Alcoflex as a french polish solvent

[ozziebluesman]

Just for interest. I used Alcoflex as a solvent for my last few French Polish processes with success. I was having trouble with my FP process finish becoming milky due to too much water in the Diggers metholated spirits. After trying the Alcoflex I had no milky issues and also I didn't use an oil with the polishing process. The process did become sticky but no where near as quickly as when I used the Diggers solvent.

Here is some info on the product:

http://www.recochem.com.au/index.php/pr ... lex_100_hg

I would be interested if any one else has used this product.

Cheers

Alan

[kiwigeo]

Hi Alan

From the MSDS sheet I cant see alot of difference between this stuff and IMS grade meths....it's just got 5% Isopropyl alcohol.

I don't think the reason you didn't have to use any oil is connected with the solvent you're using...there are no additives in it with lubricating properties.

As for the diggers meths......I reserve this stuff for wiping crap off my hands and handing out to guests who I don't deem deserving of drinking wine from my cellar.

[Kim]

Interesting marketing by Recochem. The 'Diggers' brand is their retail packaging....so you can have their metho full of water cheap from Bunnings etc, but if you want the real deal then you will need to pay the premium..

The questions then for Alan are...How much does it cost, how big is the bottle and where did you buy it from??

Cheers mate

Kim

[ozziebluesman]

I went looking for IMS here in Townsville but couldn't source it and if you buy it online the freight of dangerous goods is ridiculous. A guy here who deals in industrial chemicals suggested Alcoflex for my French Polish needs. When I spoke to him on the phone he said bring around a 5L bottle to his depot and he will give me some to try. Cost nothing! He had it bulk in 44 gal drums. I know he sells it as an industrial cleaner so I will find out how much it is.

Cheers

Alan

[Mark McLean]

The trouble with pure ethanol from any source is that it is quite hygroscopic (attracts and absorbs water from the air and environment). So even if you pay top dollar for highly purified stuff it won't stay that way if it is sitting around in a bottle in the workshop being opened and closed once in a while. You will end up with stuff no better than the Digger's. I work in medical research labs and used to bring some scientific grade ethanol home to use for FP. I thought I was at least being more moral doing that than some of my colleagues who would tip some into their Coke can at the end of a long experiment. Anyway, in the end I concluded that it was no more special than standard metho.

I can't be so generous about those shellac flakes from Bunning's that Tod was recommending in another thread. They give your snow-white Englemann spruce a distinct orange tint. Like really bad fake tan.

[Kim]

The trouble with pure ethanol from any source is that it is quite hygroscopic (attracts and absorbs water from the air and environment). So even if you pay top dollar for highly purified stuff it won't stay that way if it is sitting around in a bottle in the workshop being opened and closed once in a while. You will end up with stuff no better than the Digger's.

This is very true..they should sell high purity alcohol in 1 litre squeeze bladders. That would be the only way you would keep water out and of course the more humid the air the less time it takes to pull in the first 5% H2o. I read something on the net about this and if I recall, at 50% RH it only takes a matter of a couple of hours but the process does slow once that 5% dilution has occured. I use an old Sigg fuel bottle which is the next best thing. Yes it still lets air in but at least you can pore off what you need without completely removing the lid and the way it vents I would imagine that the moist air entering the top of the bottle would be no more than the volume of meths it replaces.

Here's and old thread showing the Sigg bottle.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3374&p=41438&hilit=Sigg#p41438

Cheers

Kim

[Alastair]

Some info from a (lapsed) chemist.

Water and ethanol form an azeorope, or constant boilng mix at 95% ethanol. You can only get better than this by distilling over a dessicant.

As said, even that will swiftly move back to 95%, by absorbing water.

While the RH has an effect, the 95% mix is effectively stable, in normal use, provided it hasn't been adulterated.

I bought 5l of industrial alcohol about 5 years ago. This I have been using to make up shellac ever since. While the (plastic) bottle is not opened all that often, I have not had problems, (up to last week at any rate).

And anyone will know how humid Sydney has been over the last while.

In general, I use FRESH bottles of Diggers for everything except the actual dissolving, and also have had no problems. That said, as soon as the bottle gets down towards half, it gets relegated to general metho duties, and gets replaced for FP use.

As for the Bunnings Shellac, that is standard grade orange or garnet shellac, and is widely used in furniture FP, where the colour is traditional.

You can get blonde shellac, (mine came from Carbatec, and I think Woodworks also an supply). This is what I have been using. However, it is less stable than the orange, and the solution will go off after a while.

I have also reliably been told that the blonde flakes are also less stable, and will deteriorate, but at 2 years, I have not seen evidence of this yet

[Tod Gilding]

"As for the Bunnings Shellac, that is standard grade orange or garnet shellac, and is widely used in furniture FP, where the colour is traditional."

