Speed Up Re-Coats Of Shellac

So you just sprayed an awful looking first coat of shellac, orange peel you name it! You put down too heavy a coat. You don't have all day to wait for the shellac to completely dry and you want to get another coat on to build your topcoat. However, first, you will need to knock down high spots of orange peel to level out your surface before a re-coat.

Ok we all know the rule, a topcoat is dry when sanded, a white powder comes off the paper, (in this case I'm using amber shellac so it will be an amber color powder). Now my shellac only has about an hour of dry, my sandpaper is still digging into the shellac and loading up. The shellac is dry, just not dry enough to "dry sand."

Solution, I know this sounds crazy, wet sand with soapy water. The soap provides lubrication. In this case, I'm using a foam backed 320 grit wet/dry sandpaper from Mirka. Great for scuffing between topcoats. The foam backing helps keep even "light" pressure that can actually help you from sand-thru. The bonus is the papers wet/dry performance!