Lacquering neck - tutorial?

[Alexander]

Hi chaps/chapettes.

I was looking through the tutorials on the front end of this site, but I can't find a good beginners guide to lacquering a neck anywhere - I'm intending to use aerosol lacquer (satin finish) and I'd like to have as much information at my disposal as possible before hitting the button. Things like - how many coats, when I should sand and with what grain, etc.. I'm a complete newbie to this as you may already have gathered.

[westhemann]

not much to laquering a neck....just tape off the fretboard top(leave the sides exposed)and nut and spray until desired thickness(most i guess are about 1/32" thick i think)

[westhemann]

unless the fretboard is maple...then only tape off the nut and plug the truss rod opening

then after the finish has set for a couple of weeks scrape the laquer off the frets and polish them

[Alexander]

Dude, you should write tutorials for a living

That's cool, for some reason I thought there was sanding in between coats etc. but that sounds so simple, even I could do it. And make no mistake, I'm a real numpty. Last night I was drilling neck holes (in another, cheap neck) and wondering why my drill wasn't really drilling. Turns out it was rotating the wrong way. Hmmm.. perhaps I should stick to playing guitars rather than building them.

That said, this guitar is going to be beautiful in it's simplicity. I will post pics as soon as it's guitar shaped.

[guitar_ed]

Hi Alexander,

Don't worry too much about the drill running the wrong way. I have done it so often that checking the direction is now just "one of those things" that I always do with out thinking.

Guitar Ed

[westhemann]

That's cool, for some reason I thought there was sanding in between coats

not really with a neck,unless the headstock has a color coat....in that case you should apply the color coat on the headstock,sand out the orange peel that occurs usually with aeresol,then apply the clear...and you do also need to buff the final coat of clear as well.

how much sanding depends on how well you seal the wood and how well you apply the laquer

i kind of simplified it really...you may find you do need to sand between coats,if you get runs or alot of orange peel

i guess i think of it as simple because,compared to a body,it is

[Alexander]

Gotcha. Thanks a lot!