Shellac

Finally moved into the new house and have a little time for projects. Okay, there are still boxes all over the place, but priorities...!

After much hand-wringing and research I decided to shellac the 5E3. There's much dispute on the webternets over how this was done back in the day - some sources just say a couple coats of clear nitro, others say a coat of clear shellac first, then nitro. I'm leaning towards the latter camp, because apparently nitro can react with pine sap that can seep through tweed, and it can also react with the brown fibers in the tweed leading to a greenish color.

A lot of people like to add a couple coats of amber shellac to give it a fake aged look. I'm not going to be doing this, for the same reasons I don't take a belt sander to my guitars or pants.

My plan right now is a couple coats of clear shellac, if only because I'm sick of keeping this amp in a box to keep it from getting dirty. A coat or two of satin nitro lacquer is in the future, but for now shellac is a good start.

You can find dozens of walkthroughs online, but this guy gives good advice: http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/2549080-post1.html

For the shellac I went with Zinsser Seal Coat, which is a clear 2# cut of wax-free shellac. The first coat's drying right now. This stuff is incredibly easy to work with - goes on easy, dries fast, and if you mess up (knock on, well, tweed) you can fix your mistakes or even take it off entirely with denatured alcohol.

I've already got a bunch of "before" pictures so I'll be sure to post some "after" pictures too.