The modern formulations of lacquer are much less prone to printing/marring/checking/shrinking/yellowing than the stuff that's been used in the past, but it'll still do it. It just takes a lot longer. I don't know that I'd worry about most of it, other than the shrinking. That still happens. As you can see in
this thread where I detail the construction of the L5S in my sig, even a modern finish will turn out great. This is a shot of the lower bout where I had filled several holes for pots and switches that were in places I didn't like them, then finished over them...
I don't have a picture of how it looks now, but if you hold it in the light just right you can see where those holes were now, because the lacquer shrunk. And I mean to tell ya - I thought that body was
perfect before I shot the color/clear coats. 8,921 hours of sanding, filling, base coats, etc. went into making that surface flat.
This is why Warmoth or anybody serious will not ship a finished body until it's sat for a while and got its mind right.
You can avoid some of that by using a catalyzed finish, but it still takes time for it to harden to the point where you can sand/buff on it without ruining it.
Nothing else even comes close. Lacquer is very forgiving for the DIY guy, as you can cure a lotta ills after the fact. Catalyzed finishes are usually a lot less work, but they're very unforgiving. You gotta get it right on the first pass because trying to fix them after the fact can be a cast iron bitch, if you can do it all. Plus, they're hyper-toxic so you need a helluva paint booth to play with them.
Everything else is just kukka. There are shellaces, varnishes and oil-based finishes you can apply that can be made to look very good, but they're a helluva lotta work and they're generally not very durable.
Long story short, stick with the lacquer. Take up yoga or a horny girlfriend to gain the patience you need to wait out the curing process.
