Acoustic Guitar Construction

All...

I'm thinking of making the jump to spray finishing. What products do you guys recommend (nitro vs. waterbased, etc...), and which spray setups seem to work best? Any experience out there with the Earlex systems?

Thanks!

Tons of good information in this "finishing" section under each finish type topic heading, including products, schedules, equipment and videos -- might be worth it to take some time to review.

In my view the most important consideration regarding a compressor based spray method is "where are you going to set it up" and then there is the equipment clean up which must be done correctly (it can be time consuming) -- for a small project like a guitar, even though I have spray equipment and have had formal training, I am rattle cans all the way. In the big picture its a matter of getting coating on the object -- then no matter how its applied it has to be leveled and polished.

I used the Earlex 5500 spray station, a self contained hvlp system when I had no room for an adequate compressor. I found that it worked really well, as it should at its price ( although it is at the high end of the low-end systems). I used it with multiple types of WB (KTM_SV, EM6000, EM7000) and found that it did a nice job of putting down the finish. What is missing in this setup from most compressor spray guns is the ability to control the size of the spray pattern. It has one control that allows one to set the amount of finish applied. You can buy different needles and I have sprayed everything from shellac to paint with it.

When I sprayed nitro I used rattle cans with great results, but almost the end of a 35 year marriage, the nitro really needs to be ventilated away from where people are.