Anybody ever herd of Spirit Varnish?

Quickstep | Posted in Finishing on August 22, 2002 02:59am

Anybody ever heard of Spirit Varnish? I stumbled upon some on Ebay. The seller describes it as “the finest super-blonde de-waxed shellac, Arabian sandarac, European mastic, Manilla and Kauri Copal, and natural dyes ” The finish the seller describes sounds interesting to me. The beauty of shellac with durability like varnish. Anybody know anything about it?

Replies

DP | Aug 22, 2002 04:30pm | #1
Spirit varnishes are old formulations (described as early as the 1600's) that use alcohol as the solvent to dissolve any number of natural resins. Sam Allen's book, 'Classic Finishing Techniques', has a description and recipes for making your own.
IanDG | Aug 23, 2002 07:22am | #2
'Denatured alcohol' is known in UK as 'Methylated spirit' and is the solvent used with shellac to create varnish.

Maybe that's the derivation.
Gretchen | Aug 23, 2002 02:20pm | #3
I googled and spirit varnish seems to be violin/stringed instrument finish.

Gretchen