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Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

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Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#1

Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

Dave Mount

>Hello all--

I guess I should start this with "I have a friend that. . ." so I wouldn't have to expose my own idiotic maneuver to explain my question. . .

My mother bought a beginners mountain dulcimer at a local music event, and the body is a corrugated cardboard (trapezoidal) box (really, I kid you not). She started asking me whether I could make some small molding to cover the edges where the corrugations can be seen. There's no way I could see investing time dressing up a cardboard box, so I did some surfing around and learned enough to make a proper body, which I did from birch (teardrop shape). The plan was to cut the cardboard body off and glue the fretboard onto the new body.

The new body turned out better than I might have expected and I was anxious to get it done and to her, so I started putting on a shellac finish. . .completely forgetting to mask off the center of the face so I could glue the fretboard on (the existing fretboard is a not-particularly-dense tropical wood and is unfinished).

So, now I need to know what glue I could use that would stick to shellac and to unfinished wood. I can easily rough up the shellac to give it some tooth, but I'd rather not strip it down if I don't have to. Would epoxy work? Anything less exotic that would work?

Thanks for any help,

Dave

Dave Mount, northeastern MN

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#2

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

Patrick Gibbons, Houston

>The easiest, and perhaps less-stress-producing, would be to simply remove the shellac from the area to be glued with a scraper down to bare wood and then glue it. I think you would have good control using a scraper to do the reduction.

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#3

I agree

Bruce, a MN Galoot

>Shellac is pretty easy to scrape off with a good scraper. DAMHIKT!

I made my first dulcimer last year. It's a good project, and lots of fun.

Bruce, in S MN

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#4

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

Walter,Sandusky,Ohio

>If you don't want to scrape the shellac off try Elmers Probond Polyurethane Ultimate Glue. But, if you mess up and it dries, tsk, tsk!!

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#5

Perhaps a step to try before...

Christopher Fitch @ Memphis

>that would be to tape off around the area you want to glue. Then liberally apply denatured alcohol with a rag to remove the shellac from the area you want to glue.

I'm guessing you can repeat once or twice to remove most if not all of the shellac.

Someone can chime in if my thinking is off.

Re: Glue to bond bare wood to shellac-ed wood

#6

Keep in mind

Bill Houghton, Sebastopol, CA

>that if you glue it directly to the shellac-ed wood, you won't be gluing it to the wood, but to the shellac - thus, the likely final bond strength will be how well the shellac sticks to the wood.

I agree with the other Centralians who've posted - scrape off, dissolve off, or otherwise remove the shellac, so you can bond to the wood.

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