This is a great debate...
But...Shellac, especially French Polishing can be touchy. especially for the beginner. If, and we have all gone through a bad shellac experience, it has to be removed, the process of removing to shellac to redo will fade or destroy the decals because they are not happy with shellac being "rubbed" off of them. Then you have nothing but a mess and destroyed decals which in most cases cannot be replaced. Glenn is an expert....so the likelihood of this happening is lessened, but for the average person trying to restore a machine for the first time it will end in disaster. If there is a lacquer base, you can rub shellac off and on the machine all day with no fear of damage because lacquer is not dissolved by the alcohol. With that said, I do very much respect Glenn's expertise and he could work on one of my machines anytime
. I also agree that shellac is very forgiving. Just one note as well, by lacquer I do NOT mean automotive clearcoat which is basically plastic. I mean regular lacquer. As noted, I will post my latest project as a hybrid of Glenn's technique.