Official Luthiers Forum!

Good question. Lacquer is highly toxic and extremely flammable. Shellac is basically edible.

_________________
Pat

Rick Turner has posted some very interesting posts about the idea that it is suspected that lacquer finishes will only last a wee 100 years or so and that makes it right about now that we should be seeing some of the earliest instruments that were finished with lacquer starting to have the finish deteriorate.

Regarding the benefits over shellac a nitro finish is a bit tougher and slightly more ding resistant. The most ding resistant finish that I have ever worked with is cat poly - very tough stuff!

It's my understanding that shellac has lower damping properties than lacquer, in other words it's more acoustically transparent. But my understanding of finishes is sketchy to say the least. Is lacquer polyester? I ask because in the Gore/Gilet books, Trevor asserts that polyester, even when well applied in a thin coating, still has very high damping properties compared to shellac. Due to the preciseness of the rest of the book, I'm inclined to believe him.

I have to say, while I understand the desire to subject this finish to extremes, what is really the point? Any customer who subjects an instrument to such extremes is clearly an idiot, and such behaviour would void any and all warranty concerns entirely.

I'm much more interested in how this finish would stand up to day to day usage, particularly in it's handling of people who's sweat is a finish killer, beer/wine/whiskey spillage etc.

Any litmus tests for that other than time?

Ed, Nitrocellulose lacquer is not polyester. Polyester is a family of resins that require a catalyst to cure. Surfboard resin is another example of polyester resin.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Ed I would be inclined to agree with Trevor that shellac is very acoustically transparent but I don't know about the comments about poly. Bob Taylor is a very smart guy and well known for using poly.

My favorite personal guitar is a FPed with shellac L-OO that I made. It weighs 2.9 pounds... and sounds great. It sounds like wood not finish and that's a good thing!

When using any finish, it is important to get it on to as thin a final finish as possible to reduce the impact on the sound.
I once did a guitar with a shellac finish that sounded great... a mahogany dread with a cedar top. It was intended for a friend, and another mutual friend decided to play it before the other friend was to get it. Their pick shredded the top... so I decided to sand it back and spray a tougher finish on it, a waterborne finish. It killed the tone... It still sounded good, but not like the shellac finish. You could hear how it choked the sound.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

In soundclips between some of my gloss guitars and some of my satin, the gloss tops wave files literally looked like they'd been squashed with a compressor. A visually apparent lessening of the dynamic range.

I wouldn't think that Taylor would choose poly for tone. More likely so he can squeeze out a billion guitars a day.

I'm not an expert on finish by any means, but Vijay's video page has quite a bit of material about Royal-Lac.

In the introduction video he says that Royal-Lac has all the great properties of shellac with the durability of polyester. There is a "Proving" video where he subjects it to six hours of heat, water, and vodka. The finish comes out fine. I wonder if it's as durable against knocks dings?

I just overhauled my #2. It got new bindings, purfs, an updated bridge, and . . . Royal-Lac. The original finish was McFadden's nitro. I applied the Royal-Lac using the padding method Robbie O'Brien demonstrates in his video (which can be found on the video page). It was the easiest, most painless finishing process I've tried yet.

I started finishing on Tuesday, leveled and glued the bridge yesterday, and set the guitar up today (I have a lesson on Monday and need something to play!). I'll buff it in a few weeks.

Guys, it sounds so much more lifelike. This is my daily player, so I know the reference sound well. It isn't that it sounds like a different guitar; it sounds like the same guitar with a thin veil removed--a smidge more of this, a smidge more of that. All those smidges have a big effect.

The threads David Wren, Robbie, and Tim have posted on Royal-Lac are what brought it to my attention and gave me the guts to get over the durability concerns and try something new. Very glad I did.

So, what are your conclusions? Both look amazing to me from the pictures. I assume neither have been sanded or polished? If anything, the rattle can seems to have laid down even smoother and more level. It is hard to tell from photos. What do you think? What is your take on the pros/cons of rattle can vs sprayer and padding vs spraying?

I am still testing but so far so good. I did notice that the rattle can spayed very nice! It gave me thinner smoother coats than my spray gun. However, the spray gun also did well. I sprayed full strength because I am in the building stage. This product has 26% solids content which is a bit more than the original Royal Lac recipe. I will thin it when I begin spraying my final coats. I did a couple days of sparaying last week with about 3 coats per day. I will now wait for a couple of weeks before sanding and sparing more coats.

