Official Luthiers Forum!

I'm taking an informal poll on whether builders (1)prefer to tape off the bridge/fretboard area before applying finish to the top or (2) prefer to remove the finish under the bridge/fretboard area after applying finish.
What do you say?

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

Tape off bridge and fretboard area before finish.

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

In doing it post finish I routed it off, now just do the tape it off method.

With French Polish I don't tape it off and instead scrape away the bridge footprint. With Nitro I tape. If I tape then I make the taped footprint smaller then the bridge so that the build up at the edges of the tape can be removed with scraping. So in any case scraping is involved but taping off saves a bit of time.

Tape....

I still rout/sand/scrape it off. Bolt on extension so that area is not an issue.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I tape the fretboard area and route off the bridge area. Mostly because I don't make any decision about bridge placement until the guitar is finished and assembled.

I usually route after but I’m going to try frisket film on the next guitar that I build.


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I am French polishing with Royal Lac and I use Frisket to mask off the bridge area and the fretboard extension. I route the saddle slot after the bridge is attached. I don't find it particularly difficult to put the bridge in the correct spot before final neck attachment.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have done both ways a bunch of times. I decided to settle on carefully taped. I have had an easier time especially in the corners.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I French polish (ately with Royal-Lac. I tape first.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I still just finish everything, then mark and remove finish under the footprint of the bridge and fingerboard extension. I use a Foredom and StewMac router base for the bulk of it, so it goes pretty fast; then I finesse the edges with hand tools, and sand the bare wood smooth. I've thought about experimenting with masking, but I don't mind what I currently do.

tape the extension but rout off the bridge tape makes getting a good flat and high shine difficult.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

+1 for frisket film.

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George :-)

Is frisket thinner than tape? What is the advantage of using frisket?

Frisket is ~.001″ where blue painters tape (often used). I think blue painters tape is like 5x that?

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"With French Polish I don't tape it off and instead scrape away the bridge footprint." + 1

Seems pretty easy and quick.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

What jfmckenna said.

The varnish I'm using these days is very hard to remove cleanly, and having an area started makes it much easier.

I use frisket for fingerboard extension and scrape the shellac for the bridge

I use frisket, but I mask off an area slightly smaller than the actual footprint of the bridge or fingerboard. Then I take it to the final line by scraping (probably going to try routing one of these days). But the frisket takes care of the bulk of finish removal so I only have minimal material to remove before gluing.

Dave

Here’s a couple approaches I use

One way is to tape off before finish. The pucker factor here comes from not knowing if its in the right place. So if I were to tape off, I would plan to rout the saddle slot after the bridge is glued down.
It is pretty easy to make a sled out of stiff plywood to rout a perfect slot EXACTLY where you want it.

Next: don’t tape it off. Scrape/ sand/ route? The finish off just a hair shy of the footprint of the bridge. Pucker factor here being, what if you screw up or slip and mess up the finish. So work carefully, and stay inside the footprint. Then bevel the edges on the bottom of the bridge so excellent wood to wood gluing surface is maintained across the entire bridge (except the 1/8” or so around the perimeter where you beveled the wood so it didn’t contact the finish.)

Hope this helps someone.
dave

I mount the neck to the body (I generally use bolt on mortise/tenon joints, but it would work the same way with a dovetail), measure for where the bridge goes, drill index holes and mask from there. The final position will only be off by the thickness of the finish. Masking the majority of the bridge footprint makes it easier later on to just take the very edges off by scraping to get a good clean gluing surface.

Dave

I think I’m the loner here. I use paste paint stripper after finishing. Virtually no scraping to do, other than the dried stripper.

The original StewMac VHS tape that came with their kits in the 90’s showed the gel paint stripper technique. I never tried it. Kind of scared me.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Tape:)


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