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I only have experience with the Matchless buffing compounds.

Green - Pumice and grease - can buff after 320 then red and white. It is very aggressive and if there is not a lot of experience with buffing, damage can be done easily to stem or stummel. It is recommended for use only on stems.

Red - Iron oxide or mineral and grease- can buff after 600 grit then white. Aggressive but can be used on both stummel and stem.

White- mineral or aluminum oxide and grease - can buff after 1000 grit but it is much easier and faster to use red first. For fine polishing of stummel and stems.

Just a few questions for you guys.
Can anyone recommend a shellac to use?
Can I just go to a local Lowes or Home Depot and get anything off of the shelf, or should I be looking for something specific?
Does the shellac need to be diluted with anything?
How many coats would I need to apply?

Rbraniganpipes wrote:Just a few questions for you guys.
Can anyone recommend a shellac to use?
Can I just go to a local Lowes or Home Depot and get anything off of the shelf, or should I be looking for something specific?
Does the shellac need to be diluted with anything?
How many coats would I need to apply?

The shellac you get from Lowes or Home Depot will work fine. You can also buy button lac (probably not at a hardware store) and crush it yourself and mix with denatured alcohol. You can dilute shellac with denatured alcohol to give yourself more or less working time and thickness. This is more of a try it and find out thing than following a given formula. How many coats you apply will depend on the result you're looking for and how thick your cut is.

One more thing, be sure not to get any shellac in the bowl. You wouldn't want to seal up the pipe and make the briar unable to breathe.

The HD and Lowes sell "shellac". The stuff they sell has presevatives and some other tasty things that I'm not particularly fond of. I usually recommend that unless you will only coat blast work with it, mix your own. The stuff from the store is generally a 3lb cut. A little thick for pipe work. A 2lb cut is more manageable. You can cut the store stuff too, just add the proper amount of dna.

Everyone knows that it doesn't need to breathe if it's dead root

With a 2lb cut expect to put on 3 layers min, smoothing between layers. The better your sanding job, the less shellac you need.

With a 2lb cut expect to put on 3 layers min, smoothing between layers. The better your sending job, the less shellac you need.

I thought the shellac was just to seal the dye. I have been using a very diluted coat of shellac and then basically buffing to remove most of it. Is this wrong?

notow1 wrote:I thought the shellac was just to seal the dye. I have been using a very diluted coat of shellac and then basically buffing to remove most of it. Is this wrong?

It is a bit more complicated than just sealing dye or putting a finish on top. It all depends on how you use it, and what you are using it for. The best thing to do is read as much as you can about wood finishing, varnish, shellac, oils, etc.. and then try some things out.

Shellac can be used as just a sealer, and it can be used as a varnish.

Sources for good shellac flakes - Blonde and super blonde =

shellacshack.com

shellac.net

Premal is correct. It can be used various ways. You will have to experiment with it to see what kind of finish you want. Very flexible finish product. Lots of possibilities.

Do you recommend waxed or unwaxed shellac flake? If i were to apply it after staining, and then follow my normal steps of white diamond and waxing, does it matter which shellac I purchase? I would like my pipes to retain a high luster shine after smoking, and currently with just white diamond and then waxing, they dull after a few smokes.

I've never seen any pipe maintain a real high lustre shine after smoking if it had any wax at all on the surface.

I don't have a single smooth pipe that is shiny, from any brand.

All of my sandblasts are still shiny, from every brand.

Mine stay shiny. I use a special sauce to finish the surface developed by pipe makers including myself, one with a big foot, and one that has a goat fetish.

Start reading about wood finishing, and TIAFO.

What I'm saying is, there's an essential dichotomy in pipe finishes. You can make a pipe real smooth, shiny smooth even, with basically no surface build up, and wax that. It'll be shiny for a half dozen smokes, but without regular polishing will not stay shiny. A true wax finish cannot survive the heat or the handling and stay shiny.

So if you have a smooth pipe that's shiny after 100 smokes, it ain't JUST a wax finish. It's shellac. Or tung oil. Or gum arabic. Or urethane. Or acrylic. Or silicon. Or Or some mixture of those things.

I can't make a wax-for-shine pipe stay shiny (without routine maintenance), and neither can anyone else, because that's not how wax works. You can put wax on other shiny shit and it might stay shiny, but if you are doing a wax finish, smoking and handling the pipe will break it down.

Blasted pipes stay shiny because they aren't a wax finish. I'm talking about Shell Briars, I'm talking about Petersons, Ser Jacopos, Castellos.

That's the lesson for today.

If you're looking for a good resource on finishes, this book is worth reading. http://www.rockler.com/understanding-wo ... shing-book

I know from experience that those pipes which I've used just a wax finish on have all ended up smudged by the end of a pipe show with people handling them. And that's even if I've spent the time sanding to 2000 grit before waxing. So if you want something to stay shiny with handling, you'll need to experiment with different kinds of wood finishes and figure out exactly what you're going for.

And, one must not overlook the "purists" out there. If there is even a hint that the surface finish is anything but wax they'll run the other way.
The super glossy, never-dull finishes are associated with dipping in a bucket of spar varnish which in their minds means the wood is sealed and cannot "breathe". I've seen people that will wear a white glove when smoking their favorite pipe. Others don't give a hoot and NEVER clean or re-wax/buff the surface. Sas and others are correct that a wax finish WILL get dull at some point and that's a fact. I've been in many a BM tobacco shop that had a buffer behind the counter and you could get "make it pretty again" service on the spot.

sandahlpipe wrote:If you're looking for a good resource on finishes, this book is worth reading. http://www.rockler.com/understanding-wo ... shing-book

I went to the library yesterday and checked out this book. Pretty good read so far.

After you guys have applied your understand, sanded it off, and applied the top layer of stain, is there any step in between the last layer of stain and applying shellac? I'm assuming not, as introducing tripoli or white diamond to the surface of the wood prior to sealing it with the shellac would be a bad idea, but i had to ask what may be a common sense question.

Never sand off your understand.

Yeah you need to build up the understand slowly.


To answer the question, yes, I would go directly to shellac after top staining, and I know there are people who mix shellac and the top stain and do this in one pass.

Sasquatch wrote:Yeah you need to build up the understand slowly.


To answer the question, yes, I would go directly to shellac after top staining, and I know there are people who mix shellac and the top stain and do this in one pass.

Interesting. I never thought of mixing the stain and the shellac. Might have to try that sometime.

I definitely don't want to sand off all of the understand. Probably shouldn't sand it at all. Building it up sounds like a better method, and probably produces a smoother result.