JacksonMaberry

For your currently finished instrument, I recommend finding a successful varnish that you can live with and apply it. Then, if you are still interested in rosinates, prepare some according to my article and cook them into oil as I described and use that on your next one. Best of luck and keep us posted.

Forgive my confusion, but by your own admission throughout this topic, your varnish does not work in any respect. it doesn't dry and it lacks intensity. Whether or not it remains fluid is essentially irrelevant if you use the original Michelman cold mix technique. Michelman himself makes it clear repeatedly that his varnishes when properly formulated do gel and must be prepared fresh for each coat. That yours has not exhibited this behaviour should be taken as a mark of failure. I assure you that using my technique will, if you follow it to the letter, give you varnishes you can count on

I stand corrected. Thank you. Worth noting that the solubility of salts varies widely, and that rosinate is entirely insoluble in water. Edit: not all rosinates are insoluble in water. Calcium rosinate is partly water soluble and should be avoided, for example.

https://youtu.be/2_2tZcZSgXU As promised - see and believe.

Ask and ye shall receive

The white flecks are known as efflorescence, a phenomenon whereby salts recrystallize as water evaporates. If you have this problem, your varnish will fail. You must wash the rosinate more thoroughly. Also, the color intensity of your red rosinate is not very strong. My paper will set you up for success. Also, I don't recommend applying red varnish first. Ground the instrument, apply brown varnish, and add red in later coats.

The oldest is five years. I'm sorry to have come off as combative: I am very protective of Michelman's legacy because his work is so poorly understood. His rosinate science is perfect. His varnishmaking was flawed. If you combine Michelman's rosinate preparations with JG McIntosh's method of production cooked rosinate varnish and are fastidious about careful and correct laboratory technique, you will not fail.

Salve, with respect, you clearly do not understand the relevant chemistry. Your assertion that a properly washed rosinate "is in itself a salt" is false. A salt is an ionic assembly of cations and anions. Rosinate, or metal abietate, is a molecule of abietic acid to which a metal ion has been fused with a bond much stronger than the ionic bonds present in salts. I am sorry that you have had difficulty with rosinates, but it is clearly due to your inability to properly prepare them and their relevant varnishes. I suggest you read my paper and try again. If you have any doubts, I wil

Precisely, all of which is covered in my article.

If you are interested in my article, please join the VSA or contact me privately to start a conversation.

There are a variety of reasons why a varnish may react to water. Water soluble caput mortuum (alchemy lingo for unwanted waste products) is one of them. For example, potassium rosinate is precipitated with zinc sulfate (a salt: note that dissolved salts express as their distinct anions and cations) - the zinc displaces the potassium ion on the abietic acid chain, forming insoluble zinc abietate (rosinate). The potassium bonds with the free sulfate ion forming potassium sulfate, soluble in water. This is precisely why Michelman encourages thorough rinsing of the rosinate, several times. I

I manufacture rosinate varnishes for the trade, and recently published an article explaining my method in detail in The Scroll, a VSA publication. Feel free to write directly to me and I highly recommend the article.

Yep! I do it like Roger describes, just swapping in a screw for the nail - an idea I got from one of Rogers own articles, as it happens.

Precisely! Using a screw is much kinder to any future colleague than using a nail. A long mechanic's screwdriver can be used through the endpin hole to back out the screw, then the glue bond can be weakened.

Hi Mark, it's an inexpensive chinese unit, "Four Es" brand. I don't cook anything much above 200C, and the thickest thing I've put in there was larch turpentine. By the time it reached 200C the stirrer had no difficulty whatsoever, even after 24 hours of cooking.