First let me thank everybody who answered my question last month about shellac solvents.
My question this time is what do i do with shellac that is past its prime? I mixed too much last year and now have a liter of it that is old and was not well stored. alcohol and shellac are both natural substances (more or less) so my friend keeps telling me to just pour it down the drain, but that just seems so wrong to me. is HazMat disposal the way to go?
help
Replies
Shellac is a natural substance. It’s from tinny bugs! I do not feel right about dumping it either, was there any additives in it??? . Can you let it evaporate?? They just toss it.
You can certainly just let it evaporate away and then put it in the ordinary trash. The residual is quite non-toxic.
I wouldn't pour it down the drain--you don't want to gunk up the drain. You can just toss it, it is non-toxic. Heck, you can eat it if you want. Personally, I'd pour it down the hole that the %^%$#! groundhog-who-eats-my-garden lives in.
Just set it out and let the alcohol evaporate. Toss the solids, wrapped if you wish, in the trash. We have alot of birds and "beneficial bugs" in our area, so I usually put a mesh cover on it while it's evaporating.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
well it would seem evaporation is the preferred method. thanks again to all who answered
phil
A litre aint much. Why not use it in a sealed jar as a keep for your shellac brushes? Suspend the brushes of course.
The trouble with this site is that it shows 4:44pm and I am typing this at 10pm and on my second whisky. This is why I use itallic, it's easier to read!
i do hope that it is single malt you are drinking
How would pouring it down the drain be a good idea when there's a trap in every one? The shellac will sit in the trap and harden, then you get to replace the trap. Anyone who pours this kind of stuff down a drain is a knob.
Pour it into a shallow aluminum pan, about 1/4" deep and let it dry. When that's dry, repeat until you're out. Blow air across it if you want, but I would do this outside. Then, throw the pan out with the garbage. Another way is to take it to a hazardous waste disposal place.
1) Pour 2 or 3 cups worth of 'Kitty Litter' into a plastic bag (the type every local store uses.)
2)Pour the old shellac into the bag with the Kitty Litter and let it be absorbed.
3) Add more kitty litter if needed
4) place plastic bag into another plastic bag, then dispose of the whole thing into the garbage.
SawdustSteve
The kitty litter is a good tip. An even cheaper alternative is a bag of oil absorbent clay from Napa, or any other auto parts store. Last time I bought it, I think it was about $5 for a 20-25 lb bag. I checked with the pollution people in my area, and they are okay with mixing any oil based paint or varnish in this stuff, and then tossing it in the regular trash. The trick, according to them, is to mix until the whole thing is in an absolutely dry state, with no residual liquids oozing out. However, different jurisdictions may have different requirements. So check first.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
If it was me, I'd let the alcohol evaporate and give the residue to the chickens to peck at: they love bugs, I guess they'd like shellac.
As others have noted, the stuff is natural an non-toxic. Toss it in the trash or the compost bin.
Letting is dry and then toss is probably the best bet. But if in a hurry, just pour it in a shallow pan and light it off (outside of course, when no burn ban is in effect). Burns just like the little alcohol lamps used in food warmers.
O.k. lets get radical . You disolved a non toxic substance in pure ethol alcohol. .. And now you want to get rid of it .... give it to a frat house they will drink anything. Darwinian evolution in action.
Philip
If denatured alcohol was the same as ethyl alcohol, nobody would pay retail prices for Everclear.
Don't drink denatured alcohol! :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Here denatured alcohol is ethol alcohol with red colouring and MEK added. if you want to drink it pour it through active charcoal to absorb the mek and it's good..... But who is stupid enough to drink almost pure alcohol...
Philip
I've disposed of shellac the evaporative way, But just thought, going to sound dumb BUT, Once the shellac is completely dried out can it be redesolved in fresh alcohol. Has anybody ever tried this??
Work Safe, Count to 10 when your done for the day !!
Bruce S.
Absolutely. Even 200 year old shellac on antiques can be redissolved. The ability to redissolve is why I never fully clean brushes I use on shellac. The shellac hardens in the brush and keeps it clean and preserves the shape. It redissolves in some DNA, or in the shellac I am using on the next occassion.
Edited 5/31/2006 9:48 pm ET by SteveSchoene
So what is it that makes shellac go "off", so that it must eventually be discarded? I've heard of a shelf life for shellac, particularly once mixed. Is it a breakdown of the alcohol solvent? Some sort of accumulation of moisture?My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
Its called esterfication, a chemical process involving the shellac resin. The effect is that the shellac loses its ability to dry hard. The exact chemistry of this I do not know. By the way, the commercial pre-mixed shellacs have special processing to increase shelf life, but the shellac you mix from flakes does not.
Has shellac that's been applied and then redissolved undergone this esterification? In other words, can this recovered shellac be usefully used? Let me admit here this is just idle curiosity, I'm quite happy to use new shellac. :)My goal is for my work to outlast me. Expect my joinery to get simpler as time goes by.
The answer is maybe. Mostly the esterfication occurs when the shellac is dissolved into a liquid state, but I believe the process can continue at a much slower pace while dry--witness the conservation problems that occur with old shellac based records. (You know the things with grooves and a hole in the center.) Records were never pure shellac and had all sorts of filler material.
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