Cracking Gasket Lacquer

[Grey Taylor]

I've been using gasket lacquer for a number of years and it's been working well, until the last few months.
The last few months I've been having trouble with it cracking. Sometimes the cracks aren't too bad but most times they're horrendous. Occasionally the cracks go all the way through my crown paint. This is driving me nuts!
One vendor told me he sees this over water-based acrylic paints and recommended that I use oil-base paints for crown and cresting. Trouble is that I get cracking on bare shafts, too.
Another vendor said I need to give at least 30min between coats and use a new gasket to avoid making the coats too thick. Didn't work, still cracks.
Here's my procedure:
Sitka spruce shafts, sand smooth, crown with water-base acrylic paint, one coat of gl, smooth with synthetic steel wool (Scotchbrite pad), crest with water-base acrylic paint, two to three additional coats of gasket lacquer to finish. Plenty of drying time is given for the paint.
I've also experienced this with multiple cans of gl so if it's a batch issue it's pretty widespread.
I've spoken with other arrow makers and they also have cracking issues with gl to one degree or another. One fellow thought it was caused by humidity but I live in the California high desert so that idea is busted.

Does anyone have any good advice for me that does not include going to another coating? I've looked at other coatings and for one reason or another have rejected them. Gaket lacquer is a popular finish, surely it's not giving hairballs to *everyone* using it!

Guy

[macbow]

There are two problems with gasket lacquer  one is the cracking and the other is it's not water proof.

If you try peeling one of the bad cracks the whole coating may come off.

[Bob B.]

Guy,

I have experienced the exact same thing.  I narrowed my problem down to 3 things;

1) a batch of gasket lacquer that is too thick and needs to be thinned with turpentine.

2) too many coats, i.e., too thick of coatings.

3) too much moisture under the lacquer.

I make sure my shafts are very dry.  I then paint my caps with water based paint, but let dry one to three days ( seems ridiculously long but my cracking finish has stopped).

4) 3 coats of almost runny honey gasket lacquer.

Also, I stopped sanding the shafts as I seem to get better results from a slightly rough finish.

Good luck to you.

     

Bob.

[Grey Taylor]

Bob: turpentine?
The instructions say to thin with acetone (preferred), or lacquer thinner.
Thank you for the other information.

Guy

[AkDan]

Grey that's exactly what's wrong...Its not waterproof!  I put Troy onto the company he was selling with and at one point the local fella who put me onto and I were talking to the chemists to try and come up with something that wouldn't.   For us anyways the price was waaay to high when you factor in hazardous shipping and the stuff is way to volatile for me where I was feltching (2nd floor apt)  That shaft is swelling and contracting with humidity and times of year, or just moisture in general, and wamo cracks.   My sheep hunt I could peel them like a peanut in 02. 16 days in almost constant rain every single shaft cracked!

If you go back a number of years you'll find some of my posts on the very subject and got shunned for even mentioning it.  Mind you I was the guy who told Troy where to buy the stuff and I'm sure he wasn't the only ear to get turned over the years!!!    

Bob I'm curious how long your gaskets lasts if you're running  a rough finish?!?!?!   I know when mine got to a point they did extremely well and than it would break.   I cant remember the numbers its been a number of years since I ran the crap!

There's another seller of the stuff who does not have issues that the stuff we had did.   We never did figure out what they did or where they were getting it from.  Hazardous shipping charges to Alaska were over 2 times the cost of a 5 gallon pail.  Thankfully when I ordered it the first time fedex didn't get it here on time and I paid 0 shipping or haz shipping charges!  5 gallons for a small time builder as I was lasted me a long time.  

Your best option...walk away!!!   Thinning will not keep it from happening!!!!!  It will only further the headaches and ruined shafts!  It is nice, easy and fast....as a finish unless you can get with the chemist and afford the shipping, is not waterproof, it will crack and ruin shafts.

[Green]

Guy - same issue here.  It doesn't matter whether it is over the top of water based acrylic for crown, alcohol based dye for stain, bare or toasted shaft.  And then there are times (with no respect to humidity level) where this doesn't happen.  Cannot find a pattern to the application of finishes to help nail this action down.

I have been trying to get away from this product for six months, but oil based poly (no matter which manufacturer) dries too slowly to use in a garage shop where high summer temps, bugs, and slow dry times are the issues.  Water based Poly is too soft of a finish for my liking.

I'll be following this thread in hope of solutions.

[rraming]

It has happened to me, I believe it is a worn out gasket applying too much lacquer. Thinning would make sense as well. I usually try to do one set, 13-20 shafts though one hole and then never use that hole again. Overuse a hole and see the globby mess you will get.

