I'm (hopefully) pretty much through with my first finishing project. The guitar is a cheap foreign job that I bought to get some experience. It's an alder body which I've had to do a fair amount of work to. In any event, my latest exercise has been to finish the guitar. I decide to stain the guitar orange and ran into some issues as described in the following post:
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=21933.0
After sanding back and restraining, I was pretty happy with the result so I started the clear coat process. With no good place to spray a finish and with no experience, I opted to use the wipe on clear coat process outlined by Rob DiStefano at the following location:
http://www.frettech.com/info.html
Before going any further, I should point out that all I'm doing is documenting what I've done. I am not recommending anyone follow what I did. I think it worked reasonably well given I have never done this before, but given that this is the first finish I've ever put on anything, I doubt that anything I might suggest is to be taken seriously.
Also, I should note that I used Watco wipe on poly and not Minwax. The only reason for not using Minwax was that I bought the poly at WoodCraft which I suspect doesn't carry Minwax and thus, directed me to the Watco product.
I started by taking a rattle can of Minwax spray poly and applied three light coats. Since all my previous rattle can spray painting results were really bad, I was really worried this would be awful. It actually worked out fine. No runs and good coverage.
I then started Rob's approach of buffing down with 000 steel wool, then buff with a paper towel and then wipe on a thin coat of poly using an old T-shirt. I quickly stopped using the steel wool (which required running a magnet over the body to remove the fibers) and opted to use a Scotch Brite pad. I also was frustrated by the amount of lint that the T-shirt left after wiping on the poly. I tried buying some paint rags from Home Depot which ended up being just cut up T-shirts which were probably not old and as a result ended up with more lint. Next, I tried a micro fiber staining rag that I got a WoodCraft. That was even worse.
My better half suggested I use her foam cosmetic pads. I figured it was worth a try and ended up kind of liking them. There was no lint at all, so that was good. I think these are kind of frowned on because they can leave bubbles, but the ones I used had fairly dense foam and I found that I only really had bubble issues if I wasn't careful. Specifically, picking up the pad in the middle of the body would sometimes cause bubbles. I would rub the poly all the way to the edges in smooth strokes and kept the coats thin and really only got a very few bubbles through 20+ coats. Of course, the bubbles are easy to deal with if you see them before they dry.
With a 3 to 4 hour dry time between coats, I was only able to apply two coats a night and three or four on Saturday and Sunday. When I started, I poured a fair amount of poly into a plastic container. The first few coast went on fairly well but after a couple of days, I started having trouble. In short, the poly was drying out in a matter of about a minute (this is in 100 degree weather). It was difficult to get a coat on the top, inspect it and have any chance of fixing any issues before the poly became to dry to work with. So, after about three days, I poured a lesser amount into another container and added mineral spirits (about half and half). This improved the process tremendously. I tried to only pour about as much as I would use in three days into my plastic containers. Anymore, and the poly would start to get hard to work with.
Despite my best efforts, I did end up with problem areas. For the most part these were just places where I wasn't careful. The biggest issue was around any edges. After some experience with making sure that I wiped the pad from the center and then off the edge, I really didn't have too many problems, but it's hard to spot a missed spot that may have some excess poly on it and didn't get properly wiped (even though I have pretty good eye site). The buffing with the Scotch Brite pad helped with some of the early mistakes I made, but it didn't get rid of all my problems. Maybe I wasn't aggressive enough with the buffing, but after about the 6th coat, I tried to fix an issue and buffed right through the clear coat causing a small area of stain to lighten up. After that I backed off the buffing.
All in all, the process worked pretty well. It is now "gassing off" and I'll soon be moving on to the next step. I bought some wet sand paper and will probably try doing a light (1000 grit) sanding job before polishing. Despite the fact that I have 33 coats on the body (11 on the neck), the clear coat looks really thin, but I feel that there's got to be enough on there to support a light sanding. I actually don't think Rob's process is suppose to require the clear coat to be sanded, but I'd like to fix a couple of the problem areas.
http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=21933.0
After sanding back and restraining, I was pretty happy with the result so I started the clear coat process. With no good place to spray a finish and with no experience, I opted to use the wipe on clear coat process outlined by Rob DiStefano at the following location:
http://www.frettech.com/info.html
Before going any further, I should point out that all I'm doing is documenting what I've done. I am not recommending anyone follow what I did. I think it worked reasonably well given I have never done this before, but given that this is the first finish I've ever put on anything, I doubt that anything I might suggest is to be taken seriously.
Also, I should note that I used Watco wipe on poly and not Minwax. The only reason for not using Minwax was that I bought the poly at WoodCraft which I suspect doesn't carry Minwax and thus, directed me to the Watco product.
I started by taking a rattle can of Minwax spray poly and applied three light coats. Since all my previous rattle can spray painting results were really bad, I was really worried this would be awful. It actually worked out fine. No runs and good coverage.
I then started Rob's approach of buffing down with 000 steel wool, then buff with a paper towel and then wipe on a thin coat of poly using an old T-shirt. I quickly stopped using the steel wool (which required running a magnet over the body to remove the fibers) and opted to use a Scotch Brite pad. I also was frustrated by the amount of lint that the T-shirt left after wiping on the poly. I tried buying some paint rags from Home Depot which ended up being just cut up T-shirts which were probably not old and as a result ended up with more lint. Next, I tried a micro fiber staining rag that I got a WoodCraft. That was even worse.
My better half suggested I use her foam cosmetic pads. I figured it was worth a try and ended up kind of liking them. There was no lint at all, so that was good. I think these are kind of frowned on because they can leave bubbles, but the ones I used had fairly dense foam and I found that I only really had bubble issues if I wasn't careful. Specifically, picking up the pad in the middle of the body would sometimes cause bubbles. I would rub the poly all the way to the edges in smooth strokes and kept the coats thin and really only got a very few bubbles through 20+ coats. Of course, the bubbles are easy to deal with if you see them before they dry.
With a 3 to 4 hour dry time between coats, I was only able to apply two coats a night and three or four on Saturday and Sunday. When I started, I poured a fair amount of poly into a plastic container. The first few coast went on fairly well but after a couple of days, I started having trouble. In short, the poly was drying out in a matter of about a minute (this is in 100 degree weather). It was difficult to get a coat on the top, inspect it and have any chance of fixing any issues before the poly became to dry to work with. So, after about three days, I poured a lesser amount into another container and added mineral spirits (about half and half). This improved the process tremendously. I tried to only pour about as much as I would use in three days into my plastic containers. Anymore, and the poly would start to get hard to work with.
Despite my best efforts, I did end up with problem areas. For the most part these were just places where I wasn't careful. The biggest issue was around any edges. After some experience with making sure that I wiped the pad from the center and then off the edge, I really didn't have too many problems, but it's hard to spot a missed spot that may have some excess poly on it and didn't get properly wiped (even though I have pretty good eye site). The buffing with the Scotch Brite pad helped with some of the early mistakes I made, but it didn't get rid of all my problems. Maybe I wasn't aggressive enough with the buffing, but after about the 6th coat, I tried to fix an issue and buffed right through the clear coat causing a small area of stain to lighten up. After that I backed off the buffing.
All in all, the process worked pretty well. It is now "gassing off" and I'll soon be moving on to the next step. I bought some wet sand paper and will probably try doing a light (1000 grit) sanding job before polishing. Despite the fact that I have 33 coats on the body (11 on the neck), the clear coat looks really thin, but I feel that there's got to be enough on there to support a light sanding. I actually don't think Rob's process is suppose to require the clear coat to be sanded, but I'd like to fix a couple of the problem areas.