Affect of shellac on a signed baseball

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by Topnotchsy

For me it depends on the item but I definitely agree for many items. I got a baseball signed by the WWII team from the Stan Musial collection (he served in the Pacific theater and they had an 8 team league there... action was not nearly as intense as it was in Europe.) It's totally brown and covered in shellac but I love that that was how he had it (and it's been really interesting researching the people who signed the ball...)

I am very sorry, but I have to correct you here. Action in WWII in the Pacific was arguably MORE intense than in Europe. However, after Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was pretty much combat free, and many service teams went to islands that had already been secured.

Ken

[Topnotchsy]

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

I am very sorry, but I have to correct you here. Action in WWII in the Pacific was arguably MORE intense than in Europe. However, after Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was pretty much combat free, and many service teams went to islands that had already been secured.

Ken

I appreciate the correction. I was referring to the units that people like Musial served in (which had plenty of time for baseball leagues) and not the fighters who were constantly on the front lines. That said, I definitely could use getting more familiar with this part of the war...

[steve B]

No science degree, but.........I do a bit of woodworking. It's nearly as good as staying at a holiday inn express

Shellac is dissolved in alcohol, and some older stuff was DIY rather than sold premixed in cans. It still comes that way of you look for it.

So the amount of shellac mixed in and it's color will affect the end result. Anywhere from almost clear to dark brown.

Shellac is itself somewhat UV resistant, and supposedly doesn't darken with age. I'd almost bet that in some finishes it was mixed with other stuff that does, or that "shellac" has been used generically to cover any finish applied to a ball.

Being Alcohol soluble it generally doesn't like getting wet with water. Think of the cloudy rings you'd get on some furniture with a cold drink glass and no coaster, and you'll get an idea of the exact effect of water on shellac.

Fun trivia- most 78 rpm records are made of shellac.

Steve B

[Runscott]

Steve, that 'old orange' look that you see on shellacked balls is similar to what I often find on old store-bought pool cues, especially the ones that were refinished by amateurs, and most of those were seldom, if ever, exposed to sunlight;i.e-if it's similar stuff, I don't think the darkening of the shellack has much to do with sunlight. As you suggest, it might be something in the shellack (or whatever it really is) that is 'going bad' with age. My guess is that whatever the amateur cue refinishers painted onto the cues is the same stuff that people painted on their baseballs (the ones that went bad, anyway).

[steve B]

It very well could be. Shellac comes in a really wide range of color, so someone using whatever the hardware store had on hand probably got something in the reddish brown range. Pretty good for making pine shelves look like cherry form a distance.

Some of the older polyurethanes were pretty bad. I don't know much about the ones from the 50's when they were new, but the stuff I used in the 70's was horrid.

Steve B

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by steve B

It very well could be. Shellac comes in a really wide range of color, so someone using whatever the hardware store had on hand probably got something in the reddish brown range. Pretty good for making pine shelves look like cherry form a distance.

Some of the older polyurethanes were pretty bad. I don't know much about the ones from the 50's when they were new, but the stuff I used in the 70's was horrid.

Steve B

From my experience refinishing pool cues and stripping crappy refinish jobs, I'm fairly sure they started off light and then darkened, and I'm guessing the same happened with these baseballs.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by steve B

It very well could be. Shellac comes in a really wide range of color, so someone using whatever the hardware store had on hand probably got something in the reddish brown range. Pretty good for making pine shelves look like cherry form a distance.

Some of the older polyurethanes were pretty bad. I don't know much about the ones from the 50's when they were new, but the stuff I used in the 70's was horrid.

Steve B

From my experience refinishing pool cues and stripping crappy refinish jobs, I'm fairly sure they started off light and then darkened, and I'm guessing the same happened with these baseballs. No one would have intentionally refinished a maple cue forearm with reddish-brown shellac, and I'm certain they didn't come that way from Brunswick, yet many of the old Brunswick forearms have turned yellow-orange with age.

[murphusa]

It is made from bugs that nest in trees so the color and traits of the tree comes through in the process. It also has a short shelf life and if old will give a darker color

Orange was the top color in the US for years.

So many things go into what color you get