shellac drying times

[la Huerta]

auld...i think you can add prooftint to all feast watson products, it should have the intel on there site, i did ring up there help line once and the guy said i can add prooftint to the fungashield to seal the wood and add some base colour...as for using prooftint or similar on old oregon, looks like crap becausee of the unusual grain, good on hardwood though...



la H

[durwood]

Hi La Huerta,

Did a little more research on your Black Japan I was going on memory before.

There are several levels of Black Japan. basic stuff is only suitable for painting on cast iron pipes and other steelwork as a rust preventive. The top grade one differs a lot. So its possible you have a cheap type which could be part of your problem.

Its over twenty years since I actually bought terebine drier and I have not actually seen it since (though I must admit I havn't been looking)

A lot of the early paints are not available now due to health and safety or the development of better products,and you can't blame a company from scrapping old slow drying inferior paint from their line up.

Even in the auto industry enamel has improved so much the main air dry type has been replaced with better new products. Dulux had an air dry enamel which was sold for use by dealers to make up colours at will for the smash repair trade. As the tins would get skins on the paint whilst waiting to be used the drier was left out and added to the paint at the time it was mixed for the customer. I often had calls from people who had purchased the paint for a weekend respray of their car and found it was still wet and sticky on Monday and wanted to bake it in an oven to try and get it to dry. The shop had left out the drier which was added in place of a small amount of thinner which the other types of paint (lacquer) had in them instead. PPG now own Dulux but you may find some shops still have some of the drier called "dri mix" on their shelves an tea spoon full would let you know if it speeds up the drying of the BJ enough.
Most paint companies have technical people and chemists who could help track down a drier for you.

I forgot to mention heat was still needed to get the Japan varnish to dry quicker at the Ford factory.

If you asked me to give you the dark colour you are getting with the black Japan I would either get a black wood stain or use a thinned down black paint such as air dry enamel. Have you tried getting a small tin of black gloss enamel from a hardware and trying it out at various strengths? juust thin it with turps. If black gives the result you want any black should do it. Also you could really solve your drying problem as it is possible to put an enamel hardener into the black and it would lock up like 2 pack Estapol and it would never soften.

[la Huerta]

is that all you can tell me!!!, my brain just overheated from to much info...


thanks heaps for this, i use the BJ thined out a bit to give a warm brown and it's reall interesting to note that black enamel paints when thined may give interesting shades of dark brown or wenge...i'v got some experimenting to do, i love all the interesting tones the chinese get with there furniture, and they don't have bunnings, so the wouuld use what's available like enamels, tar etc...

many thanks...


la H

[la Huerta]

look what i found durwood...http://www.feastwatson.com.au/SpecialtyTerebine.asp


la H

[durwood]

good one La Huerta,

let us know how you go with the experimenting.

[la Huerta]

just an updatte on the progress so far...

a coat or 2 of shellac on the bare wood and then resand with fine grit on the belt sealed the grain well and allowed the BJ to flow on evenly, adding more turps to the BJ for a nice walnut brown and less for choc/wenge...

i would normaly then shellac the piece in sort of french polishing mode, in that i would 'build' the shellac to a nice fill and sheen, but as i wanted to topoat with varnish for a tougher finish i found that the varnish over the well built up shellac was to much 'build' and becamme plasticy, so instad i just gave 2 or 3 thin wipe coats of shellac and that's it, no shellac build, i'd then varnish as normal, this left the piece with more of a timber feel to it, i'll wax later and see what the results are, so far though it's very pleasing , i also used the waterbased floor finish as the varnish...

la H