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When I use the lights sold by UV3 or CureUV to cure the products made by Cardinal (which will not cure in mere sunlight), I cover my whole body and wear a shade 5 welding visor, because you can get a sunburn real fast with those lights. That is probably not necessary when using the lower powered LEDs you all are discussing, but it would be smart to investigate what safety precautions are recommended by the manufacturers of the LEDs before you jump into using them.

I’ve learned to be careful w that one3)


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So far I’ve just been using the sun, but if I get a light bar I will be sure to follow proper procedures.

I asked about the Solarez product earlier and apparently no one has used it. So, I ordered a small bottle ($20, Amazon) and played with it a little today hoping thinking it would work well as a filler. I was pretty amazed. I applied a coat and set in the sun and 5 minutes later sanded back with 320. It sanded great with no loading of the paper.
Below is the picture of the sanding powder. I had a hard time getting a picture showing the pores filled, but it did it. It took 4 coats on a cut off of Amazon rosewood.
I think I'll see if I can't make it pretty like Ed did I'll let you know later.
For reference, I live at 6800 ft with bright clear New Mexico skies (which is neither Mexico nor new). Outside Temp was 43 F.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

My experience with Solarez as well as a few others I’ve talked to that have used it was that it didn’t cure on dark or oily woods…ymmv

Interesting, I did neglect to mention I put a one pound cut of shellac down first. It did seem to cure fine. Which product did you use?
I used "I can't Believe It's Not Lacquer" grain sealer formula.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I don’t recall, it was aeons ago. Long before I knew about shellac…

Just for context, the Cardinal UV cure products, and some from a few other manufacturers, recommend a seal coat before pore filling. The seal coat keeps the oily woods from getting oily gunk in the finish, and keeps uncured UV cure finish products from seeping too deep into the wood where they can't cure. So, I can see products like Solarez needing a seal coat of some sort before you apply it.

Ed—

I’m resurrecting this thread because I ordered some Clean Armor to experiment with (on its way), and I wanted to see if you have any updates regarding your tests. If I can do UV cure with a product I can pad on, I’ll do a little happy dance. I have a good knock down spray setup, but it is a hassle to convert my shop for spraying.

Interesting timing Don, as I’ve just been thinking of having another go at it. I’ve been down the YouTube hole again.

Overall I was unable so far to get a satisfying topcoat, but I thought the porefill was great. I haven’t given up on it, but I just ran out of time to play with it and had to get back to what people actually pay me to do for them. However, new shop means more space to have non order guitars and projects sitting around. I know Nigel Forster tried it as well and gave up on it.

Realistically, no one has ordered a single gloss guitar since I started doing my satin line, so it’s low priority. I also got quite interested in Royal-Lac, which is a very beautiful finish. I know that I’d like to resurrect my actual brand which has basically been dormant since 2008 which is a pretty long time to leave something on the back burner, lol. But, reality is that no one is asking for that brand which makes it quite a bit harder to sell, if you can imagine that.

So, unfortunately I don’t have much time what with being out of work for five months putting the shop together, I gots ta do what I’m paid to.

So if you’d be kind enough to do the heavy lifting and then tell me how you did it, it’d be appreciated…:)

PS, I think the secret weapon will be the electronic film thickness gauge like Brad has. I was putting on finish and trying to measure with calipers the film coat, which obviously isn’t the best way to do things, plus I was sanding by hand whereas I believe an ROS would be the way to go, so…I bet you’ll fare better than I so please post your results! Still intrigued!

Understood, Ed. I actually have a Positector, too; I found a used one at a pretty good price. Brad and I have traded notes about using them to pinpoint ideal thickness. Your prior photos of the finish looked great. I’ll tinker with it and report back.

Ha ha. You said Tinker, lol. (My parent brand)…

If you ever happen to come across a deal on the film meter please let me know, I thirst for the machine as I know it is part of my next advance…

Will do. Just to pinpoint the right one (in case others want to look): it is the Defelsko Positector 200B. It is very important to get the 200B, because the other versions won’t measure the film thickness range we look for. Either the standard or advanced will do the job, but the advanced can measure up to three layers separately, while the standard only measures total film thickness.

I used to scan eBay for these, and they would occasionally have one or two. Here is one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/146015662691?_ ... R6ajyLHUZA

Defelsko Positector 200B sounds exactly like something Zaphod Beeblebrox keeps up his sleeve for sticky situations. I want one.

A video about this product with the maker.

https://youtu.be/MRz1jTDS9_I?si=4R_YxJFroK8p-h9F

Yep, I saw this yesterday. He’s saying a lot of the right things about the products. And shipping was really fast; the finish products I ordered arrived today. I’ll try to carve out some time for experiments.

TBH I see no reason why with a bit of effort it can’t work out. Fingers crossed and good luck!

I ordered some a couple of weeks ago and am about to spray it on a guitar. I’ll let you all know how it turns out. I got it from Avant, which sells the ClearArmor.

I talked to the guy at Clear Armor and it seems like they are all the same people.

I bought the light from them, but any Amazon light in the right spectrum will work. They actually don’t sell the light themselves, they drop ship it.

They claim that this product line was developed specifically for guitars, etc and that Martin and Taylor are testing out the product right now.

I talked on the phone with a reference he gave me of another guitar maker and he said that he had the same issue with a pore filler sinking a bit after he buffed it. He said that he used the Bob Smith five minute epoxy and sprayed the topcoat over it with no issues.

I’m wrapping up on 3 guitars so I’m going to try it out on those. I’m going to try using their porefiller with microballoons on one, I think, and pore fill another one with epoxy.

I’m conditioned from my use of other UV cure products (Cardinal) to take the need for sealing seriously. So, I’ll use the sealer first, then the pore filler, then the top coat. All 800 series. I’m waiting for one of the Clean Armor lights to arrive, but I might experiment with my UVIII lamp, just to see what happens. The Clean Armor folks make it sound like the UVIII lamp is too powerful and will “overcook” the Clean Armor products. Maybe, but I want to see for myself.

Don’t forget our good old pal the sun. Cures in 2 minutes on even overcast days.

As for the pores sinking, I believe that is an issue of letting too much heat build up during buffing. The material expands with the heat, you buff it flat, then the porefill cools, shrinks, and drops in the pores. Can happen with epoxy too, and poly. But tbh I don’t mind the look if it’s not too excessive and it’s a good indicator of a nice thin finish…

I never thought about it like that, but that makes total sense that it would shrink into the pores if you overheat it. I’m thinking that the micro balloons will mitigate that. It shouldn’t expand as much because there’s not as much material to expand. The micro balloons have air in them.

I got way too thick. I finish on my first guitar, so I bought a tool that reads paint thickness on wood. This time I’ll be able to take it down exactly as far as I want.

Yes, I’d very much like a film thickness meter…

Very expensive, but I’m excited about it.

It is yes, but, if it allows you master a thin gloss finish then it’s probably worth the investment.

Regarding heat from buffing:

The Jeff Jewitt course on sanding and buffing (available on Robbie O'Brien's website) has some interesting things to say about the heat that comes from buffing a finish. According to him, it matters a lot whether you are buffing a thermoplastic finish (nitro or shellac) versus a thermosetting finish (urethane, polyester). Clean Armor is definitely a thermosetting finish. Something to consider when experimenting with it.