To date, I have sprayed roughly 11 coats, and the last four were with the thinned out version of the 26% mix. The last coats went on more smoothly, and I am tempted to thin it a bit further. I just finished leveling the coats a bit in preparation for two more final coats. I will then wait until the end of April before I start the final leveling and buffing. So far, so good.
I continue to notice how much more clear this finish is compared to the Epifanes varnish which I used prior to this.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Last update for the next 2-3 weeks... along with some interesting information.

I sprayed a series of 4 very thin coats on the guitar body over the course of the day on Saturday, and I feel that there is now sufficient material on there to go to the wetsanding and buff out stage in a few weeks.

My schedule ended up looking something like this:

1. Spray 4 coats of the 26% mix over the course of two days
2. Level sand (dry) after two days with 220 and 340 3M Fre-cut 216u paper.
3. Spray 3 coats of the 26% mix over the course of two more days
4. Lightly level sand using 340 paper, and then lightly using 400 wet sand
5. Spray 4 coats of thinned mixture (thinned 3 or 4:1 with denatured alcohol) over the course of 4 days, one per day.
4. Level sand with combination of 340/600 dry and 400 wet sand.
5. Spray four very thin / dry coats over 8 hours.

I anticipate going through my usual 1000-1500 grit routine of wet sanding then moving to Micro-mesh up through 12000,
then on to buffing with fine and extra fine Menzerna coumpounds.

On another note, I had to spray the front of the headstock due to an issue with the finish, so rather than use the Epifanes on it, I decided to try spraying the Royal Lac on just the front. After many coats like on the body, I decided to try an experiment and lightly sanded the Epifanes on the sides of the headstock and sprayed to over spray the front face and the sides to get a better blend of the finishes. So far, it looks like the adhesion between the two materials is just fine. I guess time will tell...

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Further update:

I decided to sand back the binding areas on the neck because of the color difference between the varnish and the Royal Lac, and ended up sanding the varnish down a good bit and spraying coats of Royal Lac right on top of it. It is sticking very well, but I suppose there's a chance of delamination in the future.
I've finally decided that I really like the thinned version of the 26% cut for spraying, as the results are very much like spraying nitro on something. It's a very smooth finish, not glossy, but it dries to the touch very quickly, and I can re-spray in less than an hour if I need to. I'm very very happy with the surface texture and the build of this product. I intend to use this on another guitar body fairly soon, so should really get the hang of it by the time that one is done.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

So would you advise using the standard 20% royal lac? If I'm not mistaken the 26% is a special order item, and the default Royal Lac is 20%. If you prefer the thinned special order, wouldn't that be just about the standard 20% you can order right off of Vijay's website? Or do you think that thinned you are still spraying thicker than 20%?

Hmmm... good question. I took the 26% mix and thinned it about 25%, roughly, so that would make it pretty darn close to the standard product. I found that it sprayed very nicely like that, very much looks like nitro when it goes on.

If you're going to order it, order the standard product. I will be doing that from now on I think. Maybe. I think I like being able to thin it to the consistency that I like, i.e. having that control over it. That just *might* be a personality quirk...

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

If anyone's interested, I start wet-sanding tonight. I should be able to post some results, and maybe pictures by the end of the weekend.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Please do!

Yes please do.

Do you know what the shelf life is of a jar of Royal-Lac? (Sorry if this has been covered before)

Couple of years.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

So.... done wet-sanding, done buffing out.

If you haven't tried Royal Lac yet, you owe it to yourself to do so...

...pictures later.

Best Finish I have tried thus far.

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Tease.

No, not teasing! My camera battery needs charging...

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

My Seal Lac, and Royal Lac are due to arrive on Monday. Think I will try brushing first, as my spray chops aren't where they were 50 years ago.

What I've learned through this process:

1. Royal Lac is easy to spray.
2. Royal Lac looks gorgeous when buffed out.
3. My photography skills really suck.

The pictures don't do the finish any justice. For a frame of reference, this stuff looks very much like nitro when buffed out. It's that glossy, but deeper. I don't think it is as "warm" as Epifanes varnish, but way more user-friendly, and glossier.

-Don

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Looks great! How is the durability compared to nitro? Nice looking guitar too.