Spraying Shellac

Victory Pete · #1 04-21-2021, 11:48 AM

Time to finish my recent guitar with shellac. I have a 3 lb. cut in a quart container. I will thin with alcohol to a 1 lb. cut when I am ready for spraying. I am using 200 proof 100% pure Ethanol.

Victory Pete · #2 04-21-2021, 02:28 PM

I must have the freshest shellac I have ever used, 8 oz. dissolved in less than 3 hours. It is actually a 2.5 lb. cut. If I add 5.6 oz. of this mixture with an additional 4.4 oz. of alcohol into this 10 oz. jar I will have a sprayable 1 lb. cut.

mirwa · #3 04-21-2021, 06:46 PM

You have done a few posts of late pete with your latest guitar build, are you aware their is a section in the forum for builds, just mentioning in case you were not aware.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...splay.php?f=38

To that end, I am going to ask, from the photos you have supplied to date, I am making an educated assumption, your building from kits are you not. That is your not making your own necks, own neck blocks, making your own bracing etc, if so, are you buying the LMII kits?

Steve

Victory Pete · #4 04-22-2021, 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirwa

You have done a few posts of late pete with your latest guitar build, are you aware their is a section in the forum for builds, just mentioning in case you were not aware.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...splay.php?f=38

To that end, I am going to ask, from the photos you have supplied to date, I am making an educated assumption, your building from kits are you not. That is your not making your own necks, own neck blocks, making your own bracing etc, if so, are you buying the LMII kits?

Steve

These posts I am doing here are more about my methods, someday I can post a guitar there. I started 10 years ago with StewMac kits and the last few guitars have been various parts from LMI and StewMac. This past year I have been able to concentrate more on guitar building than repair due to the Covid situation.

Victory Pete · #5 04-22-2021, 08:51 AM

1 lb. cut ready to go once UPS gets here with my new spray gun. I like the color better now.

https://www.paascheairbrush.com/LXG-...ntity=1&page=1

mirwa · #6 04-22-2021, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Victory Pete

I started 10 years ago with StewMac kits and the last few guitars have been various parts from LMI and StewMac.

I genuinely think guitar kits / pre made parts are great for someone starting out, or someone that dabbles in the field and wishes to make a gift for a friend or family etc.

Steve

Victory Pete · #7 04-22-2021, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirwa

I genuinely think guitar kits / pre made parts are great for someone starting out, or someone that dabbles in the field and wishes to make a gift for a friend or family etc.

Steve

My customers genuinely think the guitars I make are great, none of them have been friend nor family.

mirwa · #8 04-22-2021, 11:17 PM

Not my intention to infer that they are great or not. I beleive LMII and Stewmac make great kits and the end result is definetly something that sounds good

I teach one on acoustic guitar building courses, I also make kits for music stores to run in house assembly courses.

I just wonder what the reaction would be if someone booked me for a one on one course and I pulled out a stewmac guitar kit and I showed them how to assemble it, would that be a custom built guitar.

I guess the question I am eluding too is, at what point is a guitar classified as being a custom built guitar and another simply say an assembled kit guitar, are the two the same?

Steve

Talldad · #9 04-23-2021, 01:22 AM

I guess it depends on the level of configuration you buy into Steve. The kit builder is a nice catch all for getting all the woods and other materials required for each build. I think as soon as you’ve selected a few options for LMII to bend the sides or thickness a board then, yes, you’re right, I think you’ve rendered it to an IKEA project. Albeit a very beautiful IKEA project.

I suspect Pete, after all these builds, is a do it all kind of luthier too.

Victory Pete · #10 04-23-2021, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mirwa

Not my intention to infer that they are great or not. I beleive LMII and Stewmac make great kits and the end result is definetly something that sounds good

I teach one on acoustic guitar building courses, I also make kits for music stores to run in house assembly courses.

I just wonder what the reaction would be if someone booked me for a one on one course and I pulled out a stewmac guitar kit and I showed them how to assemble it, would that be a custom built guitar.

I guess the question I am eluding too is, at what point is a guitar classified as being a custom built guitar and another simply say an assembled kit guitar, are the two the same?

Steve

I used to work at Guild in Westerly. During the Fender era, they would make a certain amount of the guitar and then they would ship it to Corona California to be completed. Do you genuinely have a problem with that?

Victory Pete · #11 04-23-2021, 02:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talldad

I guess it depends on the level of configuration you buy into Steve. The kit builder is a nice catch all for getting all the woods and other materials required for each build. I think as soon as you’ve selected a few options for LMII to bend the sides or thickness a board then, yes, you’re right, I think you’ve rendered it to an IKEA project. Albeit a very beautiful IKEA project.

I suspect Pete, after all these builds, is a do it all kind of luthier too.

That is what is great about LMI, you can get any level of material that you want. This is a fairly new system they have as previously the options were limited. Comparing building a guitar to building easily assembled furniture is a bit of a stretch I would say. I certainly am a "Do It All" Luthier at this point from guitar building to amp repair and a lot in between, I stay fairly busy.

Talldad · #12 04-23-2021, 03:00 AM

The lmii config came as a bit of a surprise, it struck me as a useful tool for remembering everything you would need. We have nothing like that in Europe and unfortunately importing from US is very expensive and time consuming.

mirwa · #13 04-23-2021, 05:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Talldad

I think as soon as you’ve selected a few options for LMII to bend the sides or thickness a board then, yes, you’re right, I think you’ve rendered it to an IKEA project. Albeit a very beautiful IKEA project.

That was what I was trying to get at, nothing to do with petes build, at what point do people feel pre made parts used in a build, make it more a guitar assembly rather than a guitar build, I genuinley do not know what others think, hence my enquiry, here in australia we have laws for descriptions.

It is like the cnc debate, if you are making an electric guitar and you use cnc to make the body, make the neck make the fretboard and all a person does is assemble with some glue and finish sand, is it a hand built guitar? Or machine built guitar.

We had a person local, building electric guitars from chinese diy kits and was calling them custom hand made guitars with his logo. Are they custom hand made guitars or simply assembled guitars by xyz.

Steve

Talldad · #14 04-23-2021, 06:01 AM

It’s a debate without a conclusion I fear.

I’ve used CNC to rough out Gretch style guitars as I don’t have the ability to carve contours evenly. The rest I made myself and they were very time consuming. I want to call them custom hand built guitars but there was that step and I didn’t build the pick ups, saddle, puts, switches or machine heads.

I make photo books guitars for customers, I guess I can be honest if not entirely authentic.

Victory Pete · #15 04-23-2021, 07:29 AM

Almost ready to go.