Shellac as sealer under nitro

[Carl Kaufmann]

How about using clear shellac as sealer on bare rosewood body and spruce top, to be over coated with nitrocellulose? This would be the real stuff, plain shellac flakes freshly dissolved in alcohol, not denatured, no additives. Have some vinyl sealer on hand but it is old and way past its sell date. Reluctant to use that.

[Carl Dickinson]

Just use a couple of coats of your thinned nitro. Should work just fine.

[Barry Daniels]

Vinyl sealer and nitro don't really go bad. Put some on a scrap of wood and if it dries normally then it should be fine.

I have some nitro that is 20 years old and it still works.

[Chuck Tweedy]

that being said, the shellac will work fine as a sealcoat under nitro

[Brian Evans]

You might need to dewax the fresh shellac as you prepare it. Personally I'd use the Zinsser spray shellac, it's dewaxed quite well. In any case, dewaxed shellac is great as a seal coat.