Acoustic Guitar Construction

Electric foam trainers, and park jets, prop and 70mm EDF -- I am so cheap!!!

Little airplanes:

Scratchbuilt and kit sailplanes; e-power kitbuilt, plansbuilt, scratchbuilt. And a long history of glow powered stuff. Even some c/l stunt.

Jackspt28 wrote:Well moving along slowly, Three coats of brushed on Deft Laquer using Tony's method from the video. Takes a little getting used to you have to lay the finish on and not mess with it, I tend to over work it, by the third coat I got used to it. I will level sand it and then apply 2-3 more coats hopefuly it will be ready for final sanding/polishing at that point. I also forgot to mask/tape off the bridge location on the top. To late now, I will just have to strip it to bare wood to glue the bridge on after I'm done. Picture below:

Umm...I think you are doing it better than I do! The finish looks very smooth in the pics. Is that an illusion or is it really smooth? My coats do not come out that smooth!

Thanks Tony , Not a good picture, its not real smooth, has some ridges. Your looks smoother in the video. I level sanded it tonight looks pretty good at this point. I was thinking about doing the rest of the coats with rattle can Deft clear gloss as I am running out of time .This is a gift for a 30th birthday on April 13th. If I spray the rest of the coats (maybe 6-8 sprayed coats on top of the 3 brushed coats) I would have less leveling to do. I'm guessing it will need two - three weeks drying before finish sanding and polishing. I still have the neck to complete and finish as well. My plan is to get the finish on ASAP and then focus on the neck and fretting etc..Will the mahogany neck need the Zpoxy pore filling as well ? I may go with wipe on poly as mentioned in your video. Thanks for the help, Jack.

It's looking good. Mahogany needs pore filling for a smooth finish and if you're going to spray coats it won't save you much sanding (if any) as the finish will lay in the grooves. I would do a light level sand with 400 or 600 3M open cut to smooth things out and then lay down the spray. Don't get aggressive with the sanding or you can go through, leave those shiny spots and build on top so you have thickness to sand to when doing the final leveling.

Edit: you may want to consider Tru-oil for the neck. Fast and easy. Watch Dave's video and you can use it to pore fill too. I'm finishing a neck today. Two days and a few to dry hard. Comes out smooth and not as sticky feeling as the poly. Like a satin nitro.

Your results with the brushing lacquer look very nice Jack. I used the Deft brushing lacquer on my 2nd build, and had to learn how to lay down the finish (as opposed to the brushing out technique that tends to be used for a varnish). The brush I had the least success with was the most expensive one (a hog bristle) and the one that cost $12 worked much better.
Photos of my KMG builds are in the gallery section.
On the mahogany neck of my 1st guitar I pore-filled with zpoxy and then used a satin wiping poly. It turned out great.

The second guitar neck is curly maple and I used a polymerized tung oil sealer followed by several coats of polymerized tung oil. Again, great results.

I want to reiterate something that Tony said - while your guitar body is drying/curing the lacquer, make sure it isn't touching anything or it will pick up the texture of that (towel, foam pad, etc.). Yes, I learned that the hard way.

Ben Had Thanks for the tips I will watch the tru-oil video. Since I have it pretty flat and level now I am going to spray the remaining coats with the Deft rattle cans. I am more at home with spray equipment or spray cans than I am with a brush. It does work pretty good and was easy to apply once I got the hang of it. I would have sprayed this from the start , but its cold out and I don't spray indoors. I am sure I could spray the deft brushing laquer with a gun if i thinned it some.The rattle cans are easier as there is no gun cleanup after every coat. Once the weather breaks I will do the next guitar with a sprayed finish. Thanks for the help, Jack.