Official Luthiers Forum!

Yes he does, and I do too...<bg>

My major disaster was in not letting the sealer set up long enough, and it would all de-laminate after about 2 months. Lost nearly a year....


With waterbornes, some would go tacky/soft on the lower bout, under the arm, or perhaps only the neck. No product survived everyone....


With nitro, I went into chemical asthma....

I'm trying this "tie coat' thing right now. Tested a few samples with the tung oil, and it indeed adhered tremendously. Doing an entire guitar in about an hour....

I thought the thin coat of Waterlox between the epoxy and sealer? Does
the sealer still wet the wood over the Waterlox?

Behlen's Rockhard gives a yellowed/aged look---do any of these coats
tint the wood?

No

Waterlox will yellow ever so slightly. The West epoxy is water white and has no tint at all.   I'm trying to eliminate the Waterlox on guitars on which I pore fill with epoxy because that will cut at least a day out of the finish process, and I believe that the epoxy will serve just beautifully as the tie coat. (See the Smith and Co. literature on their super thin rot filling epoxy where they claim that any paint will stick better to epoxy sealed wood...and I believe them) Where I can't epoxy fill...stains, etc., I'll continue to use Waterlox and I'll also use it on fingerboards and bridges where it just looks elegant as can be.   

Bear in mind that two of the most experienced and daring finishers on this forum (Mario and myself, if I do say so...) both regard this all as a movable feast. We reserve the right to try new stuff at the drop of a paint bucket, and what we post here today may be obsolete in our shops next month.   Once you get to a certain point with this stuff, you kind of get a sixth sense of what will work, what won't, and what might be worth experimenting with.   I go for it...doing my experiments on real production instruments. Other than the lies they told me about waterborn finishes, I've not had any major problems that weren't clearly my fault. My finishes keep getting better...and easier to do, and I'm sure Mario is in the same position.

Thanks, Rick. I'm going to give this a try on my next guitar . . . or after
seeing how much materials cost, I may send it to you guys. With my luck,
this will be one of those million dollars per can kind of things.

Gluing the bridge with CA is really attractive, so I'll probably do fill,
seal to wet the wood, waterlox, seal since I know
waterlox under the seal is proven and I hate doing the coat of thinned
epoxy to wet.

Thanks, Rick and Mario, for your responses re: wetting the wood.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

    I agree that the Rosewood sealer from Mcfadden will wet the wood very
consistently and serves as a powerful isolator and adhesion promoter.

    I always give their sealer a full 24 hours to sit before coating over it. I do
lightly scratch it back a little before spraying over it.....not as much because
it's necessary as to just level it a little under my UV topcoats.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]Why on earth go experimenting with something else unless there is a really clear reason to do so?[/QUOTE]



Well, I'm a babe in the woods as far as finishing goes.  So for me
it does help to be able to drive down the road 15 minutes, walk into
the place and talk to the guys who use the stuff.



When you put together the part numbers & such, I will be all over
the McFaddens.  But until then, I'd just be ordering blind. 
I don't even see the rosewood sealer on their site.

OK Rick...I just unearthed an the old 2004 "fullerplast" discussion and
found the part numbers I was looking for (and that probably everyone
else found many moons ago....I'm always the last to find out).



R1704 for McFadden's Rosewood Sealer

R1775 Polyester (with associated cobalt & MEKP catalysts)



Right?

I think the rosewood sealer is R-1704

Correct. Add "T-526" cobalt and "CV-2117" or "1866" hardener(for the sealer). Can't remember which is current, but they'll know.

prepare for sticker shock...

Chemcraft has 1 gallon minimums VS 5 gallons at McFadden's. McFadden's has the track record, but I'm actually preferring the Chemcraft products for many reasons at this point, though I'm on my own, it seems, for R&D.... Still, the basics are the same. If starting from scratch, and in the US, go McFadden's with the proven recipe...

The idea "drive down the road 15 minutes, walk into the place and talk to the guys who use the stuff." is great...if they are guitar makers using the stuff. But I don't get that they are, you say they are cabinet makers, and so frankly they have no idea of how to do a guitar finish. Blowing a few coats of this or that on cabinets or the hood of a car is not the same as finishing guitars. No disrespect, and in fact, good car finishers make great guitar finishers...once they get used to the right paints and to dealing with delicate wood. But to think that the paints and techniques used in a different industry are appropriate for guitars is just not reasonable. It's not the same. Yeah, it's wood...but there the comparison ends.

    I agree with Rick that UV is dangerous and the necessary protection
should be present and correctly used if a hand held light unit is going to
be used to cure the finish.

   As long as the bulb in the curing unit is putting out the proper
bandwidth to create and efficient curing environment, the process is
relatively easy once you've practiced a little and have gotten used to
handling the weight of the unit, moving it at a good rate and maintaining
a consistent distance from the surface as you do.

   I wear a full suit and heavy pigmented rubber gloves when I both spray
and cure. The difference between my spray and cure regimen is in the eye
protection. I wear a full UV mask with an outsde air supply during the
three minutes it takes me to cover and entire guitar body and neck while
i'm in the booth with the light on and hot.

