Official Luthiers Forum!

I love spraying finish, and I've gotten great results when I've done it...but I HATE leveling and buffing finishes. So I'm pretty happy to send mine out. Mike Collins (the Selmer/Archtop Mike Collins) will be doing all my finishes in UV polyester.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

I do my own finishing with nitro and do enjoy it. I don't think I would ever send my
guitars out. I have a small 4 hp/ 20 gal. compressor and two spray guns. I
spray in my garage with plenty of ventilation. It's not that difficult after a little practice.

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Anderson Guitars
Clearwater,Fl. 33755

Exactly my thinking, plus sanding and buffing is not my favorite task in the shop!



Cool JJ...Oh, I can't wait to see it! Yeah, thanks for the kind words about the guts of that guitar, took a LONG time to figure it all out but I believe it will enhance the tone of the guitar. And the missing neck...well I finished that part back here but I'm going to be sending those to Joe as well in the future.

As JJ said, Joe went beyond the call of duty to finish these guitars like he did, I am very appreciative of that, and look forward to sending more work his way.

Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Learn how to do it yourself. It ain't that hard.

True enough, to each his own!

GG

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Gwaltney Guitars

You're right, Paul. It's really quite easy and my first 8 guitars where I used everything from rattle cans to foam brishes and everything in between still look great. In my situation as well as a lot of others, it takes some space in a dust-free environment with all of the safety features in place to do it safely and effiectively. Since I don't have such a setup, I choose to give the work to Joe...and I'm so happy now that I did. I'll still do my own french polished shellac on my personal guitars.

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

I'm not condeming those that outsource their finish work or buy cnc'd parts, not at all. As Greg said "To each his own".

But for a first guitar....

what meant in big nnnnnnooo!!! is just NO on sending it out big time. Like others said each own. For cost not efficent for me. I can buy other stuff needed in shop for cost of finish. I enjoy doing it and don't need to add that cost on to customer. I only do nitro and will cont. down that road for several reasons.

I had been finishing my own guitars (about 23 of them?) using nitro lacquer prior to finding out about Joe White. The last 2 guitars were sent to him for finishing and I am truely amazed at the professional results I got back from him. I HIGHLY recommend him to anyone considering sending their guitars out. Shipping was really inexpensive and fool proof for me. Joe's turn around time is unbelievably fast too.

The cat poly finishes are rock hard, they look miles deep, and they are tough to scratch.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Getting away from Richard's original inquiry a little, but from a business standpoint it is hard to beat the poly finish. Think about the pore filling, a month waiting for lacquer, and the sanding and buffing, or the endless french polish sessions and weigh that time against the week and a half it takes for door to door service at really not that high a price for Joe's finish. If I value my time at a reasonable rate the poly wins out every time by alot, even without an upcharge to the customer. Plus, the customer gets their guitar faster. As Stan said, there are always other reasons too, and I still enjoy french polishing. But from a money standpoint it is hard not to do it.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

A couple of comments - for my Aussie friends - I am not aware that you have pro guitar finishers available to you to outsource to. It may be that doing your own is a necessity for you. If I am wrong here my apologies in advance.

I finished my first 7 guitars and by the 6th my finishes were/are pretty good. But I also exposed myself and my dog to solvents, contaminated my condo with nitrocellulose dust (the same stuff that was used for propellant for the battleship New Jersey.....) and then spent a year an a half being sicker then I had ever been in my life. Is this connected? Who knows but I had never been sick prior....... nor had I ever sprayed nitro prior......

In my way of thinking we spend perhaps well over 100 hours crafting our masterpieces with all that care that we can muster. we purchase bandsaws, thickess sanders, tons of zoot so what is a few hundred dollars to ice our cakes with the best finish available. Nothing is going to make a stronger initial, at a glance, impression of your work then the finish.

It's a real bonus to have guys like Joe available to us and certainly when he will treat us with the same super high level of care and concern that he treats the larger clients who send him numerous guitars. And, with out mentioning names there was a time when outsourcing a finish could take months to get back, results were not satisfactory to the builder, customers waited beyond promised delivery dates, and the builders reputation suffered......

Sure you can struggle with water based finishes and then complain here when it comes off on your arm while you are playing the guitar (this has been posted here before). Or you can go the Home Depot route and wonder several years later why your guitar sounds like a water logged book shelf. If equipped and your neighbors don't sue you you can spray solvent based finishes and vent them into your neighborhood with the $500 explosion proof fan that is also a must to use nitro.

Or you can concentrate on building the best guitar that you can, sand it to 220, stick it in a $6 Uline.com box, ship it to Joe, receive frequent pics that will make you increasingly excited, and then be thrilled with the results and very proud that you went the distance and provided yourself or your customer with the best available finish.

And then there is the issue of economics. Many of us have found that the small price of outsourcing your finishing also frees you up to build and sell more guitars. In fact, if you plot this out on a spread sheet, for those who are capable of a certain quantity of builds per year it is more profitable for you to outsource.

