Help with satin finish on an old Taylor

[pwoster]

Hey, y'all - I am a new member of AGF - looking forward to learning a lot here. I have been playing for more than 50 years. This work thing got in the way, and my playing went by the wayside. Now I am re-training my fingers to go where they should when they should. Even my calluses are gone!

I need some advice. I have a Taylor 410 RW (1981) that I bought new. The music store tried to stiff me with a cheap case that didn't fit, so I went back and they gave me a less cheap hard shell case (not Taylor). I was young and stupid, so I kept it, but never went back to that store. The 410 has a satin finish, and over the years, the glue in the case degraded the finish, and fuzz from the case is embedded in the finish. I saw a YouTube video where the tech used Simichrome (a polish for tarnished metal with very fine abrasive) to buff the finish - I tried that (gently), and it takes the fuzz off, but doesn't restore the shine. I saw a few things on this forum, most notably a suggestion to use Mohawk Perfect Blend 35-40 Satin Sheen. Does anyone have any experience with polishing the finish on a satin finish guitar? If the Mohawk is the answer (recommended by Taylor), how should I apply it? I can live with the dull finish, but the fuzz is too much. Thanks in advance!

[Wade Hampton]

Hi, pwoster, I'm from an old Charleston family, and like all the men of my lineage I went to the Citadel.

That aside, the problem with trying to polish a satin finish to a high gloss is that there usually isn't enough finish material on there to be able to buff it up properly. That guitar is old enough that Taylor would have used nitrocellulose lacquer on it, and it's just a fragile finish, no two ways about it.

The advantage of nitrocellulose, though, is that you can overspray what's on there with more layers of nitro, and then polish it down to the sheen that you want.

But quite honestly, that's a fairly involved process. The nitrocellulose layers have to cure between coats, and in a humid climate like Charleston's that can take quite a bit of time.

Taking the guitar to a professional to have it refinished will cost a LOT of money. It's quite labor-intensive work, and it's easy to screw it up, so you should only give it to a truly experienced repairman.

It will be significantly cheaper to have the one problem spot refinished to match the rest of the finish, though. That's both doable and affordable.

Now, this forum and every other online guitar forum has plenty of folks who have shined up their satin finish guitars and who think the results look great. Because there isn't enough finish material on the guitars to buff out to a high gloss, they can only get them about as shiny as the seat on a worn-out pair of corduroy pants. But they're deeply enthused, nonetheless.

Never mind that the vast majority of them will have buffed out guitars with some sort of polyester satin finish on them, not nitrocellulose, but you'll undoubtedly be encouraged to start buffing away on your 39 year old nitro finished Taylor anyway.

I'd suggest that you resist the temptation. Despite the accolades about the joys of home shine jobs you will read, ALL of the many such guitars that I have personally seen and handled have run from mediocre (at best) to downright wretched. It is extremely easy to blow all the way through the finish to the bare wood below, and it'll be all the easier for you to do so because you'll be dealing with nitrocellulose, not the tougher polyester finishes most of these other guys have buffed up.

Even so, most of them still go all the way through the finish in little spots here and there. Of all of the dozens of these home-shined guitars that I've seen, there were only two where the guys doing the work managed to avoid blowing through the finish.

Two.

Now, if you have your heart set on doing that, there's nothing I can do to dissuade you, especially since you'll probably get at least a dozen posts cheering you on in addition to this one post where I'm telling you something you don't want to hear.

I understand that. But what I would strongly suggest you do before you commit to trying to shine up a guitar that really shouldn't be shined up is that you take the guitar to an experienced professional repair tech with hands-on experience spraying lacquer finishes. A spot repair will be a lot less expensive than a complete refinish, and the guitar will look better than any attempt at buffing it out is likely to make it.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[mirwa]

Satin finish repairs are harder than most people think, scuff sanding is not a satin finish.

Satin finish is an off the gun end product, you cannot do follow up sanding, buffing etc

If you have not completed any refinish work previously then maybe just contract it out or accept it for what it is

Steve

[jpmist]

Originally Posted by pwoster

I saw a few things on this forum, most notably a suggestion to use Mohawk Perfect Blend 35-40 Satin Sheen. Does anyone have any experience with polishing the finish on a satin finish guitar? If the Mohawk is the answer (recommended by Taylor), how should I apply it? I can live with the dull finish, but the fuzz is too much. Thanks in advance!

Hey & welcome to the forum!

Not clear if you want to polish the fuzz out or spray over it? Let me talk you off the ledge if you're considering spraying it yourself - that's a big bag of hurt if you don't have a dust-free booth and tons of patience to perfectly sand down multiple coats. I assume the fuzz won't wipe off with a polish or soapy water?

In your shoes, having a guitar that's 40 years old, I'd consider taking it to a pro or seeing if Taylor would do a finish repair. Yeah, it'll cost ya but you run the risk of devaluing your guitar considerably with a newbie first time repair.

Pics would really help a lot. Upload it to imgur.com and put a link to it in your reply. Best of luck with it!

[mirwa]

Here is a photo of a Taylor that came in with a split top.

The repair shows satin being blended in with satin, this is a spray gun approach not a sanding or scuffing approach