Retarder For Cellulose

[ToneMonkey]

Alright guys, some of you may remember the thread about the finish on old National guitars. It's the finish with the crystals that grow in the laquer.

Well, I've found the right stuff to form the crystals and my mate has been experimenting with it. The problem that we have is that the crystals aren't having time to form. We've tried just thinning the (cellulose) laquer down but it's far from perfect. He's also been trying various meths, solvents, etc, etc.

Do any of you finishing gurus know of a suitable retarder for cellulose? If possible I could do with some suggestions before I go home for the weekend (in about 2 hours).

Cheers guys and as a reward, I'll tell you that if you dont thin down laquer (the car type) and turn the pressure up to full blast, you get cobwebs comming out. Dunno if it's safe but it made me laugh

[Doc]

Hey Monkey,

Where are you? British Isles or Austrailia maybe?

You guys sure have a lot of restrictions.

Over here they make retarder for lacquer and that's the only thing that I've ever heard it called. If I had to guess, from the smell it's got some xylene and toluene in it.

I know meths won't work 'cause they're methyl alchohol with some funky purple stuff in it and are only good in shellac based finishes.

No alcohol will mix with lacquer.

If you're having to crank your pressure up too high you still haven't thinned it out enough. Using a conventional gun I shoot at maybe 40 pounds of pressure max. It may spray but it won't lay out decently and you'll get orange peel from hell. Oddly thicker finish also has a greater tendency to form runs cause it drys more slowly.

You may find that just thinning your finish out more accomplishes what you want. That's what you have to do with an HVLP gun. Some stuff I have to cut 3:1 thinner to lacquer.

The cobwebs are pretty neat looking.

Hope this helps.

[ToneMonkey]

Yeah, I'm in the UK.

I'll have to have a search around for the stuff, I'm sure that I can get it somewhere.

The bloke who is doing the spraying is quite good at it, he's been hitting it with a thinner heavy mix to try and slow down the drying process but no luck yet.

The cobwebs weren't achieved during the experiments, infact it was someone else who showed me, roll on helloween and I'll cobweb the outside of my house

[ToneMonkey]

Ahhhh, I think I've found some. For some reason I missed it with my initial searches.

Cheers Doc

Kaj