Applause refinish
 

I'm refinishing my ovation applaus, deep bowl. went down to the wood as the cracks were severe. The top is warped a bit from being in a flood many years ago. As I'm adding white vinyl sealer on top, im getting cracking with even the lightest coats. I'm doing a solid color. would a layer of poly underneath be better than all lacquer?

I had one of those guitars before. It was the original with the aluminum fretboard. How did you get rid of the original finish? I remember it being pretty thick, almost like a polyurethane wrap.

yeah, it was thick, power sander. had to use a dremel on the edges.

original after i removed the pickguard, which was attached to the rosette as well.
https://www.phototiming.com/dl/ap1.jpg

bare wood. its not high quality. Doing a metallic blue on it.
https://www.phototiming.com/dl/ap3.jpg

Is that top laminated? Looks like you sanded the "cracks" away.

You sanded the top below the binding. What material will you use to fill the depressions you sanded into the top before you apply the finish?

stewmac grain filler is topping off the rough spots. white vinyl sealer on top of that, then metallic blue. have to drop fill some of the nasty spots still. more pics soon. The warped nature of it means it'll never be perfectly level, just going for smooth.

looking ok so far, better than i imagined with the damage it had. Found out I missed masking an area of my bowl so now i have to get thinner and wipe it down.
https://www.phototiming.com/dl/ap10.jpg

Looks nice!

Before you invest any more time, maybe you should string it up for a week and see how the top holds, to me from the photos, i think that top is now a throw away

Steve

the whole guitar is already a throw-away. With the cast aluminum neck and worn frets, the action is getting bad. It also had a hole poked in the back of the shell which i repaired with epoxy. If it falls apart like the blues brothers cop car after i'm done, so be it. :D

Around here, we call those “Art guitars”.
Good for hanging on a wall, but not much else.

also, if it can't hold strings, i want the layers of lacquer to strengthen that area by hardening so it'll be a while before i test it.

looks 10x better now but no pics yet, 1 more super light blue layer as i've put the rosette down and want the edges to have the blue on it, then many light layers of clear. no cracking yet. waiting 72 hours between coats.