My buddy spent months restoring an antique dresser and couldn't figure out why the finish felt gummy. He kept adding more coats, thinking it just needed to cure. Turns out he was using a paste wax from a similar looking tin, not the shellac he thought was on his shelf. The whole piece had to be stripped back to bare wood. He still groans about it whenever we talk shop.

Garmin's got no chill, @evac89... that's a bold move.

Honestly see this kind of gatekeeping everywhere now. People get so stuck on their idea of what's "real" or "worthy" that they miss the actual point of the thing, which is just to enjoy it. Kind of makes the whole group thing pointless if you ask me.

Home emergencies have a real talent for picking the absolute worst moments. It's like they check your calendar first. Good luck with the midnight hardware store run.

Wow, that's amazing it held up that well. Hugo_schmidt has a point about the pressure they used, but I wonder about the storage too. Those rolled sets in a dark cabinet are like a time capsule. Was the vellum stored flat or rolled? I've seen rolled ones get brittle, but flat sheets in a big flat file seem to last forever. The environment in that St. Louis library must have been just right, no humidity swings.