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I was stripping a dresser and the old shellac just would not come off with my usual mix.
After two hours of scrubbing, I grabbed a bottle of denatured alcohol from the back of the shelf, the kind I use for cleaning brushes. I poured some on a rag and wiped a small spot, and the gunk just melted away. Turns out the previous finisher had used a shellac that dissolved way better in alcohol than in the stripper. Has anyone else run into a finish that only comes off with something weird?
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hayden1447mo ago
That "rock-hard, shiny clear coat" story is spot on. I had a table with a finish like glass that just laughed at stripper. I tried some old paint thinner I had for cleaning tools and it wiped right off. It's amazing what weird solvent you need sometimes.
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hayes.joel7mo ago
Yeah, shellac is its own beast. I remember reading a forum post years ago where a guy had this rock-hard, shiny clear coat on an old radio cabinet. Nothing commercial touched it. He finally tried straight ammonia on a whim, and it bubbled right up. Turned out to be some kind of early lacquer or catalyzed varnish that needed that specific chemical kick. It's wild how these old-timers used whatever they had mixed up in the back shed.
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sean_torres717mo ago
That "back shed" mix thing @hayes.joel mentioned is so true. My buddy had this awful orange varnish on a door, stripper just gummed it up. He got mad and tried acetone from his garage, the stuff for fiberglass. It ate right through it. We figured it was some homemade polyester resin mix.
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