| I’ve never had a problem brushing lacquer, Tom. Like you, I recommend that it be sprayed, but it works about the same as Cellulose Acetate Butyrate dope for aircraft, which has about the same properties and is often applied with a brush during buildup. Brushing reduces the number of coats almost by half, and at the same time it reduces waste. Clear dope is used to fill the grain of the fabric, much the same as a primer sealer is used to fill the grain of wood. Clear dope is used for filling mostly because it is cheaper and better for this purpose than pigmented dope, whereas most primer sealer is cheaper and easier to sand than lacquer. However, clear lacquer can be used as a wood filler. My Zenith console was finished without a sealer or any other kind of filler, and still looks just as nice today as when it was done in 1985. When brushing either product, don’t play around in it. Just slop it on fast and don’t worry about pretty. Between applications, change the brush stroke direction. The solids move or “shrink” while drying and have a way of smoothing out while blending with the previous application. Of course, spraying is smoother, but this stuff is about the same thing as fingernail polish, which is not usually applied with a spray gun. For the benefit of anyone who is not familiar with lacquer, it can be an ideal way of learning to use a spray gun. It dries fast and is fairly easy to sand afterwards, so goof ups can be smoothed out and covered up with another application. If you don’t like what you see, keep on doing it until you do. It’s a matter of what you run out of first. Time, money or patience. I just wish that shellac was as forgiving as lacquer, since that is mostly what I have been using in recent years to duplicate the finish on older radio cabinets.
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jim campbell 
Mark 