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I have a confession to make. I brush my nitro lacquer. I have been brushing it since my first guitar. I love brushing it so much that I made a video of how I do it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT5JHBkpd1U&feature=youtu.be

I also have been brushing a test piece so I can measure the thickness. Three coats took the thickness from .120" for the raw wood to .123" with three coats of the lacquer.
Honestly, I don't like brushing it, but I have to either brush or use rattle cans. I don't have a booth. I am also finishing a guitar with Deft rattle cans now as well. Funny thing about those Deft "rattle" cans. They don't rattle. Like a Eunuch, they have no balls.
I hope someone finds this useful. I also made a video of the second coat going on by request from a guy I know, but it doesn't look much different than this one aside from the fact that I am applying the lacquer to the sides instead of the back.
Here is that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKJsIf_T-vk&feature=youtu.be

Sorry I can not embed the videos. I am at work and can not access YouTube to grab the embedding code.

The finished product looks like this after much wet sanding and polishing:




Thanks for looking. Questions are welcome.

Tony

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PMoMC

Man, that thing is beautiful.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Looks great Tony

You could start a signature "Eunuch" line, don't think that's taken yet.

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If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

Thanks Chris. I wanted to show that a quality finish can be achieved with brushed on nitro. Not everyone can spray that stuff.
I like the smell, but I hear it kills brain cells and I like the smell but i hear it kills brain cells and I like the smell.....

Al you posted while I was responding to Chris' post.
I attempted to make a Eunuch line of guitars, but they were lacking something....
Went back to dreads.

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PMoMC

Tony,

How soon can you bring it into the house? Or do you leave it in the garage until it is cured?

My goal is to avoid family issues due to the out gassing smell.

Thanks and great video,

John

Thanks John,

The nitro will smell for a few days. How friendly would you like to remain with your family?
If you are worried about the finish getting dust or bugs in it if it remains in the garage, don't. The nitro skins over really quickly so dust wont stick to the finish in under a minute. Bugs might stick if they are tenacious enough for a bit longer.
If you are bringing it inside for other reasons, you will still need a place to hang it up. You can't lay it down for a long while or it will pick up either an imprint of what you left it on, or the actual thing you have left it on! It takes a while to fully dry because the coats do go on thick. I have been thinning my lacquer and it seems to make for a more level coat and it seems to dry a bit faster.

For what it's worth, I don't bring mine into the house until it is time to wet sand. Usually that is a week or more after the last coat has dried. For the guitar I finished with the rattle-less cans, I left it in my garage for two weeks before I took it inside.
Also, my garage is not attached to my house, so the smell does not go into the house at all.
If you are planning to bring it in between coats, don't. It will put off a strong odor resulting in marital tension.
I hope this answers your question!

Tony

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PMoMC

Thanks Tony. That is exactly what I needed to hear. Living in Florida the humidity is an issue and my garage (which is attached to the house) just isn’t the place to keep it for long.

The last think I need while I'm nearing the end on this build is to have the finish smell act as a deterrent of family support for future builds.

Humidity doesn't blush the brush on like it does sprayed lacquer but I wouldn't leave it outside!!

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PMoMC

I've used can sprays and it seems to stay soft for a long ,long time, whats the secret to hardening the lacqure, heat lamp or ultraviolet light or what.

It's called patience. Can sprays often have more thinner or reducers than needed.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Which results? Mine? Nah. Can't be.

I like brushing, but it does result in serious sanding versus spraying.



It helps to scuff the surface once a day during the drying process, and to put a fan blowing gently across the lacquered surface to blow away the evaporating solvents. If there is no air movement, the solvent fumes will sit on the surface and slow the process. Rattle can lacquer takes a while to fully dry as well. However, if you put on heavy coats, regardless of application method, it will take a long time to dry.
After I have on all of my coats, I scuff the surface once or twice a day with a hard sanding block to open the surface and allow the solvents to gas off more easily. However, I have still had a box pick up the texture of the towel it was laying on more than two weeks after the last coat was applied. I am going to try brushing on one coat a day and see how that goes. It will take me a week to the finish on, but once I reach the finishing stage, I don't want to start rushing anyway. A week to apply 7 coats, a week or two to dry, then sand and buff. I hope it works well.

