Middle_John

Well, lets see. An alcohol plus an acid makes an ester which can be very volatile. Maybe that's what happened. If it was hydrogen, then I would expect that there was enough other organic stuff in the shellac to have absorbed the free hydrogen, but then maybe not. If it was hydrogen build up, then it was lucky there wasn't a flame nearby.

Honestly, I aspire to making good dovetails because they are not the easiest joint to make and i want the personal pride of being able to increase my skill level. To my mind, applied fronts scream of cheap, fast, and easy whereas dovetails show pride, quality, and skill. Even more so if they are hand cut. Machine cut dovetails are obvious and don't aspire to the skill level of hand cut. Whereas they may be "stressful" handcut dovetails give a certain pride in my work that is greater than I get with easier joints.