So does anyone like to paint guitars? Wanna paint mine?

[jestaudio]

Lacquer is the second easiest finish to repair and it's much lighter than all except for a french polish. Poly is impossible to repair and is more like velveeta made of plexiglass.

Using it from a can is annoying, and not even close to the atomization as with a spray rig. Lumpy piles.

Watch out for too fine of a final sanding. Instrument looks great until the finish comes of in a single sheet. I finish sand to 400. Moisture will turn steel dust embredded in wood grain into rust and the finish will get rust dots then come off in sheets too, so steel wool is umm.. not a good idea. #0000 wool is effectively 1800 grit. That is over sanding and the finish will not stay on forever.

If you hate lacquer you love to work really hard. If you use crap with plastic binders you may as well use poly. Use Deft brand, and not the premium, the standard is chinese without plastic binders. It shoots and works exactly as Gibson did it since the forevers ago if you drain the cans into a gun.



4 coats sealer, sand back, 4 coats clear within an hour and wetsand in 2 hours. Polish in 24. Boom.

The reason for using wire wool is not to sand but to reveal and imperfections that the wood dust is hiding, a good quality wire wool shouldn't in my experience shed any bits, getting some from the local DIY is I agree asking for trouble, 600 grit is about as far as I go for a final sand, the advantage to oil is it penetrates the wood similar to French polishing but not as hard a technique to perfect, the only time I use nitro is if the wood is very plain or is a 3 piece body

[jestaudio]

Interesting jestaudio,

I've never heard of Liberon finishing oil.

Is it anything like Tru Oil by Birchwood Casey?

I love Tru Oil as a neck finish.
Hands down the slickest finish I have ever felt for a neck.

The great thing about a nitro clear finish is, you can polish that sucker until it is like glass.

I've seen a lot of other types of finish but I can usually see swirl marks or burns in the lacquer.

I would agree however, that a catalyzed nitro lacquer seems as if it would be very good.
Quick cure time and good wear factor.

People like to slather on a lot about pure nitro lacquer, about how it breathes and other bullshit.

It is probably the worst durable finish you could put on a guitar.
Let's remember that the guitar companies followed the automobile industry as far a coatings go.
In the 50's it was nitrocellulose.
But they quickly found that the nitro color coats faded and oxidized quickly so they came out with the Duco acrylic lacquers by the end of the 50's.
Fender used them but still used clear nitro for the finish on the guitars.

Especially the headstocks as they found that acrylic lacquer messed up the decals.

Liberon is a trade name in the UK, its Tung oil, I would imagine tru oil is similar, some oil finish's claim to be Tung oil when I fact they are simply brushing varnish,

I far preffer oil finished to modern poly or 2 pack finishes , nitro is nice if its thin

[jestaudio]

slightly off topic, but I was under the impression that the green s/ enviros had pretty much got nitro and other lacquer based finish, 2 pack etc banned in a fair bit of the US, I know some of our local luthiers are experimenting with water based finish's for production runs?

[cbass]

That's just in California or maybe some other hippy liberal treehuggin state

[Structo]

I think the spray cans survive because they are viewed as hobby based.
The commercial use of nitro lacquer is where the trouble starts.

Not sure how Gibson gets away with it but I'm not even sure they still use straight nitro.

[jestaudio]

Is it worth having a sticky for a few easy techniques, could apply to amp cab finishing as well as it appears a few folk have and are willing to share ideas

[Structo]

Another thing to look out for when spraying finish, doesn't matter if it is acrylic or nitro, is when the humidity is above 50% you stand a good chance of blushing.

No not your face, the sprayed lacquer can trap moisture from the air and deposit it on you dream guitar.

It appears as a milky white haze.
There a couple different ways to eliminate it from using a commercial blush eraser to just spraying another light coat when the humidity goes down.

What I did in the rainy northwest is I made a paint booth in my garage by hanging plastic from the ceiling to the floor.
Then I would put an electric space heater inside for about 30 minutes to dry the air.

Then turn off the heater and start spraying.

Lacquer can be very flammable so use common sense.

[jeff12]

I have the prettiest tele body out there anywhere, and I've shown it here several times. It remains un finished and unfinished to this day. 6 years maybe? I'm scared to touch it and I ain't askeert of NOTHIN'..

[IMG1200]http://i48.tinypic.com/5z4db7.jpg[/img]

Here is what I did to my pine body. Don't be scared, there are lots more pine trees out there.

[Reeltarded]

I think. Have him steered toward a prewar Gibson finish in the style of 50s Fender.


I love it.

[skyboltone]

yeah man. mucho mas betah

[jeff12]

Nice look on the Gibson. I like how this turned out too.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Them's all some dee-licious lookin' finishes! And thanx Miles for your input @ 400-grit being enough's enough & other nitro pointers. (Do not attempt to light cigar while spraying nitro - that's my only pointer.)

Something I've wanted to do since late 60's is an industrial-looking black wrinkle finish on guitar. Back then, never could get the paint to work. Just fartin' around with a friend, not paying attention enough to humidity/temperature constraints. However in more recent times I got a good black-wrinkle going for some B-15 transformer covers, by paying close attention to temp & humdiddity. One of these days, a late spring day to be optimum, some unfortunate guitar will get the treatment. Wood ugly, patched, who cares? Gonna make it look like some mid 20th century industrial machinery.

[Reeltarded]

I make a line of instruments for friends called "Redneck". The necks are Chinese Red, and the bodies are bedliner. Mostly basses. It's funny.

[Structo]

I like those Mary Kay finishes, probably not for me but still good looking.

[rhardman]

sounds like Tom is gonna spend more time at the Ranch…getting the bug.