Incidentally, I used semi-gloss lacquer on my first two guitars and I did not have this issue at all and I totally rushed to sand and buff those. On those guitars I applied two coats a day for 5 days. Waited 4 days, then began sanding. I think the higher amount of solids in the semi-gloss finish helped as there were less solvents to gas off. In any event, those came out great and the finish is beautiful to this day.
I just need to add more time to the finishing schedule I think.

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PMoMC

this is good news, as i don't have spray equipment and i'd like to keep it that way. in the video, it looks as if you surely must have had serious drips running down the guitar sides. how do you deal with that? i have that problem when brushing on shellac

No problems with drips on the sides. The lacquer is really viscous. Once you spread it on, it's thin enough of a coat not to drip.

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PMoMC

Hand made, and hand finished! Very nice, Tony! Is that a synthetic bristle brush?

Alex

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..didn't appear too viscous in the vid; i thought it looked quite thin. plus you said you thinned it?
i dunno, all i know is, i could brush on modelling clay and still probably end up with drips down the vertical runs.
nice work

Boars hair Alex. Synthetic bristles melt after a while in the lacquer.

Trust me, once the coat is on and only a few mils thick, it doesn't run to any appreciable degree.

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PMoMC

Beautiful work, Tony.
I brushed Deft on a hammered dulcimer in 2000 and it worked nicely and has held up well. When I was considering that, many people had said that the Deft never dries as hard as other lacquers and that that was an issue. The hammered dulcimer generally doesn't get handled a lot compared to a guitar. I thought the finish was a great option for a lacquer finish without spray options. I would be very comfortable using it again.

What has been your experience with hardness, durability, tone, and all that?

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Chuck Kish

I have found that the lacquer really never dries, it muffles the tone almost completely, similar to stuffing a blanket inside of the guitar. It goes on thick and seems to dry thicker! It is really a nightmare product.


Just kidding! I have found that the Deft brushing lacquer has held up fine. Any finish, applied too heavily, will dampen the sound, and conversely, any finish applied lightly and thin, will not hurt the tone or volume. My first guitar was completed in 2009 and it is holding up just fine. No crazing, chipping, or any other issues. However, the lacquer definitely continues to shrink over time and a few pores that were invisible when I finished the guitar, are now showing. This is not a problem with the lacquer, it was my lack of experience pore filling. I missed pores. Nothing more sinister. My inexperience with finishing notwithstanding, the lacquer is hard and strong. I see no signs of any troubles with it and it gets beat up by me, my kids, and anyone who comes to my house who has an interest in guitars. Maybe I should list what I like and dislike about the Deft?
Pros:
Ease of application--can't beat the simplicity of brushing and no gun to clean up!
clear- goes on clear, dries clear
repairs- Nothing is easier to repair than nitro except maybe French Polish
tone- a thin nitro finish does not color the tone or alter it in a negative way
beauty- nitro brings out a luster in the wood that I like (especially on top of Z-Poxy!)
dries hard

There are other things I like about nitro, but I covered the basics

Things I dislike about nitro:
The smell. It stinks, it kills brain cells and can cause cancer
It takes a lot of sanding to get a glassy surface with brushed lacquer
it takes a while to fully dry. weeks or maybe months due to the thickness of the wet coats when brushing.

I have no other complaints. I am happy to adjust my schedule to accommodate the drying time, but I am not a production shop, so it doesn't hurt me to do so.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Thanks Tony. I've been having a lot of trouble lately with aerosol finish and I still have some time before I can afford a proper spray rig. I think this will be a nice middle ground until I can get a decent setup. Can't wait to try it out!

I don't think this was covered in this post or the video, but how much do you dilute the nitro?

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About 10%, however Deft recommends NOT thinning it, and I may go full strength next time out. Thinning it lets it flow out better though.

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PMoMC