Lastly - what about your customer - do they not deserve the finest workmanship available? Your name goes on your guitars and even if it is a problem for one's ego to not do everything yourself, bumper to bumper, can you honestly say that your finishes are better than a pro who does this every day? Does your customer not deserve or in fact are they not entitled to the very best that you can offer. Sometimes superior products are a marriage of the best of the best and those that recognize this, and many pro builders already do, will be successful and have happier clients.

BTW the current count of OLFers who PMed today me for Joe's number is 6. I am sure that he would love to hear from all of you.

You should carve your own necks, you should finish your own guitars, you should plane not sand your wood, so on and so forth.

It is most certainly good to be proficient in as many skills as possible. Finishing is defiantly a good one to have. However I think you will be surprised how many builders have great finishing skill that out source the finish for varied reasons.

It is fine to have the opinion. Its even good to express that “in your opinion; one should learn to do their own finishes”.

But “We should realize” that blanket statements like "you should” with out the preface of "in your opinion"; comes across as judgmental, demanding and elitist.

Just my opinion!

First, l must say that I am not against outsoursing finishing, it is only reasonable in some cases, but this logic here bugs me a bit.

If we continue the same logic from here, how about set-up then? Can you do it as well as let´s say David Collins who does it professionally every day?
If not, shouldn´t you let David to do it, then?
Parts, should one keep buying cnc parts until one can make them more precise by hand?

What about voicing, maybe Ervin...

Here is my stand on the need to learn to finish in respect to integrity of the product.

Before I make my point I want to say I finish all my nitro, Ktm9 and French polish finishes my self and always have. I built my own necks and bridges and all components long before I ever outsourced any CNC or finish work.

Now to my point.

Finishing skill are a prerequisite; Bull malarkey!!!! I have never known a client to consider or give a rats, as to who did the finish as long as the finish was quality work.

Now if you are outwardly presenting the outsourced finish as having been done in your shop or by you then shame on you. But if you have made the decision to not do your own finish work for any reason, it in no way reflects poorly on your product providing the finish is of a quality standard. If you make the decision to not to want to learn finishing skill, then that is a business decision you have chose to make. The important thing is that the product you provide the client meets and or exceeds all quality expectations.

I guess I am not as bid of a purest as some. I do not find it unreasonable to outsource finishing as long as you are not falsely portraying the fact that you do so. I feel the same way about CNC necks and bridges. Heck for that matter if you had the whole guitar outsourced and did not miss portray the fact that you did so then as a businessman you have done nothing wrong. Even if you put your logo on it. Now if you did so, and portayed it as being hand crafted personally by you would be wrong and sooner or later you will pay the price.

Look at Yairi’s they are hand crafted instruments, and advertized as hand crafted instruments. But not many of them have ever been touched by Kazou Yairi’s hands other than to sign the label. He pays luthiers (sub contractors) build to his specifications under his supervision. This is a controlled form of outsourcing. I can name many other fine hand crafted instrument brands that work on the same model.


Each and every one of us is accomplished in certain skills and less accomplished in others. In regards to product quality, the decision to forgo mastering a specific skill in my eyes does not diminish the talent and skill one has accomplished unless it diminishes the product that one produces.

Just my personal opinion in regards to outsourcing.

OK I all armored up for the arrows I am sure are to come

I did a bit of a how to on the Australian - New Zealand Luthiers Forum for members there. Here is a link to that tutorial for those that are interested.
Spray Finishing a Guitar

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Thanks so much Allen. I wasn't even aware of that forum!

Todd,

Humm <lol> just a little but not in any form of disrespect.

In my mind realisticly to get to the Olsen scenario takes a huge leap from out sourcing finish or CNC’d parts

I do hear what you are trying to say. However if you draw the possibilities out to that point you have passed all boundaries realism.

In as simple terms as I can state; It is my opinion if one does not wish to master the craft of finishing or if they just do not want to mess with finish for health, environmental or any other reason they may have. The fact they do not do the finish should not infer any stigmatism on the craftsmanship of their product or in any way tarnish the craftsmanship of the work they do.

You're right Hesh - there's no-one in Australia, that I am aware of, that provides that service.

So we have to become reliant on building our own skills and I agree with Todd that there are a few finishes that are forgiving enough that someone with no spraying experience can achieve a professional finish if they do a little research and are patient.

The worse case scanario is that you sand back and start again.

I've just started an 8 week night course at the local technical college where I teach, on spray painting technique. Every Tuesday night a get to prepare and spray car panels. under the tutelage of an experienced sprayer and teacher and I've already picked up a heap of new techniques and had some bad habits beaten out of me that will make me more efficient in the workshop.

In the next few weeks I'll be taking some instruments into the spray booth so these guys can have a look at the product we use and suggest some techniques that may be useful for instrument finishing.

I'm sure that there would be some courses available wherever you other blokes live that would be suitable for anyone wanting come edjumacation in this area.

Cheers

Bob

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Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

Actually Bob, Gilets will do finishes for you, or so I understand.

The point I was making is that for a first guitar - that you made yourself, why not learn all the techniques that go into making the bloody thing? Otherwise you're kidding yourself - In my opinion.

I understand that once you become a pro you'll need to spend a bit of time on "economic rationalisation" and maybe out-source components and finishes, that's fair enough - in my opinion.