    Surface temperature on the bulb is about 1100 degrees so it's nothing
to treat carelessly. That residual heat is just another aspect of this
method that needs to be given great consideration as curing is performed
since the unit has to be in pretty close proximity to the surface being
cured.

    Moving the unit consistently and making repeated passes to ensure
that all areas are exposed to the full bandwidth of the light for about 20
seconds is essential to getting good results The shroud on the light does
a great job of protecting the operator from residual exposure, but the
surfaces being cured provide sharp reflection and the light can be
extremely dangerous from that reflection if proper safety precautions are
not taken.

    It's much the same as if you are careless with alot of the chemicals
used in most finish shops. Solvents and other chemicals can and will kill
you if you aren't protecting yourself from them. MEKP can take your
eyesight with a fraction of a second's contact, solvents can attack the
cemtral nervous system causing all sorts of disasterous conditions and
any of it can cause cancers and other respiratory disease. Many more
people have died or developed diseases or conditions from exposure to
chemicals than to UV light, but safety needs to be top priority in either
case.

    None of it sounds great to me, but we need to be extremely careful in
any situation where any of it is used. I have a friend who is a well known
builder of elctric guitars who regularly jumps into hid boothe to shoot a
burst or topcoat with no protection and he is developing some serious
conditions that will ultimately keep him from finishing at all and could
cost him his health or life if he continues to.

    The UV curing booths like at Taylor, Ryan and Olson's shops are great
and use a completely different light technology than the handheld units
do. Their lights cure fully from a few feet away and their beam is very
concentrated and narrow whle the handheld units light up the whole
room when they're fired up. My curing booth looks like it one the surface
of the sun when th light unit is turned on in it.

   UV III is a company in CT that both sells and rents UV curing units, but
parts and accesories are very expensive. A good deal on a bulb for a
handheld unit is a tough thing to find since all of the unit sellers are
careful to hide their sources by removing the manufacturer's name and all
specs from the bulbs to protect their market. A pair of fuses blew inside
my unit after just a couple of months and the manufacturer wanted
$40.00 for them. I opted to check with a local well stocked electronics
supplier and got them for $2.00......for a dozen of them!

I'd like to have a booth like Kevin Ryan's built in the future, but the guy
who desgns and builds them seems to have fallen off the face of the
planet. Until i find him, I'll be curing by hand.

    I've pushed the finish and curing process to its limits during R&D
efforts and have actually finished a guitar from bare wood to final buffing
in less than three hours. I used a CA sealer coat on that guitar for time's
sake, but prefer the Rosewood sealer from Macfadden. There's no gassing
time necessary, but I like to give the coats a little time to flow out before
curing. I go directly from curing to sanding in two minutes witht he
exception of the final coat that I give fifteen or twenty minutes to
completely cool before sanding to avoid any shrinking.

    Whatever material, equipment and methods you choose to employ are
going to require their own set of safety measures. Observ them and never
skip them to save a minute. It takes me more time to suit up then it does
to spray when I go into my booth, but it's worth it.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Gallagher

[QUOTE=Kevin Gallagher]    I have a friend who is a well known
builder of elctric guitars who regularly jumps into hid boothe to shoot a
burst or topcoat with no protection and he is developing some serious
conditions that will ultimately keep him from finishing at all and could
cost him his health or life if he continues to. 


Kevin Gallagher/Omega Gallagher[/QUOTE]

 

Kevin, I have also watched experienced and educated auto refinishers walk into the booth and spray fully catalyzed materials wearing no more than the clothes on their back and a smile. Insane! These guys still continue to do the same work, even sanding a whole car with a da sander with no dust collection and NO dust respirator. This brings a very serious point to the surface for some of the fellas that are curious about doing their own spraying. You must protect yourselves! Paints and solvents that become airborne and can be inhaled are dangerous! I remember in the lacquer days, techs would use the excuse that there were no hardeners or catalysts in the lacquer so it wasn't dangerous. We are just beginning to learn how bad the benzene and other components of the solvents are. Take this stuff very seriously. I've been around paints and solvents in the auto industry since '78 and I am healthy today mostly because I took all those warning labels seriously and tried my best to protect myself from them. We need to make sure everyone understands the dangers of spraying this stuff.

   In light of the dangers of finishes and the chemicals involved in their
application and handling, I thought about a few guys who have made
radical changes....and sometimes at the cost of finish quality and
appearance on their guitars to avoid the more dangerous and volatile
materials.

   The typical move has been to a water based finish...which I'm yet to see
good results achieved with. I've looked at guitars from well known
builders who claim that they are getting results with water based
products that are equal in quality to those gotten with lacquers and
polyester and other finishes.

   Even though several of the builders who use it have said repeatedly that
people always ask if it is nitrocellulose lacquer when they see their water
based finishes, I'm yet to see a single instrument that does, in fact, show
those results. Even the best that I've seen are less than stellar and they
are selling for premium prices.

