Hey folks,
I've run into trouble trying to topcoat a powdered milk paint job with shellac. I used three coats of milk paint on a dutch tool chest, with light sanding in between. My plan was to seal it all up with shellac to give it a little bit of gloss (correction--> I meant to make it less chalky) and then wax it. But I'd never used shellac before and I made the mistake of wiping on zinser amber shellac with a pad...straight out of the can.
I thought I was using long even strokes but I definitely botched this. I ended up generating drips and streaks all over the place, which some frantic googling revealed to be the result of using this stuff straight out of the can instead of thinning it a lot. But the damage is done. My nice flat milk paint job now looks like semi gloss latex paint slapped on by a 3 year old. At least it was efficient: it only took fifteen minutes to ruin things! (See pic below.)
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I have tried rubbing the shellac with a cloth soaked in denatured alcohol, hoping to get rid of the drips so I could put on a second coat of shellac. But it only helps so much. I'm still concerned that a new coat of very thin shellac is still gonna look like crap.
Before I spend hours trying to remove the shellac (and rubbing the milk paint off in the process) I'm wondering if I can just reboot the project: I'm thinking about rubbing the whole thing down with fine sandpaper and then just putting another coat of milk paint on top. Will the milk paint stick to the zinser? (I gather it would stick to dewaxed shellac no problem, but not sure about this stuff.). I feel like the milk paint is thicker and its brush marks (which I'm fine with) will hide the shellac streaks and drips without much work.
Thoughts?
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