But somebody who calls themselves a Luthier and can't make a neck/bridge/fretboard/finish is having a lend of themselves - again, in my opinion.

Nobody has to agree with my opinion, but if it makes just one nube stop and think for a minute it'll be worth the flak that I'm sure I'll be copping any minute now...

Don't get me wrong I completely agree that if a new builder is set-up to safely finish their own guitars, or at least learn to do so, it is the way to go.

My hat's off to Bob for even going so far as to get edjucated.... in spraying finishes.

I disagree though that learning to finish with nitro or FP is "easy." It may have been easy for some of you folks and I suspect that some of you also had prior wood finishing experience and/or are just far more talented than I am.

For me it was a struggle, lots of trial and error, frustration and it really sucked time too initially taking me as long to finish my first as it did to build the stinkin thing........ But I got better, bought the proper stuff which BTW is NOT cheap. Consider a spray gun, the finish, various papers, a compressor, a buffing arbor, compound, a motor, and building a stand. My first properly equipped nitro finish cost me over $1,000 since I had none of this stuff and had to purchase it all.......

AND..... an explosion proof fan is a must with nitro and they cost around $500 too..... I never purchased one but ran a huge risk and was stupid for not using one.

Like much of what we discuss here nearly everything is a rehash after a while..... When I joined the OLF several years ago there was a thread on finishing with nitro. Much of it read like this thread. Then along came a veteran builder who had not posted much. He told us that he nearly died from exposure to the solvents in nitro and that it took him years to even start to recover. He still could not breath well and was struggling even to write his post. He went on to say that the improper use of nitro nearly killed him, ended his guitar building career forever, and that if he could succeed in scaring just one of us enough to really tool-up properly and have the greatest respect for the dangers associated with jumping into finishing with out knowing what you are doing he would be a happy man.

This single post made me start exploring outsourcing the very next day. Does anyone remember who this poster was/is?

Doing your own finishing and being good at it is a source of pride though. But then having an additional month to build with each guitar while your finish is being done elsewhere has advantages too. And with the availability of poly finishes I for one believe this finish to be superior to all others for a guitar that will need to take a ding on occasion and survive. Poly is very tough, thin, acoustically transparent and very, very pretty. It is also the finish of choice for Bob Taylor, Rick Turner, and Mario. And when these guys share something with us I for one am all ears.

This thread started with the question being about outsourcing finishing - I agree with Michael that expanding it into the realm of who gets off on using technology for other guitar parts is not relevant.

Outsourcing is not for everyone and I would never make that claim. Those who enjoy finishing and appreciate the results that they are skilled enough to obtain are fortunate. Those of us who have discovered that outsourcing adds real value to our guitars and economies of scale too while providing the customer with superior results are also fortunate.

Having had the opportunity to wander around the spray booths of a number of professional finishers I wish that I could name names here but I can't. But I will say that some of the biggest names in the business outsource and many OLFers do too. I for one am very proud to tell people that I outsource and I sincerely consider doing so, in my case, to be the best value for all.

Excellent point about nitro, Todd. I have done nitro with perfectly acceptable results using 3 methods:
1) Rattle can...slow and tedious but acceptable. The fumes during spraying and outgassing during curing probably took more than a few minutes off of my life expectancy
2) Cheap spray setup from Rockler...more effective than the cans but the same toxicity
3) Have a pro spray in his booth and then I do all of the leveling, wet sanding and buff out. This worked out the best but I still had a lot of out gassing in the house.

And if I wanted nitro, I'd settle on option #3. The fact is, Cat Poly is a much better choice IMO in so many ways and that's why I choose to have Joe do that job. If I were to build more than 5 guitars per year, I would invest in the equipment and space and do it myself...simple as that.

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

Oh and I forgot to mention this: How many times do we see threads started where someone is struggling with pore filling?

When you outsource your finishing the pore filling, a perfect job, is included as well.

When I took my course on spraying lacquer in February, my first few attempts weren't very good. After working with the gun for a couple minutes though, I started to pick up on the speed and rhythm, and I started laying down nice coats.

I don't believe my spraying skills are lacking, but my sanding and buffing skills are. I have a very difficult time sanding curves as well as I can get the tops and backs. This is especially true with the cutaways of electric guitars. Sanding the tops and backs is a piece of cake with my Festool and Festool's Platin "papers."

Spraying isn't the only curve to learn.

For what it is worth, I too have been weighing in on this issue for quite some time...As a start up builder, everything you do is an investment - whether time or money. For me, right now, I have more time than money and am willing to put up with the aggravating results of a learning curve. Joe White ( and Tony Ferguson) are both amazing guys that do GREAT work - but just starting out, it was hard for me to put more money in a finish than I had in a whole guitar. That being said, I have experimented with KTM9 (spray gun), Nitro (spray gun), and finally a 2- part catalyzed poly urethane which I sprayed with a Preval unit. I got decent results on my first attempt with each, but had the best with the cat poly - depsite the less than ideal spray unit situation. All this to say, you can do it with patience and reading and understanding, but it probably will not touch a Joe White or Tony Ferguson finish. I am saving my pennies right now to have one done with Joe....

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www.ziegenfussguitars.com