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:
![[:Y:]](./images/smilies/smiley20.gif "Thumbs Up")