Alastair, what is traditional for a Guitar ?

A google image search shows a lot of obvious difference in the shellac's that are used for guitars and I was unable to establish a traditional colour used for guitar.

[kiwigeo]

As for the Bunnings Shellac, that is standard grade orange or garnet shellac, and is widely used in furniture FP, where the colour is traditional.

You can get blonde shellac, (mine came from Carbatec, and I think Woodworks also an supply). This is what I have been using. However, it is less stable than the orange, and the solution will go off after a while.

I have also reliably been told that the blonde flakes are also less stable, and will deteriorate, but at 2 years, I have not seen evidence of this yet

I used the Bunnings shellac on my second build but ended up scraping the ugly orange finish off the instrument and starting again with LMI blonde shellac flakes. The orange flakes might have use if an aged look is desired on some instruments but generally the stuff is not what you want be using on guitars. Some will take exception to my saying so but there's really of interest me in a Bunnings store except maybe the sausages they sizzle outside the front door

I have not had blonde shellac deteriorate on me and some of the stuff Ive used up to 2 years after making it up.

[Tod Gilding]

AHHH Martin , The Sausage sizzle , That tells me that you frequent bunny's

[Craig]

I've read a lot about guys going to all sorts of trouble and expense trying to get that elusive 100% alchohol.
I picked up the art of French polishing 40 years ago whilst serving my piano tech apprenticeship. We had an old English guy in our workshop refinishing our pianos . He had learnt his trade in London during the great depression . All he ever used was hardware bought methylated spirits ( meths ). He never even worried about puting the top back on the bottle of meths when not in use .
I've been using meths ever since with no problems . Although I do like to use a freshly opened bottle when mixing up a new batch of polish , there is probably no need .
If you can manage to get yourself some 100 % stuff it will soon revert to 95 % in any case , so it's really a waste of time ( and probably money too ! ).

I've used the Diggers stuff from Bunnings ( which states 95 % ethanol on the bottle ) many times with no problems. Alan's milky finish problem may have come from applying coats during high humidity trapping in moisture between coats . You have to have near perfect conditions to french polish which includes enough heat , suitable humidity, no dust, good light etc.

I've been using a blonde shellac of late but the garnet/orange variety has a certain look too.I really quite like the look, particularly on a classical. I've found the flakes to last indefinatley if stored in a cool dark place . I make up the polish in the dark also !

The proof being in the pudding :

JULYAS161.jpg (111.85 KiB) Viewed 19485 times

[Kim]

Awesome Craig

[auscab]

I use the 100 IMS from Recochem, they will only take an order and deliver if I buy at least 4x 20 liters at a time. . that’s fine because I go through the stuff and have to buy that much about 3 times a year as well as mineral turps and thinner.
Ive had water accumulate in my polishing containers when left out over weekends and it curdles the shellac, most of the time I will top it up with fresh metho and keep working with it for brush work and colour jobs. I Pull out the fresh mix for rubber work
.
Allen with your FP process finish becoming milky, I have had the same thing happen, a white haze appears before my eyes while I’m using the rubber, there is a name for it that I cant remember right now . Every time it’s happened it’s always been a cold wet day. I have always thought that it’s the temperature and the RH doing it. I could have had some of my water / shellac mix in there as well but it was always cold and wet. It’s a hard thing to get out of the job once its there as well.

Orange flake or button is the polish to use on Mahogany or Australian red cedar type polish jobs and pops the colour perfectly , but I have to have a bottle of blonde on the shelf next to it for when we are doing work on the same timbers that may be bleached from sun light
When it comes to mid brown coloured wood work, like a lot of the Oak furniture , the mid brown country look ,that fades to grey, the shellac is mainly blonde with up to 20% orange

Pine is 100% blonde and the UB Hard is even more pale than the blonde that I have.

I was looking at some vintage Gibson L oo ‘s last night on Youtube, if you were going for that colour on the back and sides ,The orange would be perfect.

I got the Stewmac Book, Guitar Finishing step by step, in the mail last week, That is one excellent book.
I have been doing quite a bit of experimenting with filling the grain over the last six months on timber scraps, an accumulation of what I read here, old polishing books and what I already know with FP. The section in the book about grain filling answers a lot of questions that gets asked here, for any one who does not want to use the epoxy method.

[ozziebluesman]

Thanks everyone for the great discussion.

Craig: Well you blew all my theories out the window. Magnificant french polish there mate! I reckon you could be right with the milky residue coming out due to too much humidity in the air while doing the FP process. I remember dropping a big sweat blob on the back during the process and that took some fixing.

Anyway, the Alcoflex leaves a nice smell to the finished FP.