[neuse]

I used gasket lacquer for a long time with no problems.
Then for some reason I was having cracks, threw the gasket lacquer away and bought a new quart.
Still gave me trouble cracking.
I could not figure it out, so I started using other finishes.
Wish I new the answer.

[Eric Krewson]

Same here, loved it until the cracking started, hate the stuff now because my beautiful arrows now have a cracked finish. I use tru-oil now.

[Green]

Eric, how's the compatibility of water based paints, alcohol and water based dyes, acrylic & oil based cresting paints, etc. with the Tru Oil?  I'm sure you haven't used all of the above, but please tell us what you've found that works for you.

[LBR]

That's why I quit using it years ago.  I use an epoxy finish a friend of mine adapted from the Jay Massey bow finish.  We found arrows that had been out long enough for the point to rust off--finish was still great.

[mooseman1967]

Been trying to figure this out myself. I have arrows that were built 5 to 10 years ago that are still fine. Arrows I built lately are a crap shoot but I might have something figured out in the last year. The arrows I dipped in the house (low humidity) have all cracked after a few shots. The ones where the weather was nice and I did all my work outside (higher humidity) have been holding up pretty good. Nothing scientific just my observations the last couple years. Either way I'm ready to look for a different finish! Dave

[Grey Taylor]

Has anyone tried either undercoating or overcoating the gasket lacquer with another product like water or oil-base polyurethane, shellac, varnish, etc.?

Guy

[Green]

Guy - I usually do two coats of GL, steel wool and then a third, then I crest with oil based.  Once that's dry I dip the crown/crest with water based poly, and let that cure for 24-48 (humidity dependent), and then do a final dip in Pro Fin.  Unfortunately the cracking shows up underneath this.

I adopted this method of water based poly under oil based to prevent white crown/cresting work from turning yellow.

[Bear Heart]

Go with Profin

[ArrowPlane]

I quit using gasket lacquer because of this. The system worked flawlessly on the first couple batches of arrows I did, then they started crackling.  Personally, I think you really need to store it properly somewhere cool or it goes bad quick. Mine was in the garage over the summer in Texas and just because useless.  It's way too expensive to keep buying more every few months, so I use wipe-on poly now.  Much slower, but seems to be working out.

I also quit using paint to crown dip, use white stain now.  It's lighter weight, doesn't crack, not hard to apply. You don't get bright white like you do with paint, but it's a good contrast to darker stain.  If you use water based stain, water based paint for cresting, then oil-based wipe-on poly over the top, there are zero compatibility issues.

[Grey Taylor]

The real pi**er on this is that gasket lacquer used to work really well. I was just looking at some arrows I did a couple years ago and they look great, even after long and hard use.
From what I understand gasket lacquer is not made for the arrow industry. I wonder if there has been a formula change of some kind that hasn't affected its intended audience but has played havoc with us.
From what I've seen in this thread there are an awful lot of folks having this issue. I'd sure like to see the big trad archery vendor that sells this finish actually look into the cracking issue rather than just blow it off with useless suggestions.

Guy

[redpepper49]

I to have started having the same promblem

[Green]

Guy - here is the best amateur analysis I can give.  I generally use tapered shafts.  Running tapered's through a gasket leaves less of a finish on the tapered portion of the shaft.  We had a wet cold front blow through beginning yesterday evening.  A full 24 hours after I put 3 dips (over a crown of brown alcohol based dye)on a dozen shafts during a low humidity, 85 degree day.

The shafts were laying in my cresting rack over night.  This morning, over half of the shafts had hazed on the tapered crown portion where the thinner finish is.  My analysis is that water gets under the gasket lacquer by penetrating the finish, not necessarily by moisture entering the wood as the parallel portion of the shafts had not hazed.  Like you, arrows I dipped in GL several years ago do not show these issues.  Therefore I conclude that the chemical makeup of the GL has been changed.

I'm done with GL.  I guess I am going to start experimenting with a combination of water based poly and a wipe on oil based poly final coat.  Or some combination of those finishes.  I am trying to get more info on compatibility of our various paints and dyes with Tru Oil as well.

[2treks]

I have profin'd over the GL but I have never had GL crack. BUT, I have used profin for the past several years, so maybe my GL is of the "old" stock days.
Now I  have some spankin' new GL that we will have to keep an eye on I guess.

I sure do like the Profin tho. I also want to use Chads epoxy finish sometime.(I have a lot of epoxy to use up).