I do not know what most of you use for a finish however I use shellac for a lot of my top coat finishes. A few years ago I purchased some of those small plastic triangles that you put your project on when you are going to put a finish on it and do not want it laying on the table picking up stuff. I use these standoffs when I use spray shellac, yea the spray can of it. Anyway when putting the shellac on the projects it gets on the standoffs as well and over a few projects time builds up to a good amount. What do you do? Me I get my 1 pint mason jar 3/4 full of Denatured Alcohol, a piece of paper, an exacto knife ( do not want the sharp edge only the back of the blade ) and the standoffs with built up shellac overspray on them. The store will sell you bags of shellac chips which you can then dissolve in denatured alcohol but it can be expensive. A good while back I realized that I was capturing a decent amount of shellac on the standoffs I was using and that I could reclaim it for use in touchups and small item finishing. So what you need to do is this:
1) Put the paper down on the workbench. This does 2 things, 1 keep the chips from picking up anything from the bench such as sawdust or the such and 2 will allow you to add the chips to the mason jar of denatured alcohol easily.
2) Using the back edge of the exacto knife or an old hack saw blade scrape the shellac overspray off the standoff allowing the chips to land on the paper.
3) After you have cleaned all the standoffs and put them aside, open up the mason jar and add the scrapped off shellac to it. Close the lid tight and gently shake the jar for a couple of moments. Depending upon how much you just added and how much was in the denatured alcohol to start with it may not all dissolve immediately. That is ok. There probably will be a hazy layer on the bottom and that is contaminants so as long as you are no dipping your brush in that region your shellac will be ok.
One other source of shellac needs to be mentioned and that assumes that you are using those spray cans of it. When you "empty" one of the spray cans there is still at least a couple of tablespoons of shellac still in the can, you just can not spray it out. You need a small funnel an ice pick and your mason jar of shellac for this part. After getting the empty can remove the spray tip and set it aside, you never know when you might need one. Puncture the top of the empty can making sure that the hole is away from you as there will still be some propellant in the can. Once the pressure is gone make several more holes in the top of the can. Put the funnel on the mason jar and turn the can over the funnel, any shellac left in the can will now come out and into your mason jar adding to your reclaimed shellac. You pay for it why throw it away?
DW
