dissolves and carries the shellac into a liquid form, so it is not a good idea to use spirit (alcohol) based stains and dyes. Strong akalines are also things to steer clear of.

One thing you want to make sure you do is to generally use white shellac, otherwise be mindful that the orange might give you tones you do not prefer.

[scoobs6170]

Thankyou,
Firstly, sorry about the "Word doco" thing! Your information has helped heaps. Just what I was after.
Off to the paint store now.

Thanks again.

Andrew.