Doc

The only place you need to deal with is Certainly Wood. I use them as a supplier for the veneers that I use in furniture making and they have been a 100% spot on supplier for me for the last maybe twenty years. You can tell them what you want and they will find exactly (if it exists) what you need. They guys on the phone know their stock. Another tip: Check out Fine Woodworking magazine. The website is Taunton Press.com It is aimed primarily at furniture guys but has had really good articles on veneering over the years. It's what got me started using a vacuum press way back when.

I'm sorry I was busy. Depends on what you're gonna strip with. Most chemical strippers won't do much more than raise the grain unless you let them sit theer forever. Spread it on let it eat down to the wood and get it off. If you let it soak in a vat overnight it will screw things up. Don't take it to your local furniture dip tank guy. Hand strip it with either a methylene cloride based stripper like Kleen Strip (my favorite) the paste kind, or a citrus based stripper. The latter is less toxic but much slower. When you strip the neck just be careful and wipe anything that runs onto the fretboard off immediately.

I'm sorry I was busy. Depends on what you're gonna strip with. Most chemical strippers won't do much more than raise the grain unless you let them sit theer forever. Spread it on let it eat down to the wood and get it off. If you let it soak in a vat overnight it will screw things up. Don't take it to your local furniture dip tank guy. Hand strip it with either a methylene cloride based stripper like Kleen Strip (my favorite) the paste kind, or a citrus based stripper. The latter is less toxic but much slower. When you strip the neck just be careful and wipe anything that runs onto the fretboard off immediately.

There are a multitude of threads that will get you through this process. Read the tutorial on Re-ranch. Now. Remember that there are so many variables tht there is no hard and fast rule as to how many coats of anything to use. I would not recommend real candyapple metalflake as a starter project. It is the least forgiving of all finishing systems. It still trips me up occasionally and I've been doing this stuff for almost 40 years. See the Re-ranch, use the Re-ranch for a first timer. Every professional started somewhere. Most of this is not rocket science. Most of it is just paying attention to detail, not cutting corners and being patient.

If you mix the finishes faries will come at night, steal your guitar and beat you senseless. Really, it doesn't make a particle of difference unless you need to put one over the other. If they're on different parts it doesn't matter. If you were building a big flat conference table you would want to use the same thing everywhere so that the movement of moisture was equal. On a small area like a guitar neck it is far less important. All finishes still allow moisture movement. Fine Woodworking magazine did a study a few years back and it was amazing to me how much moisture still bleeds through things like lacquer and polyurethane. What brands of stuff do they force you Brits to use? Do they have Deft? (this is a brushing lacquer) How about Minwax or Varathane brands? Over here lacquer and polyurethane are two different critters. Lacquer is thinned with lacquer thinner, dries in fifteen minutes or so and is alcohol and water resistant if not proof. It redissolves evrytime you recoat it. Polyurethane is mineral spirit thinned, dries in 12 to 24 hours and can be beaten with a hammer. It is used a lot for finishing hardwood floors. Each coat dries and the subsequent coats will only bond if you have scuff sanded the last coat.

Your not gonna get much penetration with oil and rosewood, but you don't need much. Oil penetrates wood and just the very top layer reacts with the oxygen in the air and "dries." The stuff will pretty much sit right on the top. Occasionally you will get a reaction between the oil in the rosewood and the finish and it won't dry quickly, but it's really easy to get it back off if that happens. Usually you just have to wait a frustatingly long time and your okay. Do my standard thing for finish and ,ake a test board.

Ther are plenty of contemporary furniture makers who only use oil finishes and get great results. That said you aren't going to get the high build high gloss finish of a modern electric guitar. You will get a much more "wood and finish are one' appearance. It will probably never get that glassy glossy look. I happen to like the look of oil finish, especially on wood with a lot of grain character, like mahogany. The oil also isn't as armor like as lacquer, but is really easy to repair.

The finish iscalled Ktm-9.

You can probably get a water or alcohol based dye in powder form shipped in. You mix it up your self. Stew-mac and Lee valley are good sources. For the finish check and see if you can get one of the water based urethanes in there. I think Luthier's Mercantile is one supplier. LMII.com

That's how auto body guys do it. Shoot the primer. Refill the low spots. Shoot the primer again. Shoot the color.

Be bold. Scan the stuff you like. Blow it up Print it. Trace it onto tracing paper. Get a french curve at an art store to help clean up the lines.Cut it out. Buy stencil material at your local craft shop and have at it. Cooler than what a commercail artist will do for mass consumption, and dirt cheap. I asked one of my redneck friends who is even older than me how he did his flamed Nova when we were in high school. "Made stencils out of manila folders, put rubber cement ont the back and used spray cans." He did a fishscale job on his sisters VW beetle that shaded through the rainbow that same year using the same high tech system. Way cool. He said the paper stencils are easier than the stencil material, but you do have to do the lining with a "dagger striper" brush and that takes a steady hand. There is a gaget that helps cut curves. It's an exacto knife that has a swivel on the head. Art stores sell 'em.

