Originally Posted by
miriam
I used rubbing alcohol on a Singer 99 to clean the tar stuff off. The shellac turned white. Can I put new shellac on over it or will it always be white? The poor machine sews fine - kinda ugly.
Oh Miriam, first is the 99 black japan if so then you can mix some aniline dye(alcohol soluble) with the shellac to make a very black paint. Use this tinted shellac and the linseed oil to french polish the whit areas and you shold be fine. This will take several polishings to get good coverage. Sometimes french polish with just linseed oil a little alcohol will remove the white areas. But if you have done this over lacquer the alcohol will turn it white. If lacquer get some high gloss black lacquer and spray the white areas. Next time use bug and tar remover made for cars.
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