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Never tried, it mystifies me. Yes, i can buy satin nitro. But do i level sand like gloss? Buff? Why does satin feel like it has a texture? Basically, do I just treat it like a gloss finish?

Thanks!

My understanding is satin finish is an off the gun finish. That’s why there’s some texture. I suppose you could level it and sand up to the sheen you want, but I think it’s supposed to be off the gun.

I have it as a goal to do at some point. I have some UV curable satin poly from Cardinal.

I’m not close.


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You’ll get much better answers soon, but, as I understand it, you shoot a few basecoats of regular nitro, sand and level to perfection, and then spray a single, very thin topcoat of the satin…

Satin is a sincere pleasure to feel when playing a guitar with a satin neck. I have a number of them and the feel is immediately noticeable and the best I have ever felt. It's getting much more common now from Fender to Suhr.

A bonus is that satin finishes are much easier to touch-up and this is where we use the scotchbrite pads them blend in a satin repaired area beautifully.

When I play a guitar with a stain finished neck I only feel infinite smoothness and no texture. When I play a high gloss neck it feels sticky and slow in comparison.

Satin is nitro with an additive. Just seal, fill ,and shoot. You only need 3 to 4 coats no level sanding needed

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John Hall
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That is where a better quality gun and good technique is an advantage, otherwise level sand and then shoot the last coat.
Satin finishes take the "Drama" out of fancy and figured woods. They can look quite nice on plain unfigured woods, but are associated with less expensive instruments (many of which can sound better than their more expensive brethren ) where they are used to reduce the labor costs associated with finishing.
A "faux" satin finish can be made by steel wooling a gloss finish to bring down the gloss and create fine scratches to scatter the light - and if you decide you don't like it, can be buffed back to a nice gloss.
As John mentioned, stearates (metal soaps) are added to the finish as matting agents and make it less scratch resistant. They are also added to sanding sealer to make it sand easier (sanding is scratching) which is why I think sanding sealers affect the clarity of gloss finishes (and don't like them).

Silica is also used as a flatting agent. Stearates float to the top of the can, and silica sinks to the bottom. Stearates are soft ad way, and the small particles float to the top of the finish as it dries. This leaves a microscopically rough surface. Silica sinks to the bottom as the finish dries, so the film ends up with microscopic bumps.

Low-end non-gloss finishes have minimal/no fill and just a couple coats of finish off the gun... older Martin 15-Series guitars are exemplars, although I've seen some recently that appear to have been at least fully filled before topcoats. Higher quality non-gloss finishes get all the prep, fill, toner, and topcoat protection of full gloss (70%-90% reflectance) finishes, and generally have just the last two or three coats done with a matte (<10% reflectance), satin (10%-15% reflectance), eggshell (15%-40% reflectance), or semi-gloss (40%-69% reflectance) level of flatting paste added (NBS values appended... some company's gloss levels are fairly subjective).

Every coat of finish with flatting paste/surfactants added (e.g., matte/flat to semi-gloss) reduces transparency and apparent depth of a clear finish and shifts the color of opaque or translucent base coats toward light gray or milky white.

The final way to get a non-gloss finish is to let a gloss finish dry, then rub out with pumice, rottenstone, and other very fine abrasives or equivalent film or foam-backed abrasives. This gets quite difficult if the neck is already on, and the usual friction of playing and handling will gloss the finish where contact occurs. The difference between lacquer with flatting paste/other surfactants added for gloss control and after-the-fact rubbing out of a gloss finish is that the former will only gloss to a low semi-gloss level with use, while an abraded gloss finish will continue to gloss up closer to a higher semi-gloss or even low-gloss finish with time.

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Looks like something I can do. Thanks!

The J-45 I posted the other day has a satin finish straight off the gun.

As has been said you build a several coats of gloss and level it, then spray a "clean"coat or two of satin and your done. Saves 3 or 4 hours of sanding and buffing.

I've been finishing with satin Minwax nitro rattle cans. Put on a cross coat, let it dry a couple of hours, block sand till the shiny dots appear in a dull surface, repeat. When no more shiny dots show up, block sand for the last time and apply a last cross coat. Done. Nice and thin, nice and level, nice and smooth. Lots of work, lots of recoating, but the results please me no end. Still learning.

I agree with Hesh, the necks feel wonderful.

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Peter Havriluk

So I went to Mohawk site. They offer "flattening paste" to be added to the gloss nitro. Never done this. Can someone advize?

Mike

I've never purchased a satin finish before. I have experimented with using talcum powder mixed in the clear coat, but got best results using corn starch, which was a bit finer grit. All it took was a pinch, and I usually mixed a quart at a time. I was shooting DuPont acrylic lacquer, and I agitated the cup every few passes to keep the flattening agent from settling. Be sure to clean out your cup and gun before using again, or dedicate one cup & gun to shooting flattened finishes if you can afford it. Be aware of overspray - the dust will be significantly higher when shooting a flattened finish.

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Chris, do you do that with solid colors? Would it work with clear coats too?

I've only used it when shooting the final clear coats. As I remember, none of them were opaque colors - the grain showed through.

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I’ve used the equivalent in the Seagraves line without problem. It’s been a long time ago but somewhere I read instructions for the ratio of paste to nitro for a starting point. Can’t remember where. But concept was the more paste, the flatter.

The few times I used flattening paste, I added somewhere around a tablespoon or two to a large pickle jar of lacquer. Like Chris said, the paste only needs to be used in the outer two or three coats. Applied deeper and the flattening effect is visually obscured.

I've never added any sort of flattening paste to normal gloss lacquer, but I've shot plenty of various stages of pre-mixed flat products...that being said obviously the more paste you add the flatter the result. It should only be used on the last one or two coats as the more coats using flattening agents the milkier the "clarity" of finish gets. What's happening with the flattening agent is that when it's on the surface instead of reflecting light the finish diffracts/diffuses it making it look flat. If looked at with a microscope the surface of the finish would look like mountains and valleys as opposed to being smooth. Taking this into account it should be clear that building layers with flattening products would be useless and experience says results in a milky looking finish (which sometimes in certain cases actually looks good and sometimes is required to match another person's work)

Thanks for all the help. I will apply normal gloss, get everything leveled, then shoot 2 or so coats off the gun using a bit of flattening paste modified lacquer.