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As many Canucks may be aware, Wood Essence recently introduced their own line of waterborne instrument finish.
Note I am not affiliated in any way with Wood Essence, just a customer....
The recommended finish schedule is a total of 5-6 coats in two sessions a day apart.
Having sprayed over 20 guitars with EM6000 over the past 5 years, which requires 15 or so coats over 3 sessions a week apart, this seemed promising.
Note I am no finishing expert - I have only sprayed the guitars I have built, and only with EM6000 up to this point.

I have 3 OM projects on the go and decided to give Brite-tone a try.
After testing the schedule on some test sides, it seemed to finish just fine, so I jumped right in.
As I seal with shellac, I decided to forego the sanding sealer for this project.
Here are my first impressions.

Environment:
68 degrees, 46% RH, ventilated spray room.
Equipment:
SATA Mini 3000 HVLP with 1.0mm tip, sprayed at 2bar, minimum fan
Preparation:
Sand to P220
Pore-fill B&S with LMI Micro-beads (on EIR, not necessary with Ziricote)
Sanded back to P220
Sealed with 2 wipe-coats of ultra-blonde 1# cut wax-free shellac
First session:
- 3 coats 4 hours apart
Next day: level sand with P600 3M Fre Cut
- finish was remarkably dry, sandpaper did not load up
- another 3 coats 4 hours apart
Wait one week
Level sand with P600, P800, P1000
Buff with Merzana Pre-Polish, then Intensive Polish
Observations:
- this stuff sprays completely clear - no milky haze whatsoever.
- very light coats required to avoid sagging (see below)
- dries hard - easy to sand - sandpaper does not seem to "load-up" too quickly
- seemed to buff out very nicely
- no witness lines observed during the sanding/buffing process
- drop-fill between sessions seemed to burn in perfectly - blended in perfectly in final sanding.

One Quart of Brite-tone will finish 3 guitars with a bit left over.
Lessons learned:
- first session on 2 guitars sagged. This was either because of too heavy of a coat or too much reducer
- for the rest of the sessions, I cut back the reducer to 5% and sprayed lighter coats - barely wet - no more issues.

Here is a shot of the back of my Ziricote project, which I buffed to completion as the acid test before moving on with the other 2 bodies and necks:

Looks great, might give it a try myself.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Seems like it has potential. That's a lot less coats than some other finishes. The real test will be how it handles human swear over the long haul.

Agreed - one of these is going to a buddy who is a performer and sweats profusely, we shall see soon enough.
I just finished buffing out the whole ziricote body - no issues, no sand-through (although I am pretty careful) no blue haze (!), and nice and shiny.

Couple of questions

Looks great. How does the initial rubout compare to your EM6000 guitars?

How has EM6000 held up for you? Especially necks.

_________________
It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I am getting the same high gloss as the EM6000 - in fact it levels and buffs very similar to the EM6000 that has let sit for 3 weeks.
A few of my guitars I have given to performers (friends - I don't sell my work)
I have not seen any issue with the finish - necks or otherwise - was not aware there was issues with premature neck wear out there... (?)
I recently did a headstock break repair on a LP I did a few years back (that gets a lot of use) and the neck finish was perfect - and the re-spray burned in perfectly - the fix is invisible...

$32 a quart. That's pretty reasonable to do 3 guitars. I see he also has Brite Tone pore filler. That might be worth a try also. Are you going to be able to see the Rosewood guitar a bit down the road Robbie? It would be interesting to keep an eye on it to see if you get any shrink back into the pores. Thanks for all the info my friend.

All The Best,
Danny

Hello Danny, glad to share my observations!
The pore filler was not available when I put in my order - however I really like the contrast of the dark rosewood LMI filler on EIR, and don't get any shrinkback (so far).
I have buffed out one of the EIR bodies, and will do the last one and 3 necks next weekend.
It seemed to buff out easier than the first, but maybe my buffing skills are improving...
So far so good!
Hope the weather is good on the coast - pretty iffy here still....

Cheers!
Rob