Incomplete Finish

mrae08 · #1 10-18-2021, 04:46 PM

Hey people,

I've got an old acoustic guitar that I built by hand back in high school, its really nicely built looks great but the only problem is that I only applied 6 or 7 layers of spray on lacquer. I want to apply some further protection to stop any moisture from damaging the wood. Would there be some oils I can rub in on top of the current lacquer? I was thinking of using a natural oil of some sort.

Any advice would be great, cheers

Fathand · #2 10-18-2021, 06:53 PM

6 or 7 layers of lacquer should do the job. Nitrocellulose lacquer?

redir · #3 10-20-2021, 08:41 AM

You could put something like tru oil over the top of it but then us lose the repairabilty of Nitro. I would suggest just using nitro if you want to build up the finish.

Is it completely covered in Nitro? Or did you sand through in some spots?

mrae08 · #4 10-21-2021, 05:46 AM

I'm not really sure what lacquer type of lacquer it was, but it was not a glossy finish, it was supposed to be a more matte finish. I suspected it wasn't enough layers because I can still feel the grain of the wood with my fingers. I think I'll look into using tru oil.

I don't have the equipment for anything fancy as I was using the school's facilities when I built this.

Thanks heaps for the advice

Fathand · #5 10-21-2021, 06:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrae08

I'm not really sure what lacquer type of lacquer it was, but it was not a glossy finish, it was supposed to be a more matte finish. I suspected it wasn't enough layers because I can still feel the grain of the wood with my fingers. I think I'll look into using tru oil.

I don't have the equipment for anything fancy as I was using the school's facilities when I built this.

Thanks heaps for the advice

Feeling the grain is likely a result of not using grain filler. It is a popular way to finish modern furniture and sometimes used on guitars. You can buy nitro lacquer in spray bombs such as Watco or Behlen but it takes a lot of coats to fill grain and too many coats can reduce the responsiveness of a guitar.

redir · #6 10-21-2021, 06:54 AM

Tru oil is about the simplest finish to apply to a guitar and it looks great. If you do decide to do that then I would recommend cleaning the surface with naptha to remove years of contaminates on the surface and sanding the current finish with 320 paper to give it some tooth. DONT sand back to wood though. That would make the tru oil top coats look horrible. This is a very light sanding.

phavriluk · #7 10-21-2021, 08:03 AM

OP seems focused on the relationship between lots of layers of finish and smoothness. They're related, but more applications won't help. Block sanding the present finish will be needed to smooth out the finish. Nothing added atop an uneven finish will smooth it out. It hardly matters how much finish is applied, but how much is leveled off.

cyclistbrian · #8 10-23-2021, 01:45 PM

I want to add that this thread will have a incomplete finish if the OP doesn't post pictures of an acoustic guitar he built in high school..

Tell us more!