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ill be putting the finish on my first guitar hopefully soon. finishing wood is a whole new thing for me. so is there a breakdown on what should applied first and so on? i dont have any spraying equipment. i would like to use those aerosol sprays from stewmac. the satin finish would be my choice.  should i just get some sealer, pore filler and satin finish? any help would be greatly appreciated. i ve checked around on the site but really could only find issues on french polishing

thanks

jeremy

Couple of resources

http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/FinishOverview.htm

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/

Robbie Obrian also has an excellent DVD. Someone will chime in and provide "how to get it"

Jeremy,

There are as many types of finishing styles and techniques as there are types of guitars. Someone here reccomended that I check out the Robert O'Brien DVD on guitar finishing, and believe me it was worth the money to invest in it. I have learned a TON of good and useful info from this DVD and I highly reccomend it.

You can get it at www.lmii.com or just click  http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=V ideos%2C+DVD%27s%2C+CD%27s&NameProdHeader=Guitar+Finishi ng+w%2FRobert+O%27Brien">   HERE

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Reguards,

Ken H

GRRRRRR... I could use that elusive edit button now....

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Reguards,

Ken H

A couple of questions for you first.

What type of wood will you be finishing?

Where will you be spraying the pieces?

Where will you be leaving it to off gas?

First thing I would suggest is to either get Robbie's DVD or go to your local library and look up the books they have on wood finishing. Bob Flexner's book is excellent as well as Jeff Jewitt's. Both of these guys are finishing masters and they both have a book with everything you will ever need to know about "most" finishing processes. There's nothing in them about some of the newer finished like UV cured polyester. But most everything else is in there. No offense to Robbie, I'm sure his DVD is excellent and very specific to guitar buildings, but the books at the library cost you nothing but time.

If the wood has pours to fill, you can either fill them with colored wood filler, either oil base (easiest to get the color correct) or water based, or you can use a finishing resin epoxy. Most use z-poxy or system 3, both at LMI.

Or you can leave the pours open, the finish will not fill the pours, this is known as an open pour finish. Not many guitars are done this way but you can do it this way.

Than you will want to apply a seal coat, this helps the finish levels adhere to the body a bit better. You can use shellac which is a very good sealer for most lacquer finishes.

Than you've got the initial finish layers. I like to build up 8 or 9 layers, 3 a day with 1 hour between coats. let this sit for about 1 week and than level sand so the finish is nice and level. This will not be so important if you've left the pours open. Once leveled I like to spray another 3 or 4 coats, let this sit for 3 to 4 weeks and than start the final sanding and buffing. You don't have to worry much about buffing if you want a satin finish.

Hope this helps some. Got more specifics, fire away. Lots of talented folks here.

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thanks for the help guys. the wood is sitka spruce top and mahogany sides/back/neck. its a stewmac kit. ill be doing this in my garage. the only place i got. ill def have to check out the dvds and the library for sure.

I'll second the O'Brien DVD. Very helpful to me. I was able to learn his french polishing method from it, but there's a ton a info on most finishes you can think of for guitars.
-j.

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Get the O'Brien CD

I would use ZPoxy pore filler and look at doing either a Behlens Rock Hard Varnish, TruOil or Danish Oil Finish for you first. Less danger than working with the Nitro in a can. These are also all pretty easy to apply and give you great looking finishes.

My 2 cents

Mike

Be carefull, some finishes don't go over epoxy very well. I would make sure that the Truoil or Danish Oil will go over epoxy or try on scrap. I'm not in the know on epoxy (I've not used it to date) so this is just a precausionary warrning, nothing absolute here.

Always try your finishing on scrap before the final product (how many times have we heard that)

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

No problems here with Tru-Oil over the system 3 epoxy. I recently finished a neck with that combination. Came out really nice. Oh, and I scratched the neck while setting the angle. Rubbed a little Tru-Oil on the scratch with my finger - scratch is gone.

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I have not had any problems finishing over ZPoxy resin pore filler on Varnish, TruOil or Danish.

Mike