If you're not too fussy get an automotive touch up at an auto parts store. They come in all kinds of coplors that match car paint. Since you have a blue you have a pretty good chance at finding a close match. Some come with a brush in the cap. This is not going to give you an invisible professional repair but with some patience you can get an acceptable repair. If it's a lacquer finish when you have colored in the bare spots take a piece of stiff paper about six inches square. cut a hole a scootch (metric scootch not English) larger than your repair and shoot some clear lacquer over the repair to seal it. This way you don't have to use masking tape. Then you can rub it in with a little rubbing compound. Is that clear? If not post me back. This is actually how most furniture touch up guys do it, they just use blendall powders and an artists brush instead of a touch up bottle.

I know plenty of pros who shoot with both HVLP and conventional guns. I'm one of them. There are pros and cons to both. One good point is that you have less overspray problems on small stuff like guitars than you do on big stuff like conference tables and cars. Score one for conventional. You can get a better quality conventional gun for less money than an HVLP, if you already have a good compressor/regulator/filter. Remember to factor in a good quality water trap filter in the total picture. Compressors build up a lot of water in high humidty situations and nothing is worse than finding the little water filled blisters in a nearly completed finish. Score one for HVLP. The orange peel HVLP problem is usually a combo of shooting too thick a consistency, without enough retarder, at too close a distance.

Guys I have to disagree. Take a look at the pickup cutouts. Anyone who took the time to line out and draw in a detail like that in there is obsessive compulsive beyond belief, and probably under a psychiatrists care. I've now talked to two different finishers who say the same thing. Put a heavy coat of a quick drying finish over a slower dryer and wait. The degree of crack is dependant on the internal adhesivness of the top coat. One of them showed me shots of a mirror frame that he had shot in red and gold that looks almost identical to this guitar. Most finishing companies make a system to do this. Saves a lot of trial and error.

Ryan, Most of the time oil finishes, including oil poly hybrids, have to have unsealed wood to penetrate and work properly. CA or epoxies are going to keep them out of the wood structure and you're not going to get the Sam Maloof James Krenov Tage Frid look. The sealed parts will be glassy and chip off easily. I ran a full time cabinet shop dowm in the Bottom for twenty some years, burned out, went back to graduate school and got a very strange regular job working for the Dept of Corrections.. I still have a shop and lately I've had so many commisions coming at me that I'm back in there 30 or 40 hours a week and I'm booked for the next year or so.. I only build furniture now and won't touch commercial work for anything. I'm over in Northside off of Staples Mill.

The crackling effect is highly variable according to how you put the finishes on. I don't have a lot of experience with the stuff, but a friend of mine does and he says that you can get the effect that you want by varying the thickness of the topcoat. Check with the Campbell folks. They're usually very user friendly.

Find your local M.L.Campbell distributor. They are probably a cabinet shop supplier. They make a crackle finish lacquer. It's a two part system where you shoot a quick dry over a slower dry. Isn't even that expensive.

Here we go again. Feel free to ignore me 'cause I am an opinionated SOB. First using abbreviations can cause all kinds of trouble. Acrylic what? There are acrylic polyurethanes, acrylic lacquers, etc. All of them are incompatible with each other for oh os many reasons. Urethanes thin with mineral spirits or turpentine. Lacquers thin with lacquer thinner. Acetone is good for wipedowns and cleanup and is flammable as all get out. On something as small as a guitar you are better off using the same thing start to finish, Again my opinion only. You can get acrylic lacquer or nitrocellulose lacquer that is tinted to the point that it works like paint. They sell it at auto paint stores,etc. Works great looks great easy to use. Clear coats with clear lacquer like a dream. Coats melt into each other. I'm not sure what people do to guitars these days that they need to armor plate them. Lots of clear coats of just about any finsh let cure properly will protect your instrument. The reason that polyester, which is what a lot of factories use, came into being, and yes I was a pro finisher back then, was it built to a thick glossy finsih in a couple of coats. Quick and dirty and out the door. My advice, use your filler, use your acrylic or nitro lacquer, coat it with clear lacquer, follow the advice on the other threads to rub it out, play your guitar. Polyurethane is for floors and people with little patience.

Here's my 2 cents worth. I haven't used this particular product but I have shot a lot of water based "lacquers" over the lst twenty years or so. They all seem to take about thirty days to fully cure. The curing is more temperature related than anything else. Thinner coats will help some but a warmer environment will help more. I do know that you're dead right about timong on re-coat and intercoat adhesion and curing time. The closer the better. The cost of this stuff really makes me wonder. I read it as aboaut 75.00 a gallon plus shipping? Makes me wonder with the increased dry time why you would use it other than to cut down on your exposure to xylene and toluene, which is a good reason in itself. (I've been exposed to so much of that stuff that it's almost like and essentail part of my diet) I know that all of these are high solids and build faster, but I really wonder about the cost differential. I also worry about repairability. I just touched up the dents, dings and scratches on a twenty five year old refinish of an old Gibson Hummingbird.. Used Deft back then and I was able with little effort to return it to a very respectable appearance. Can't do that with a cross linking product of any kind. Am i being a pain with these questions?

