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Hi Everyone ... here's a brief video review of Royal-Lac from a French Polish point of view. Hope you enjoy it!






Here's a couple of shots of the guitar that is in the video






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David nice results on the FP. I/ve been doing FP for the past year using 3 types of shellac. In your opinion what is difference between using the royal lac , and your previous method of FP in terms of finish quality ??? and application ??.merci beaucoup and thanks

I am using Royal Lac for the first time as well. Standard FP technique with walnut oil. The smell is not too pleasant. Kind of a styrene smell, which is obviously the synthetic resin(s) Vijay has incorporated. It seems to be building faster than straight shellac. It is more tacky than straight shellac, meaning the pad has more drag and I'm using more oil. I should be able to bring the oil up out of the finish with straight alcohol spiriting off. Vijay's video on YouTube demonstrating the resistance of a cured Royal Lac finish to alcohol, heat, and water is pretty impressive.

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Tom thanks for the explanation. I/ve been brushing blonde dewaxed for the first few bodying sessions, and then moving up to the FP and final spiriting off with alcohol. I use lemon oil or mineral oil on the pad. Will have a look at the video

This makes me want to give it a go!

I've never seen anyone do French polish. You make look easy... I know I'm imagining things.

Thanks for sharing, M

I decided to research the odd smell of Royal Lac. The MSDS info listed on Shellac Finishes site shows some not-too-friendly solvents as part of the mix. Diacetone alcohol is listed as less than 10%, but the OSHA PEL is 50ppm, which indicates a high degree of toxicity. Methanol is another component and has a PEL of 200ppm. Isopropyl alcohol is yet another solvent with a PEL of 400ppm. Plain old ethyl alcohol has a PEL of 1000ppm. I am susceptible to solvents and after a couple of sessions French polishing with Royal Lac and using Everclear as the solvent I definitely did not feel 100%. I am thinking it makes more sense for me to brush or pad it on while wearing a respirator and gloves. It is definitely far less toxic than lacquer, but it is not completely benign.

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Nice video Dave, Thanks.

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Josh House

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Hey Ernie ... the final product on my first Royal-Lac application looks indistinguishable from all of my other shellac finishes. The last 45 or so guitars I've cooked a formulation with shellac flakes, sandarac, benzoin and mastic, so this is my first pre-made formulation.

As far as application is concerned, the only difference was initially getting the first couple of sessions to skin over the edges ... i.e. the middle of everything started to get glossy and build, but not some of the edges. It was just like the typical rookie mistake of going on too wet and covering the same territory too soon, which you come to realize early on will take more shellac off than on. My first strategy when this happened with the Royal-Lac was to go on with a drier and drier fad and to go less frequently to the edges to let it dry a bit before hitting it again. That helped, but surprisingly was not the complete solution. I ended up using a dry fad with one-directional fly-on fly-off stokes until it skinned over everywhere. At that point, it built normally and reacted the rest of the process as I would expect.

Thanks for the kind words Michael!

Thanks Josh!

Thank you for the informative post! I'm almost thinking I might be up to trying it after seeing you do it. (but somehow I suspect your 50 or so guitar polishing history makes it look way easier than I'll find it, but you have to start somewhere)

Beautiful guitar by the way.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Thanks for doing that video and review. I've been interested in this for a while now and glad to see that you apply it just like regular old FP. I'm definitely going to give this a try. Did I understand you correctly that you use regular shellac for the filling process?

That guitar is stunning looking too btw.

Thanks for taking the time, David. How many applications did you use, and how does it feel on the neck? Lovely guitar, as well!

Alex

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Hey Joe ... definitely give the French Polish thing a shot ... it is my favorite process in the entire process I think! I get to my shop really early ... put some tunes on, and just slowly get my day going by doing a session with the shellac. A nice gentle process.

Hi JF ... thanks for the kind words! Yes, I just used my normal formulation for the pumice fill (didn't have the Royal-Lac yet). I'm not worried about compatibility, as I sand after the fill, leaving very little of the surface shellac. Next time I'd use the Royal-Lac probably.

Hey Alex ... I do around ten sessions after finish prep/fill. A session for me is around 7-10 minutes per side, the same amount of time for the back, ditto the neck and the same time for the top ... for a total of around 40-50 minutes. Actually, now that I think of it, the first two sessions I spend a bit longer, but you get the idea. I usually do a session in the morning and one before going home the same day for sessions 1/2 and 3/4 ... then one a day after that.

David, thank you for the video. You make it look easy...or at least achievable for someone like me. Very pretty guitar, too.

As a amateur home builder I can't ever see spraying nitro in my garage so I've always used the other finishes, Tru Oil, Tung oil and mostly French Polish, Recently I started using Royal Lac and used it on 2 instruments and was VERY happy with it.. I will say i could not get it to work like traditional French polish, it felt a bit thick to me and it just did not "feel" right applying it that way but that may well be just my inexperience.. I did it on in a sort of modified French Polish technique which at the end looked pretty good but then I wet sanded through the grits and finished with polish & swirl remover, it looked very good then IMHO... I think this is now my "go to" finish..

Oh and David, very nice guitar and you seem to use more oil than I do, how do you spirit that off?? i will also say Vejay @ shellac finished is great for service.

