Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello,
I am new here, and am in the latter stages of building my first guitar from scratch, a Hauser classical kit. It has turned into somewhat of a frankenstein, after failing in bending the Monterey Cypress sides by hand, i was successful with a set i cut from locally grown brown maple. The Cypress remains on the back however, which leads me to my first question: Does this wood need to be pore filled? I know my maple does not, but my ebony does, what of the cypress?

Moving on, I am coming to the point at which i need to make a decision on finishing this guitar. I have spent a couple hours reading through the archives, but haven't been able to get a clear cut answer for my situation. Firstly is my work space, like many people on here i'm sure, space is very limited. Also, spray equipment is non-existent. What should i use to finish? Has anyone had any experience with oil finishes? Or should I go the route of Brush-on Lacquer? What is better as a sealer, sanding sealer or this vinyl sealer i've read so much about?

Lastly is the availability of these finishes. I am on the east coast of Canada, and know that shipping some finishing materials cannot be done out of the States. Does anyone have any experience with Canadian suppliers?

Any help that can be offered would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for your time.

Cheers

No need for pore fill unless you see large visible pores which cypress certainly does not have. You can either try French polished shellac or truoil. Oil is probably the easiest. They are as low tech as it gets and not space eaters.

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Build log

Alex is right !
Either will look great!
No pores means less finish time in my expereience also .

I would go with the shellac myself-sets up hard and will not soak into the woods maybe killing a bit of tone like the oil.

Good luck
Mike

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Mike Collins

Mr. Flintstone,

Due to your limited access to materials, space and spray equipment I would definitely go with a hand applied finish. First of all you need to decide what you want the finish to do. How much protection/resistance do you want from the finish? Do you want it to be easily repairable? Once you answer these questions you can then choose a finish. Here are some options in your case; Shellac, oil varnish, wipe on poly, and tru oil.

Happy Finishing Yabba Dabba Do

My option for you would be to wipe on a seal coat of shellac then finish with tru-oil. One variation would be to use the tru-oil on the B&S and neck, but French polish the top.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.