Sounds like you have everything needed for a great finish. First I'd sand it through at least 150, maybe 180. This is Ash which is forgiving to a point. Next I'd take a damp sponge and wipe it all down. This will raise the grain. Take your final grit sandpaper and fold a i/4 sheet into thirds. Lightly sand the whole thing at 45 degrees to the grain. This shears off any of the raised nibs. Sand it back with the grain to get out any scratches that the last step put in. Next I'd pore fill it. You can either use a neutral filler or you can tint it to the same color as you want to finish. Wipe it on, let it flash off (meaning it gets dull but not dry) and wipe it off against the grain so that you don't pull it all off. Let it dry bone dry. Sand it all over with whatever your finest grit was. Make sure you get all of the "glazing" off. It will show if you don't. Stain it with a dye stain. Stew-Mac sells some good oones. So does Lee Valley. They will both raise the grain a little, but the wipe down step above helps minimise this. I am a big fan of Deft. It is a modified nitocellulose lacquer and is easy to get a really beatiful deep finish with this stuff. Thin the first coup;e of coats way down. If you don't want to use Deft get regular nitrocellulose sanding sealer and do the same. Get some 220 Tri-m-ite sandparer,the grey stuff. Fold it up like above and rub our each caot with the grain. Wipe it off with a clean rag. Shoot enogh coats of sealer on until you have a smooth completely covered finish. Switch to your top coat. If your using Deft just keep building and sanding. My rule of thumb is that when I get a coat that looks perfect when wet, I'm about 2 or three coats from being finished because of the rub out. Let your last coat dry. Rub it out with 400, 600, 900, 1200, and 2000 Buff it with a rubbing compund like 3-m Finessit, Maquires, or Presta. Pat yourself on the head and enjoy your new guitar. I'm sure that there are differing opinions on all orf this, but this is a simple direct route and relys on patience and elbow grease. Gun settings and thinner proportions are pretty much experimental. I recommend making a test board about 6x12 to experiment with first. Check the forums here 'cause lots of folks have written a lot of good information.

What have you thinned your auto paint with? I used to go through four or five five gallon cans of the regular spray gun Deft a week, so I have a bit of experience with it. It is really a crap shoot as to how it will react with different finishes. It will usually pull urethanes and other non-lacquer thinner solvent finishes. If they're cured hard as a rock sometimes you get away with it. If you are using a lacquer based paint the best I can tell you is to make a test board. If you can't do this put down four or five dust coats getting just a little heavier with each one until you get to a full wet coat. Cross your fingers and hold your breath. This is a brushing lacquer which means that the solvents evaporate more slowly to give it time to level out. The drawback is that the solvents have more time to do naughty things to whatever they are going over. The test board is the trick.

I don't think that it makes a particle of difference which way you do it. I've seen plenty of people who do it each way and I think that it is just a matter of personal preference. If you use a preslotted preinstalled fingerboard you absolutely know where everything is going to wind up, but you have a little more troubel with chipping. If you use a raw one you have to be careful with your installation. You just have to be careful.

I know I'll get some disagreement, But I think nitrocellulose wins hands down. It goes on faster. The quicker dry time means less dust and bugs. There are fewer issues with intercoat adhesion. I can rub it out faster at the end, and it is repairable if you scratch it. Both stink your shop up. I know poly is harder and the coats build faster, but the above all trump this, IMHO.

I built a blanket chest for a customer a long time ago using Camphor. Still holding up after one false start. You may want to use plastic resin glue. Borden's makes it. It's a two part. One dark purple liquid and a tan powder. Also clean the jointing surfaces with alcohol or acetone before you glue. The oil in camphor can cause glue line failure, like teak. Learned that the hard way. If you get any splinters in you dig 'em out right then. This goes for most of the tropical exotics. Camphor splinters get nasty really fast.

My shop partner (now deceased) was a router junkie. He had about fourty (no kidding) all permanently set up to do one thing each. He had four of these puppies. I have two. Can't beat a Porter Cable router. Used mine this AM to make six tiger maple raised panel doors start to finish in 4 hours. Do yourself a favor and buy the kit with the fixed and plunge bases. You may be able to fine the special that threw in an edge guide too. This is a 1 and 7/8 that will do nearly everything that a guitar maker needs. Stay away from the blue ones that start with a RY. Underpowered junk, IMHO. Also the greenish blue ones that start with an MA. The yellow ones that start with D have switches that go bad a lot. The new ones Milwaukee has come out with are nifty too, but day in a day out I grab the PC's for most stuff.