Kerry

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The French Polishing for me is VERY enjoyable ... I just love it. What's not so much fun (for me, at least) is the finish prep. I can't emphasize enough how picky and meticulous you have to be if you want to achieve a pro finished product. As far as I'm concerned, before you start your first session, the guitar has to be absolutely the way you ultimately want it to look (i.e. perfect, no gaps, sunken/half filled pores etc) ... just not glossy yet. As a matter of fact, I don't even think of that first spit-coat of shellac as a session. I think of it as "that coat of shellac that shows me how much further I have to go to get my finish prep PERFECT". I go back and re-fill spot-fill any little inconsistency ... even though I've got my French Polish build to the point where I can fill little imperfections and open pores ... I know the shellac will ultimately shrink much more than any filler. I don't fool myself and just fill things up with decent FP technique ... I go back and re-fill. A pain, but it makes all of the subsequent sessions an absolute JOY ... and makes for a much better finish down the line.

PS ... thanks for the kind words about the guitar ... much appreciated!

Hi Kerry ... thanks for dropping in to my thread! To answer your question about the oil ... I use light olive oil, which is of course (as opposed to Mineral or Walnut oil) a non-drying oil. Early on in my French Polishing, I put a smudge of Mineral oil on the window of my finishing room, and right beside it, a smudge of olive oil. When I came in the next day, I had to scrape the mineral oil of the window with a razor blade, and the olive oil was like I'd just put it there seconds before. I guess my point is ... it is more important to spirit off a drying oil within the first hour of your session. With olive oil, I find that I may remember to spirit off an hour or two after the session, or I may (and often do) forget and just do it the next day before applying more shellac. For getting rid of the oil that comes to the surface, I keep a fad just for that purpose ... I never apply oil to it (and change the cover every 5 sessions or so), front load it with alcohol and rear load it with some shellac so that as I'm removing the oil, I'm glazing it a tad too.

Kerry, your experience pretty much echoes mine. As I was using the oil for French polishing with Royal Lac it seemed to disappear. When I spirited off there was a dark residue on the cover of the pad, something I had never seen before when using straight shellac. I was not at all certain all the oil came out of the film. Lightly sanding to level the finish the next day was a nightmare. The sandpaper clogged up immediately. I got out my trusty "Painting Materials" by Gettens and Stout and looked up diacetone alcohol. It is indeed a solvent for linseed oil, and it is safe to infer that all vegetable oils (olive, walnut, etc) are soluble in it.
Fast forward a couple of days when I was finishing the neck of this same guitar. No oil or French polishing on the neck, just padding on with a quick motion and a wet pad. After drying overnight and doing a bit of level sanding, the finish powdered in the same way as lacquer or cured varnish. No gumming of the sandpaper. I believe the diacetone alcohol in Royal Lac is dissolving the oil and incorporating it into the final film. Traditional French polishing technique with ethyl alcohol and some sort of oil lubricant is very different because ethanol is not a solvent for vegetable oils. Spiriting off with straight alcohol will remove any oil that gets trapped in the finish as an emulsion.
Olive oil may be a great oil for French polishing; lot of people use it. I got used to the way cold pressed walnut oil works and have stuck with it. Checking with Gettens and Stout again, walnut oil is said to be slower drying than linseed oil. Gettens and Stout have a chart showing the drying curves of cold pressed linseed oil, both in the dark and in diffuse sunlight. The initial set of the sunlight cured oil is about 4 days and tack free in about 7 or 8 days. In the absence of sunlight the same linseed oil has an initial set of 11 days and tack-free dryness of 65 days. One could assume that the typical guitar workshop in North America does not allow us to hang our guitars to cure in diffuse sunlight (i.e. outside).
Mineral oil is also common as a lubricant for French polishing. In Spain many use hair oil (oil for slicking back your hair) which is largely mineral oil. Mineral oil is a hydrocarbon and way different than vegetable oils and my results with mineral oil were less than stellar.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

For those interested in trying Royal lac Vijay of shellac finishes is offering a discount to luthiers but you have to use this code. Coupon code rors214 is applicable for Royal-Lac and Seal-Lac products

I guess this just shows how different folks have different experiences with different products. Other than the fact that I had a tougher time initially skinning over the wood with shellac in the first two sessions, my experience was identical to my normal French Polishing. I used my normal amount of light olive oil and the fad seemed to be no stickier than normal (i.e. not very sticky). Maybe I use a tad more oil than some? And I'm at the point where I don't have to sand or level at all until I've let the finish cure for 3 weeks, at which point I sand with MicroMesh 3600, 4000, 6000, then 8000 and hand rub out with Novus #2. At this point, it looks like glass. Maybe a bit more oil and a long period before sanding made mine a different experience?

I am getting tempted to try this product as a result of this thread. I've been trying to use Epifanes varnish, but have had trouble getting the finish to level well and not get varying degrees of amber tone on the ivoroid bindings. I've had little to no issues otherwise, except regarding pore filling. I have had almost no success with shellac (zinser sealcoat) and pumice, or anything else really. I hate using epoxy and I don't want anything to do with epoxy dust. Perhaps my issue with pore filling is technique, but it isn't going well...

David, I'm sure you know that I've always admired your photography, but now I'm also realizing that it's because of your finish work. Up until now, I always thought you were a nitro user. Your video was astounding at how beautiful a finish you were able to achieve with this or any other shellac-based FP technique.

Any advice on doing shellac & pumice pore filling? Is the Zinser Sealcoat product bad for this?

Thanks all...

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What exactly is the problem.
Not filling at all?
Filling but very slowly?
Filling but odd pores open?