Spraying shellac

[Griph0n Brown]

Can I spray my alcohol based shellac safely with my waterbased setup? I have a Styrofoam booth made of 4x8 sheets of foam with two box fans.

[Jim Becker]

With good ventilation, you can spray shellac with the same setup as you use for water borne. I do keep a second, dedicated cup for shellac. Any "flame" should be extinguished when spraying shellac as the alcohol vapor can get pretty strong and you must use a proper mask that's rated for organics. Shellac is actually the only "solvent" finish I use at this point. Everything else is water borne.

[Marty Schlosser]

I'm not sure about mixing alcohol-based finishes and the unprotected, potentially electric arcs that the motors found in these box fans may generate. Then, too, the same may be said of your lighting. Kaboom possibility?

[Mike Henderson]

I spray shellac but I do it in the open (by my garage door) so it's well ventilated. I go one step further than Jim and have a separate HVLP gun that I use for shellac. My other gun is used for waterborne finish.

Your fans almost certainly use induction motors so there's no arcing as there might be on a universal motor which has a commutator.

Mike

[Alan Lightstone]

I built a spray booth incorporating an explosion proof fan, but that's much more involved and significantly more expensive. That being said, unless I do something amazingly dumb, I shouldn't blow myself up.

Otherwise, those normal fans supposedly carry an explosion risk with volatile solvents like DNA from shellac, or definitely lacquer thinner. But I'll defer to Mike's knowledge of the motor types, so this risk may be overblown (excuse the pun).

[Griph0n Brown]

They are just cheap box fans but they move alot of air. I spay when it's -10 Celcius so I've got a big 3 kw duct heater feeding the shop with warm air while they run, so it's pulling alot of air out. I'm wondering if everything goes sideways where and how big the pop would be. Really I'm wondering if Targets water based shellac is any good. I was sorta hoping to avoid grain raising and I like making shellac from flake.