Will epoxy stick to shellac'd surface?

[Ken Platt]

Folks -

I've got myself into a bit of a corner here. I have a drawer front that originally was not going to have a pull at all, but now needs to have one. The pull is a bit too small to screw on, but the drawer front is already finished with shellac (although not yet mounted). I'm hoping not to have to strip it. The drawer will see light use; it's at the bottom of an entertainment center type of thing. Probably get opened every couple of days.

Will epoxy save the day here, or do I just bite the bullet and strip off the shellac? Anyone else tried this, or am I the only such idiot?

Thanks -

Ken

I don't mind being an idiot, I just strive to have it not be a daily event.

[Erik Loza]

I'm no expert on finishing but have used epoxy on all sorts of things and my thought is that even if it would adhere (and not sure it would...), the bond to a substrate like that would be iffy at best. The shellac might act like a resist.

Could you just sand out the specific area where this pull needs to go, to get down to real wood, glue your thing on there, then touch-up finish afterward? Just my thoughts. Best of luck with it.

Erik Loza
Minimax USA

[Prashun Patel]

I wouldn't epoxy, nor would I try to abrade or clean the surface; unless you don't mind redoing the whole drawer front.

I would instead use a tiny dowel if a screw is not possible.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Shellac a piece of scrap then glue a similar piece of metal to it and see how well it holds.

I'm thinking either epoxy or super glue or Roo-glue should work fine.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

In short, no- it will not stick.

Long answer- It might stick, although not as good as to wood, and even if it stuck well, the bond would be limited to the strength of the shellac, which is what is really bonded to the wood. You still would need to sand the shellac before trying to epoxy (for a proper bond), so you might as well just sand it off completely.

Really you want to at least dowel a knob on. Over time epoxy alone isn't going to handle the stress put on a knob. This fixes your problem, as you can just drill out a hole for the dowel and glue it in the hole.

My suggestion, if for some reason you don't want to dowel it and are set on face gluing it, is to take a dowel just slightly smaller than your knob. Glue a piece of sandpaper to the end of the dowel. Chuck the dowel in a drill press, and use it to sand away the shellac only in the spot under the knob. ***the dowel has to be perfectly straight or it will wobble, but you only need a short piece. Now you can glue on the knob.

[Don Parker]

I build acoustic guitars. Most guitar builders finish the top of the guitar, then strip away just the part of the finish that is under where the bridge will go, and then glue the bridge onto that hole in the finish. Shellac is a common finish on guitars. So, if you need to glue the pull onto the face of the drawer, it can be done with some careful scraping and sanding of just the footprint of the pull.

Although I am with the folks who think you should glue in a dowel. It will be a lot less work and it will hold better. With the dowel, you won't have to strip any finish. It is the dowel holding the pull, not the face of the drawer.

[Ken Platt]

I didn't even think of the dowel solution. Obviously the right way to go. Thanks all. Gonna go look for my village now that's missing it's idiot.

Ken