Cheers

Alan

[auscab]

Whoops ,
I'm repeating what Craig said. I was off taking my time in Microsft Word.
Posted it and then saw Craigs post.
Nice guitar Craig.

[Mark McLean]

Hey Rob - I was wondering how you managed to go through industrial quantities of solvents doing FP on guitars? Then I clicked on your webpage link. Wow - that is beautiful finishing work on a scale that makes luthery seem puny. And I love the workbench on the 'In the workshop' page. What is the history of that thing?
cheers
Mark

[auscab]

Mark,
Almost twenty years back I needed a work bench with a tail vice, I had my first apprentice and we only had one traditional bench.
I had moved away from trying to make a living by only doing restoration work and there was a big trend to make what could not be found.all the website pics.
I had a big pile of Jarrah that I had bought, that I wanted to use for " The Mud brick house in the bush " Dream.
One day I walked in to the back of another Antique shop and was introduced to a young lady . The dream was pushed to the bottom of the list when we got married and had child no 1
I had seen a bench build done by another Maker/restorer, he pointed out The Workbench Book by Landis.
Drew up what I wanted and Made it with the Jarrah, Red Gum screws, casurina bench dogs and turned dowel for turning the screws.

[matthew]

I agree with Craig's post. I've never used anything but bog-standard meths for french polishing and have not had a problem. Shellac has been around, like hide glue, for hundreds of years; french polishing is an ancient technique and they certainly wouldn't have had anhydrous alcohol way back when. But you do need a warm dry day, a good muneca, and know-how. I also had a piano-tech show me the ropes.

I have never eaten a Bunnies sausage. I have standards, you know.

[Alastair]

Allen with your FP process finish becoming milky, I have had the same thing happen, a white haze appears before my eyes while I’m using the rubber, there is a name for it that I cant remember right now . Every time it’s happened it’s always been a cold wet day. I have always thought that it’s the temperature and the RH doing it. I could have had some of my water / shellac mix in there as well but it was always cold and wet. It’s a hard thing to get out of the job once its there as well.



This sounds similar to what used to happen when I worked for Toyota years ago.

On high humidity days, we would have massive problems from haze in the finish. Caused by the evap cooling in the paint spray dropping temp below dew point, and hence condensing and entraining moisture in the film. No option but to stop production.

Sounds like this could be the same phenomenon?

[ozziebluesman]

Well I put the milky finish blame on the cheap ass metho from Bunnies. Looks like I was wrong!

Thanks guys for your responces.

Cheers

Alan

[kiwigeo]

I agree with Craig's post. I've never used anything but bog-standard meths for french polishing and have not had a problem. Shellac has been around, like hide glue, for hundreds of years; french polishing is an ancient technique and they certainly wouldn't have had anhydrous alcohol way back when. But you do need a warm dry day, a good muneca, and know-how. I also had a piano-tech show me the ropes.

I have never eaten a Bunnies sausage. I have standards, you know.

I'll keep using IMS grade meths....the cost isn't that much more than the Bunnings sh*t where I get mine from. One reason I dont use the Bunnings meths is because of the smell.....after a while the smell makes you feel sick. Strange because looking through the Diggers MSDS sheets their meths doesn't appear to have any denaturing agents (eg 5% methanol) added. Is this correct?

I too have standards...theyre just very low

[matthew]

the usual smelly material in meths is a dash of pyridine, an emetic. thats why it makes you feel like throwing up.

It should be on the MSDS though.

Bit surprised though Martin ... if you can eat Bunnies snags and hold THEM
down ...

[auscab]

Strangely enough after coming in this morning we poured the last one liter out of the last drum of metho.
I just got off the phone from ordering 5x 20 liter from recochem.
$250 is minimum order

What they call DAA is the same as what I was calling 100 ims. its $83.17 per 20 lt and is said to be 100%

The ordinary blend I was told is $49.46 per 20lt and is 99%

Things are a bit tight so I am giving the cheaper mix a go.

[kiwigeo]

the usual smelly material in meths is a dash of pyridine, an emetic. thats why it makes you feel like throwing up.

It should be on the MSDS though.

Bit surprised though Martin ... if you can eat Bunnies snags and hold THEM
down ...

It's not on the MSDS...makes you wonder what else might be in the Diggers stuff that isn't documented

One could argue that using denatured meths presents a higher risk to health than undenatured meths. You don't see many French Polishers wearing gloves which means their skin is exposed to the meths from the muneca for long periods of time. While skin exposure ethanol isn't desirable ethanol would appear to be less harmful than methanol or pyridine.

Heres the MSDS from the Diggers website. It actually describes it on the website as denatured but nothing about this on MSDS:

[Kamusur]

I think we need an MSDS sheet for the snags as well.

Steve