Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello all, I've browsed this forum a few times. I decided to register today, and ask a few questions.

We build custom guitar amplifiers, and have finished some of our cabs similarly to those that you would see on guitars. In the past, we have used many different finish types to acheive the look. We have used: Nitro, Precats, polyurethane, post cats, and conversion varnishes. all have merits, but I am looking to move away from solvent based stuff.
I am curious about KTM-9 that so many of you seem to be using. I am thinking that it might be suitable for use on our cabs. I have spoke to Matt at grafted coatings and he feels confident that the coating could work for us.

I'm curious about how you all feel about sealers with this product. It says that it is self-sealing, so I'm wonding if I would see much of a benefit to sealing. Grafted coatings says that they offer a good sealer for use under KTM9, but I noticed that many of you are using epoxy. How do you think that no-seal, epoxy, or KTM sealer methods would compare to one another?

We use a lot of pine and poplar, pore filling isn't really an issue. I do want to maximize print resistance however. Heavy cabs and hot weather can leave marks on an otherwise wonderful finish. We have had it happen before with nitro and a very rubbery precat.

Thanks very much for reading, you have a wonderful forum here.

Josh

Josh
Most of us use a sealer to pop and fill the grain of the wood we use. In your case I would at least think about using a shellac sealer or something. Although some have complained about adhesion problems with shellac I have not experienced this but I also use a waterbased shellac from Target Coatings.

Welcome to the forum, I also build tube style amplifiers for my electric guitars and also last year built a 2A3 based sterio amp for my shop driving a pair of refined VOT cabs.

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How bout designing and building an ultra clean and high fidelity tube style acoustic guitar amp, say 30 to 60 watts.John How38488.5783217593

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

For the simplist method to pore fill and seal if you want the dead smooth look as on back and sides of a high gloss guitar is to use epoxy finishing resin. I use Zpoxy. It really pops the wood grain. There has been a bunch posted on the use of this product here just search Zpoxy and you will find a bunch. I use KTM9 and love it.

Thanks for the responses. I went ahead and ordered some System III with my KTM-9. Never used epoxy as a sealer, but I'm sure I will get the hang of it. There is a lot of good info here in the archives.

We custom build amps, so we can do anything. We have designed for acoustic and bass too. A clean preamp running into a pair of KT88s are pretty nice for a wide sound, though 6l6s are warmer. We do custom cabs too, and have our speakers custom built by Weber

Josh