'Old' shellac flakes

[vandenboom]

I'm gearing up to spray finish a guitar with mirocat and usually begin with a light coat of blonde dewaxed shellac. I have a bag of blonde dewaxed flakes i bought 6 years ago that are all clumped together in a solid blob. A bit of a search indicated this is still usable - best to break it up a bit (blender??) and use denatured alcohol.
Just checking that u guys agree with that and if u know where i can get better quality metho in melbourne if the bunnings stuff isn't good enough.
Thnx. Frank

[kiwigeo]

Not sure about how you'll go with those flakes Frank. Mix up a bit and put a dab onto some glass..it should be fairly hard in around 20 minutes. If it's still soft then I'd ditch the flakes.

[Allen]

What Martin said.

I get my metho from a local industrial cleaning supply company. 4 liters for around the $30 mark and it's way better than the Diggers brand from Bunnings.

[routout]

There is a lot of debate on the net about melting old flakes I have a couple of old batches and tried to melt it without a great deal of success,however I did have luck with button lac for some reason the method they use must be different ? . I went to a flooring company and bought pure metho he said why it's the same as diggers 100% meth.

[jeffhigh]

Button lac is generally less refined and contains wax and has less surface area to oxidise? than flakes.
Dewaxed blonde flakes have the shortest shelf life.

[routout]

Creers man that was what I was looking for flakes are super thin.

[56nortondomy]

I get my 100% metho from Paint spot, there's plenty of them around, most of them sell it but not all just check first. Brand name is Sceneys. Wayne