   It has come a long way as far as applicability and workability, but still
falls way short of the quality, appearance and durability of the other finish
materials, in my opinion. KTM-9 is, by far, the best of all of these
finishes, but still exhibits some of the typical characteristics of water
based finishes...like a slight blue tint and a less than lacquerlike gloss.
Neither is nearly as evident as it was even ten years ago, but I can still see
it when a guitar is finished using the material.

   I certainly understand the motives of the builders for making the
change with the dangers that surround the solvent and chemical rich
environment of working with most finishes, but always wonder why they
didn't just pick up the necessary safety gear....and even go a little
overboard with their efforts to be safeguarded rather than throw
themselves into a whole new learning curve that is necessary to become
proficient with a whole finish, it's application and the methods and
materials needed to bring it to the desired gloss level.


Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Joe, I just want to put in my two cents worth of encouragement for you to get into doing polyester finishes for guitar makers, and to become another source of highest quality work in that field. I don't think there'd be any shortage of business for you if you can do work at the level of Addam Stark (and my impression is that he wouldn't mind a bit).

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

[QUOTE=grumpy]prepare for sticker shock...[/QUOTE]



This spring I dropped $75 for a gallon of conversion varnish, a quart
of catalyst, and a gallon of lacquer thinner.  Oh yeah, and a
plastic cup....



Thanks for the McF part numbers!  A 5-gallon minimum might be
pushing it...not that I think it won't work beautifully, but that I'll
end up exceeding the shelf life at my current build rate (glacial).

[QUOTE=Todd Rose]Joe, I just want to put in my two cents worth of encouragement for you to get into doing polyester finishes for guitar makers, and to become another source of highest quality work in that field. I don't think there'd be any shortage of business for you if you can do work at the level of Addam Stark (and my impression is that he wouldn't mind a bit).
[/QUOTE]

Thanks Todd, I am certainly researching and experimenting as we speak. I want to make sure that there is enough demand for the poly finish for me to invest in it. I am very meticulous when it comes to finishing and I have a high regard to detail. To me, guitars are a work of art as well as a musical tool. There is no reason that the finish cannot be equal to the quality,time and attention that all you builders put into your instruments. I will not offer such a service until I am certain that I can duplicate a world class finish that is both durable and tone conscience.

I witnessed the quality, cleanliness and efficacy of Joe's shop when he did cars. Seeing that first hand leads me to believe that his guitar finishing operation will also be state-of-the art and a place where I would feel confident with my guitars.

Go Joe Go!!!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

grumpy wrote:

prepare for sticker shock...

This spring I dropped $75 for a gallon of conversion varnish, a quart
of catalyst, and a gallon of lacquer thinner.  Oh yeah, and a
plastic cup....

Uh, dude, triple that figure just for the sealer's hardener...

<g>

Yeah, but if you compare the solids content and spray with HVLP, the cost per guitar isn't bad.

I remember when SCGC switched over to using HVLP guns. I got a call from Addam Stark who was doing the finishing at that time. He asked, "Rick, is it really possible that we are using 1/3 less lacquer with the new guns?" Yes, it was true and the guns paid for themselves in a very short time.

Wow 4 gages and about to go to 5. what a post

Not only less material used, less material in the booth, floating around, on its way to the fan. The lack of overspray was shocking when I first fired up my new gun.

I've heard some griping from a fella who's painted many a high end car, and he had nothing good to say about HVLP guns. Knowing now, what i've noticed, I'd say his issues were the lack of visible overspray fooled him into thinking he wasn't getting enough flow from his gun and onto the car, so he kept cranking on it until he had too much flow, thus, a big mess.

Two best moves I made were an air dryer, followed by a filter, right in the booth, and a regulator/gauge right at the gun. The difference between the compressor's reading and the reading at the gun is big.
 And the moisture the dryer captures is impressive.... I ruined two sunbursts because of water spots, once. That would have paid for the air dryer right there. It's like a silicone bending blanket; it pays for itself with the first side you -don't- break...


I agree that the cost per instrument, of any finish, is small. But still, the initial sticker shock, is, well, shocking when you're used to $19/gallon for nitro <bg>

    I agree with Grumpy here that a guage and regulator at the gun is a
great idea when you're shooting with HVLP guns. I have a total of eight
SATA HVLP gun and keep six in the booth all of theime and each has its
own regulator at the entrance fitting.

   I run a little lower than some guys like to at 19 PSI at the gun, but like
the feel and flow with my current materials.

Your spray equipment has certain parameters that are recommended for
their best operation, but they can be strayed from pretty broadly as you
get to know the combination of gear and goo (as Fred Dickens used to
say) that you're using.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

Be careful of throwing just any regulator on an HVLP. Gun manufacturers usually make regulators specific to their guns especially with the HVLP's. Those large air fittings and hoses also help to pass more volume. As for dryers, I use a three stage Devilbiss dessicant dryer in the booth. It has a moisture filter/trap, an oil filter/trap and finally a large canister dessicant tank. Keeps the air line nice and clean and dry. As Grumpio stated, a couple tiny dots of moisture can set you back a whole day or so.