Thread: Wanted: thin, hardwearing, glossy finish for solidbody guitars

Nitro celluose laquer the coating of choice for guitar makers...
hard, clear, durable and proof of water and moisture....

u need multiple coats like 10-15 with sanding and buffinig bewtween....

check
www.stewmac.com
www.lmii.com

i have some i got for turning form a specialst supplie store in Brisbane, its toxic but great....

cheeeeeers
john

Hi Martin
Your on for a coffee sometime!

John
I regularly drool over the Stewmac catalog. I buy fretwire, tools, some fretboards, some pickups, pickup surrounds etc from them. The problem with their finishing supplies is that they won't/can't ship outside of the US, hence my search for local alternatives. I'm getting nice results with the Mirlac Semi-satin for neck. The Semi-gloss isn't all that speccy... similar to Cabothane satin in the poly's.

I use Miratone nitro laquer on all my guitars.I did have a blushing problen at first but got over this by using one of their thinners which slowed down the drying process slightly. I use a small cheap compressor and an HVLP spray gun and have had good results.After sanding I buff with Stewmac compounds and I get a pretty good finish. Guitar finishing step by step is a great source of information which is available from Stewmac. My biggest problem now is the general unavailability of oil based grain fillers, I don't like the water based types They are just knot filler which are diluted and don't in my opinion any do half as good a job as the oil based ones.

Ian, I have been asking into the question of grain fillers my self and have the same dilema. Either find one or get to & brew one.
Mirotone list a grain filler have you looked into it.
cheers

Hello Soundman,
I am afraid its a water based filler Mirotone sell I was using Wattyl tinted with Stewmac dyes and it worked very well under Nitro full gloss. I think that they may still make it but I can"t seem to find any..

You might try Feast-Watson sanding sealer is great if you're not planning to stain the timber. I've used it on some Tassie blackwood, Fijian mahogany and Queensland maple, all finished with semi-gloss Miralac rattle can spray with good results. I tried using my usual Wattyl gel stain on some Hoop pine that was sealed with the Feast-Watson sanding sealer and it was a blotchy blushy disaster, so I guess oil and water just don't mix! :confused:

Hey Rob, there are some other options out there, but nitro lacquer was always the standard. A lot of guys are talking about this stuff in the link.

http://www.graftedcoatings.com/wood_...tm9.asp?iid=25

I'm pretty sure most of them have sprayed it, but looking at the site just now it says it can be brushed on. Personally I think it would be a good idea to invest in some spray equipment as in general you'll get better results. Apparently this stuff is a water base that's supposed to act more like a lacquer, as in it "melts' into the previous coat to build up a film finish. Don't know if you can get it where you're at.

Hi rockinrob

KTM gets good reviews in the Musical Instrument Makers' Forum too. At the moment I'm using rattlecans of semi-gloss Miralac and it's working well. Not full gloss but easy to use and an acceptable result.

One thing that has come to light recently in my world is resene water bassed polyeurathane clear.
I haven't tried it yet my self but "magic murf" has been giving it a good go for a while & he recons it is very promising. can be brushed...... but when sprayed comes up very nicely.... more laquery than varnishy.... close to no smell and there is no way it is going to pull solvent bassed stains.
could be worth a look, i'll be giving it a go when I have some time.
not sure about resene's southern contact info but aust head office is on the gold coast.
cheers

Was talking with resene last week, they said the paint i was after would take 4-6 weeks to ship from new zealand.

So if you need something they don't have in oz it might pay to inquire.

Attachment 27615

HJ0 Cheers

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Miralac- is it NC in a can? I think spray cans do an alright job, and if you're going to rub out the finish getting a smooth coat from the gun (or aerosol) isn't that big a deal. I've seen some that looked a bit cloudy, but some that didn't. It's just that I'd think doing everything with spray cans would be expensive in the long run, especially if you're doing a couple of guitars a week. And you'd have more control with a spray setup.


BTW- about the oil based pore fillers, have you ever thought of trying a 2 part epoxy? I've always used the oil base stuff (Bartley's), but I think I'm going to thry a product called Z-Poxy soon. I know you can get that product in the UK, so it maybe available where you guys are. If not, I'm sure you'd have something worakable. I'm looking into it because I'm looking more into waterbased finishes -not for guitars, for cabinets (with guitars I'm still partial to NC). But if the Z-poxy works I wouldn't hesitate to use it on guitars, many people love it.

Hi all, new here and stumbled on to this exciting forum through Mr. Google.
I was getting the feelers out looking for a nitro cellulose spray for my latest project, an old SaeHan acoustic/electric guitar.

Fixed the broken neck and head by carefully 'pinning' with dowel and using Selleys 308 Melamine Formaldihyde glue, then staining with Mahogany several times to get a deep mask to hide the repair cracks and so forth.

Attempted to use a spray lacquer I bought at a local Auto Accessories place thinking this would set hard but its more like a polyurethane skin which would no doubt take ages to cure to a hard finish.

Hit it with Wet 'n' Dry 2000 and then my favourite finishing polish to get that 'wet' looking gloss, Carnauba. But alas, once you've used the guitar for a session it smudges badly and you're forever bring out the polishing cloth.

On close inspection with powerful Opti-Visor lens so I can work hands free, can see scratches on the body which are awfully hard to remove with 2000 and no matter how many coats of carnauba I use, it doesn't want to fill in the scratches.

So thinking bugger it, time to look into cleaning the whole guitar, getting the masking tape out and hit it with Nitro Cellulose.

Rang around to no avail, so could anyone from Adelaide please contact me and let me know if I can get a couple of NC spraycans?

Time to attack this baby with the real thing, sick of messing with 'skin' type lacquers that don't have anywhere near the gloss I have on this guitar already, like chalk and cheese in comparison.

The gold plated machine head tuners are sitting waiting to be fitted but won't do it until this sucker glows.

The only "proper" laquer that I know of that comes in a spray tin is made by mirotone, they have branches in most capital cities.
OR
Timbecon in WA have it in their catalogue.

the other option is to get realy dedicated do it in hard white shelac.

cheers

Hi all

Miralac is an aerosol pre-cat nitro semi-gloss ... easy to use. Doesn't shine like a full gloss but it's simple to use and cheap. Retail is around $10 a can including GST. They sell direct at 135 Mooringe Avenue, Camden Park.

If I ever get to the point of spraying more than 4 bodies a week it might be worth getting a proper spray setup, but for what I want I'd spend more time cleaning the gun than actually spraying! ;-) My last few instruments have actually been finished in the semi-satin Miralac and I quite like the finish. Not everything needs to have that PRS "dipped in molten glass" look. If you go into the MIMF library and look for some of Ellie Erickson's work I think she's right on the money.

Wasn't it Bob Taylor who made the comment about how someone discovered that by spraying the guitar, sanding it back, spraying some more, sanding some more, etc... eventually the guitar would be really really shiny. He said we need to find that person and shoot them.