Official Luthiers Forum!

My first attempt at finishing a guitar met with mixed results. I have 5634 reasons why it didn't turn out exceptional. In picking through them, #2451 needs an answer - I ran through a quart of nitro fairly quickly.

While I know it's "not how much you put on but how much you leave on", how much do you typically go through to get a nice smooth finish? I thought a quart would do me but I still had "orange peel" or pitting that I was scared to sand down any further.

I was happy with my spray pattern - nice even tall oval, no spitting or pulsing. I used a $50 Lowes automotive spray gun and a 10G compressor. My overspray seemed a bit much but, being my first time, I didn't worry about that until I realized the quart was going quickly. I managed to get 12 coats but the last 3-4 were pretty thin.

A lot of verbiage but if people could tell me if a quart should do it, I'll go on to #2452

A quart should do, I'd think. If you've got your spraying technique done. If it's a first time with a given finish, I'd order more, just to be able to shoot test panels, get a feel for the finish, the gun settings, spray distance, all that fun stuff. Sounds like you need to get a bit better aquianted with the gun, play with the airflow/paint feed settings a little, optimize it.

Re: orange peel: maybe the slightest hint of retarder, and more agressive levelling? I level-sand at the end of each day of shooting (3 coats, waterbased, but I've used the same schedule for nitro) if the orange peel is bad, generally I just have to scuff lightly between days, and level sand properly before the final topcoat; give it a smooth surface, topcoat goes on smooth, and voila, ready to wait a month before buffing ;-)

Alan, how much thinner did you use? I hear some folks spray straight out of the can. For me I have to dilute with near 50 percent thinner.

And it does seem to take a bunch of lacquer, what you said is about what I've experienced, close to a quart a guitar. Truth is, you gotta spray 'til you get done.

Good words Dickey: "gotta spray 'til you get done"!

I sprayed straight from the can - Behlen stringed instrument lacquer. Some thinning might have helped with being able to spray more product with less air - probably less overspray that way and more product ending up on the wood.
Even so, it looks good (from a few feet) and sounds GREAT. Can't put it down. Looking forward to my next build...

I get about 3 guitars per US gallon (we up here in the Great WHite North have big gallons - Imperial even !!!).

I shoot about 10 coats, then wet sand with 400 until its FLAT - no shiny spots at all - of course you may have had to drop fill the odd pore during the spraying to get to this point. Then I shoot 4 more, and let cure.

I just did a paduak body, and even without a great pore fill the ten coats let me get it flat, only about a dozen drop fills.

Oh yeah, I am using Mohawk , whcih is the same as Behlens, straight out, 40 PSI with a CH touch up gun from Home Depot - cant get the HVLP to shoot as nice as this one does yet.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I also use Mohawk. Thinned about 40% here in Virginia. 12 coats. For a
complete schedule see my web site article.

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Sylvan
http://www.wellsguitars.com

Wait, spray THEN dropfill?    I've been dropfilling each individual pore, then SPRAYING! No wonder it's taking so long.... . Not really, and a quart gets me thru a guitar no problem, even with my less than perfect filling abilities...it's kinda the way I drywall too I guess, a 5 gal pail of mud on, sand 4 gallons off, repeat. I've been using LMI's nitro, but have just switched to Tony and I expect to have MUCH better results...besides, with a name like "A Taylor" you're sure to build a good guitar! Show us pictures!

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

Larry, I think we went to the same school of 'drywall application'...

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Yeah, "name like Taylor". Why'd they take that name? Now I'm trying to find another name for my guitars since "Taylor" is taken!!

Pics of my first build below. Stock StewMac. Not a single deviation...

Fantastic Alan, this is one Taylor I'd really like to play. (I'm an avid Taylor fan anyway) (Love the Martins too, but I sold all of them at present)

Nice work Alan! I thought about claiming all my guitars were made of recycled bathroom tissue and calling them "Charmin" but that name was taken as well so I just went with "P"...

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http://www.presnallguitars.com

I use Mohawk lacquer these days too, & I'm always shocked at how much finish it takes to do such a small piece of work. Two guitars & two zooks & i needed to buy another gallon to finish up.
My "automotive" gun blasts finish around fairly promiscuously & much of it ends up of the floor... walls... etc etc. I have ordered the detail gun from Stew-Mac & I'm pretty sure the savings in overspray will pay for it quickly!
I use Sylvan's suggested mix of 2 pts lacquer to 1 pt thinners & it seems like a good ratio. No orange peel & you can lay on a good wet coat with no danger of sags. Unthinned, I think orange peel would be hard to avoid.

I have to say I love my HVLP conversion gun (SATA MiniJet 3) because of the reduced overspray. Huge, huge improvement over the cheapie gravity feed gun I had before. Massive.

I pretty much always spray straight out of the can, be it nitro or waterbased.

Yes, the touch-up gun might help me as well in the overspray department. I think I just need more practice of course! Thanks!

I use a Sata K3 HVLP with a 2.5 gal pot, It is a great setup. I has a Sata 2000 HVLP cup gun for washcoat and a Sata Mini Jet for bursts I love these guns also. I'm not sure that I would use a Touch-up gun to do a whole guitar, but if it work for you thats great. The K3 setup is a big investment, with the pot and everything is costs about $1000.00 but if you spray 200 guitar a year it's worth is. For every 15 guitars I spray I am saving 1 gal of nitro, HVLP is the way to go.

If I was doing 200 guits a year, I'd think nothing of investing in a great system. Not to mention a professional booth!
I tried out a friend's Stew-Mac detail (touch up) gun a few weeks ago & I was impressed... nice even 3+ inch fan, plenty of flow for a good wet coat. For 6 or so instruments a year, it's all I need... (for now)

Addam, about how much lacquer do you use per guitar? If specificity is
needed, let's say MacFaddens nitro.Howard Klepper38730.6628240741

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

O.K. I just finished spraying 6 guitars the amount per guitar was very much the same on all of them. So here it is:

1 quart+1 pint or
6 Cups