Grrrrrrrrr... Bad finish on my guitar...

[Allan]

I am soooooo hacked off! I have built a lap steel. All of the wood is done. The metal work is all polished brass and gold tone. I have a really nice humbucker for it and I have made it in such a way that it is the work of moments to swap out the pickup for a P90 single coil.
Why am I hacked off then? It's the weather! I went to give it a rub down with flour paper before polishing and final assembly today and it looks like it was either a little cold or the humidity was up a little when I sprayed it coz the finish had sort of powdered up under the skin of the paint and it just sanded right through to the undercoat in one spot. With FLOUR paper!!! The undercoat and top coat are from the same manufacturer and it was perfectly clean when it was sprayed. I have seen the same thing happen once when I painted an outside door then had it rained on. It is almost a month since I sprayed it too - I wanted it to have loads of time to cure.
So, now I am going to re-build my spray booth over the next day or two and see if I can get it to warm up enough to re-do the damn thing. I will try to do just the damaged areas I think. The rest of it looks ready for buffing. but I don't want to touch it with polish until all of the painting is done.
Oh well, I guess if it was easy they would have women doing it. (DON'T TELL MY WIFE I SAID THAT!)

Allan.....

[Allan]

Well, I have given up on this one for now. It is NOT going to get warm enough for spraying for a while by all accounts. The body is now lying in the basement where it can stay till the warm weather comes back.

I have just realized how that last sentence could be taken if it was quoted out of context!

I bought a new chunk of wood and I am going to build a new body which will NEVER see paint. I have been experimenting with furniture finishing wax applied with an electric polisher thing that I had forgotten that I had. The results are very pleasing. The wax goes on quite thinly with muslin and is then left to dry. That is taking about 25 mins in the cold weather. Then, it is buffed with a buffing wheel first then with the random orbit polishing thing.

I started to cut out the routing template today. The rough cutting (band saw) part is done and I will get the rest done and smoothed as soon as I can then on to the real thing.

I think I will spend a bit of time sealing and sanding and sealing and sanding and sealing and... before I apply the wax too.

I am disappointed not to get the other one finished but it will come to life eventually and this new thing is looking interesting at the CAD stage anyhow.

Regards, Allan.....

[Allan]

I am resurrecting this old post. Something happened today that I simply can't explain. Comments from the finishing gurus would be very welcome. I decided to get the guitar body mentioned above out of the basement and have a look at it - possibly even have another go at doing something with it.
I didn't believe what I was seeing by the poor light down stairs so I brought it up to the day light. All of the nasty looking powdery bits have gone and even the part that I had rubbed through with the flower paper has 'healed' over. It needs a good bit of polishing/rubbing down but the darn thing looks GOOD! Seriously, it looked like it was going to be a strip and re-finish job at one time and now, it looks almost ready to go.
It has been lying down there for four and a half months. Time heals all wounds? I am going outside now to hit it with the 1200 grit. I am keen to see what happens.

Allan.....

[azureskys]

hi Allen , did you seal that guitar with a good wood sealer then sand ?What kind of material did you use for your finish coat?
a good polyurethene will do wonders for a wood bodied guitar it can look just as good as it does on a shiny car .Id sand it all down and start over from the getgo.then use a good poly with some hardner in it 3 or 4 coats and a final sanding with something like 600 wet dry paper then buff that thing to a high sheen , it ll be tough as nails , just something you might consider . Russ

[Allan]

I have decided to do nothing with it except polish the crap out of the bugger. I built it in the first place from (s)crap wood as an experiment. I have a new bridge design that I wanted to try out. Then the cold weather came and I have almost no heating in the shop. The finish went bad because I tried to do it in weather that was really way too cold. I chucked it into the basement and then re-found it. Most of the problems have just gone away since it was down there. I am guessing that the paint has had time to cure and harden or something. (it is finished with automotive aerosol cans)
Since my previous post I have taken it back out to the wood shop and lightly sanded it and it came up really well. So, I slathered on the finishing wax (only on the front so far) and gave it the electric buffer treatment. Holy bat crap! All things considered it is looking mighty fine. Tomorrow I will give the rest of it a quick going over and then screw on the various bits and bobs. I am not really prepared to strip this one and start over since it is a test piece for the bridge design and may not sound any good after assembly. This will never be my show piece but I am amazed and happy with what has come out of some stuff that may otherwise have been throw out material.
Russ, I have only recently started to make use of poly lacquer. Dunno what I had against it before but now, I like it a lot. It is so easy to apply too. I have never tried using hardener though. Do you just mix it in and apply as normal? I do use a sealer with the poly. I sometimes seal and sand as many as four times and I can get a glass finish with that method. (I am building some clock cases right now and that is where I am using the poly)
Thanks for your suggestions, much appreciated.

Regards, Allan.....

[Allan]

I am not really prepared to strip this one and start over since it is a test piece for the bridge design and may not sound any good after assembly.

Well now, This thing is still not really a looker but But BUT BUT the bridge design seems to be a serious success. This machine has more sustain than anything I have ever heard. I am more pleased with that aspect of the build than I can tell you.
So, now some of you want to know about the bridge. OK, briefly, the bridge is not sitting on the front of the guitar as normal. It is hanging from the front of the guitar. The part that the strings go over projects through a slot in the front. I am thinking of it as a 'suspension' bridge. It is attached to the 'back of the front' using threaded brass inserts in the wood.
It will be easier to understand if I post one or two pics and possibly a sketch also. I will try to do that later today but I was so pleased, when I finally connected it to the amp, that I couldn't wait to post something here.
More later...

Allan.....

[Allan]

Here are a couple of pics of this evil creature. The pickup mounting is huge because I had intended it to be a test bed for various pickup configurations. The pics don't really show the bridge mounting but I will get a pic from underneath and make a drawing to explain how it all goes together just as soon as I have time.

red steel.jpg (23.15 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

bridge detail.jpg (13.23 KiB) Viewed 1839 times

[Allan]

Here's how it works...

susbridge.jpg (66.55 KiB) Viewed 1822 times

[Steelweaver]

Allan can we see a pic of the back. I sort of see how you are doing the bridge. It looks like a mount from the back . nice looking and I like the body shape!!