Inlay article

[Paul B]

Just pick up the latest issue of Australian Wood Review. There's a pretty good tutorial on inlaying a fretboard, for those of you interested.

[kiwigeo]

Dang..I nearly picked up a copy of the mag before coming out here to this rig. Hope theyve still got them in stock at the newsagents when I get home.

While I've got you Paul, you recently mentioned using Ubeaut hard shellac to finish a guitar. Could you perhaps give us a brief run down on the procedure and a photo of the finished beast would be nice as well.

Cheers and thanks Martin

[Paul B]

Well I started out french polishing with hard shellac as per the Milburn tutorial. But I didn't seem to be getting anywhere. I seemed to be putting shellac down and then taking it off at the same rate. I tried diluting it 50/50 with lab grade ethanol but that didn't help much. Now that I know hard shellac is a 4lb cut, I probably should have diluted it more, Neil would be the one to talk to there.

As my missus had bought me a compressor for fathers day (on my daughters behalf) I decided to try spraying it. I went to Repco and bought their $39 spray gun (which ain't bad for the money). Poured the hard shellac in without diluting - it seemed to have about the right viscosity to my eye. I used to be an industrial spray painter once apon a time, but some means to actually measure viscosity would have been better. I gave it two coats about a day apart, good thick coats. My thinking was to get it on the guitar then level it by wet sanding with 1200 grit. I'd then get a finish that was about as thick as fp would be.

All in all it turned out to be a reasonable approach, at least I got a result I was happy with. There were witness lines where I'd sanded through the top coat and into the first coat, but these disappeared when I polished with Novus #2 plastic polish. There were also a couple of tiny spots where I'd sand down to wood, but I made these disappear by FP with a 25/75 hard shellac/ethanol mixture.

So it's a pretty forgiving and versatile finish. On my next guitar I'll give it more lighter coats, two thick coats took a good month or so to fully cure. I'll probably find a way to measure viscosity as well just to maximise my chance of success. The stuff would look great right out of the gun if I can get the visosity right and adjust the gun properly. I was a spray painter a long time ago and seem to have lot some skills.

Here's a pic:

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au/attachment.php?attachmentid=35318&d=1164752367

[Paul B]

I think I just hijacked my own thread.

I hate it when that happens:D

[kiwigeo]

Nicely hijacked Paul and thanks for the info. 4lb cut shellac is a bit high for French Polishing. I follow the Milburn procedure (roughly) and I use a 1.5lb cut for the intial pre-fill wash coats, 2lb cut for the bodying sessions (at least 8 sessions) and 1.5lb cut again for glaze coats.

From the pic it looks like your technique worked pretty well.

Cheers Martin

[Malibu]

Not a bad article, thanks for the tip Paul :)
Nice finish on the guitar too!! :D