The Shell Nuts - Episode12 - Shell Cleaning, Restoration, and Protection 

Thank you so much! Really appreciated! Hopefully it contributes a little bit more to our great shelling community.

Thank you Kathy! Hopefully we'll see you again soon! And you are not an amateur!. I know that for a fact! :)

Thanks Diane! Yeah, it's a remarkably long video. I'm sure a lot of viewers will skip to that final segment, but hopefully there will be some other information in the video that folks will reference and find useful at some point. As always, thanks so much for your kind words and for tuning in! Really appreciated!

Thank you so much for your kind words and for checking out our video. It's really appreciated! I'm happy our video helped you. Congrats on the great conch find!

Thank you! We appreciate you stopping by and watching and for your kind words. :)

Wow! We should send you completion certificate because that video is crazy long! Thank you so much for watching. Really appreciated!

Thanks as always for tuning in Diane and for your sharing your thoughts. Really appreciated!

Thanks for checking out our video and for your kind words. Really appreciated!

Thanks a bunch Maddie! Yeah, sorry it was so long! We'll be mailing you a completion certificate also. LOL. We hope you're doing well down under! Keep up the great work on your videos!

Thank you for tuning it and for your kind feedback. We really appreciate it!

Thank you so much for your interest in our video. Really appreciated. You have asked some great questions! As I mentioned in the description, we are by no means the authority on this stuff, but I'll do my best to answer your questions based on our personal experience. 1) Safe HCL - We haven't personally used this yet, so I can't tell if you if it's any more effective or easier to use than muriatic acid. We may try it ourselves soon and we'll create a video if we do. Supposedly it's a lot safer and won't irritate your skin which is a huge bonus. I will say that muriatic acid is cheaper and easier to find in your local store, and it does exactly what we need it to do, and when we neutralize it with baking soda when we're finished, it becomes harmless and easy to dispose of. If anyone reading these comments has used both and wants to share their experience, we'll be happy to have your comments here. I know there are some videos about it from other great shellers here on RU-vid, so please check those out also. 2) Yes, there have been times when a shell had both green/algae/gunk growing on it and then was slightly calcified also. So we did bleach first to remove the outer layer of 'gunk', and then that exposed the calcification so we an acid dip afterwards. Also, on one of our large horse conchs, we soaked it in a bleach+water bath for 24-48 hours, and then afterwards we had to spot treat it with acid in a few spots to remove some things that wouldn't come off with bleach. So on rare occasions we'll use both, but we always start with bleach first. 3) Yes, the Triple Thick Glaze goes on very thick, so I would only recommend it for shells that normally have a naturally thick gloss coat, but this is very subjective and each person might have a different opinion. Some people might like the thicker coat on some of their shells, some may not. You could get a thick coat with the lacquer also if you applied many coats, but the Glaze goes on easier and more uniform and requires less coats. If you're unsure, practice with some shells or shell fragments that are in bad condition first to see what best suits your preference. We practiced clear coats on many different old shells and fragments before we determined exactly what we wanted to do with our nicer shells. 4) We've yet to discover a whole knob whelk and have not yet had the opportunity to clean one. My best advice would be to find several that are in bad shape that you wouldn't really care about keeping and practice different cleaning/restoration techniques on those first, and then when you find what works best, you can use that on your nicer shells. It also took us some trial and error on some shells before we figured out what worked best for each shell. Thanks again and good luck with your shelling!

@@theshellnuts Thank you for the very detailed response! There’s one more question I have that wasn’t originally answered that I actually wanted to re-word. How do you decide between using mineral oil and the Rust-oleum Lacquer? Since mineral oil gets on people’s hands and doesn’t last that long it seems like the lacquer is the better of the two options.

@@MattBarrasso So sorry I missed that question! It's another great question and something we ask ourselves often also. We usually only use lacquer on our big shells to seal in the periostracum and to give the shells a bit more depth of color and have that 'wet' look. I tried lacquer on some smaller shells like Florida Fighting Conchs and Moon Snails and it just didn't seem very natural looking(too shiny), so to me, the lacquer seems like a better fit for larger shells and I try to keep the coat light so it's more natural looking. And you're right, mineral oil gets on people hands if you apply it too thick, and I wouldn't want to oil up a big shell that I might let people handle. Also, the lacquer is going to last much longer, so if you're going to put shells in a picture frame and/or something permanent where they will never be touched, maybe lacquer is a better bet. Mineral oil is great for smaller shells there you want to add a depth of color and it's so simple to apply, and you can wipe of the excess to the point where it's not very oily to the touch. When we're unsure, we try mineral oil first. If we're happy with the results, great, we're done. If not, we'll wash the shell in soap and hot water to get the mineral oil off and then try lacquer. Again, sometimes it's just a matter of trial and error. We wish you good luck on your shell restorations and preservation!

Thank you for stopping by and for the suggestion. We'll give white vinegar a try and see how it goes. :)

Thanks for watching! Much appreciated. :) It's a good tip and we've tried it in the past, but the acid we saved became smelly and less potent. So now we just try to use as little as possible and then neutralize it so that we can safely discard what little we use.

Yes, of course. We do mention rinsing the shell in water for the large Horse Conch project towards the end of the video. I guess we forgot to mention that during the bleaching section. Thanks for mentioning it. :)

Thanks for watching! :)