I'm restoring some chestnut trim in the bathroom in our ~1920 house while remodeling the entire room, and need to decide what color shellac would be best. There is no exposed wood anywhere else in the house to match to as it's all currently buried under about 9 layers of paint. Wood is currently stripped down and sanded bare. The original tint was a bit of a darker shade that I've seen while searching for pictures here, but for this room I'm deciding between clear vs. amber.

If I understand correctly, amber will be the kind of orange-ish color that's commonly seen in older houses, but what color would clear come out as (more yellow)? And what shade is best for chestnut? I'm basically limited to the two varieties I've found for sale at a nearby store for now for now and can experiment with adding pigment sometime later after I have more experience with the stuff.

I prefer clear shellac. Let the wood show its natural color and age in color through its natural cycle.

The wood will automatically darken over time through natural UV exposure. Also, if you plan on putting a topcoat over the shellac, make sure it is wax-free shellac, as shellac with wax will cause issues with bonding to the topcoats above it.

The orange color you are seeing in older houses is probably more of a function of the oil varnish/poly they are using (most likely varnish given it being older). This naturally imparts a yellow hue to the color of the wood, regardless of the undercoats.

Do you plan on topcoating over the shellac?

Shellac will help build up faster though compared to just using a poly to build up a film. Shellac cures faster, and you can put a couple of coats of shellac on in a short period vs poly, and shellac is cheaper, so 1-2 coats of shellac followed by 1-2 coats of poly will be easier than achieving a similar film buildup with strictly using poly.

Hope that helps.

[This message has been edited by agrams (edited 2/9/2012 11:58a).]

I'm glad you mentioned the wax, because one of the window frames is near a shower, and I'd planned on giving it a topcoat of polyurethane to protect it from water. So it looks like I need to go back and trade in for the sanding sealer which is 100% wax-free shellac.

So now color doesn't matter anymore because that's available in clear only. I'm sure pigment can be bought here somewhere, but I don't know where and I'm getting a bit pressed for time as far as getting this room back together goes.

Thanks!