is a garage OK to do finishing work in???

[g2]

Hello....

I'm about to start experimenting with finishes on 12 small pieces of practice swamp ash I recently purchased (3 slabs cut in half)

I live in an apartment and don't feel like doing this kind of work in my space, plus...I have two cats who love to watch me work soooo, I fear that cat hair would be flying all over the place and get stuck in the finish!

I was thinking of using a friends garage to work in and was wondering if working in that kind of space, where temperature isn't controllable aside from opening/closing a garage door, is an OK space to do finishing work in???

I'm located in NY.....Westchester to be exact.....the temps here havent gotten super cold yet so I'm thinking it would be a good place to work in.

Any thoughts??

Thanks!

 

[jackthehack]

Apartment is not condusive to finishing work.... I'm stuck in Kansas where temps get way down there as well. What I generally do in very cold temperatures is spray in the garage and as soon as the toner/nitro have evaporated out enough acetone bring the body or neck in the house and put them in the basement to finish drying. I can close the garage up so it offers a little protection from the cold, and don;t be afraid to plug in a space heater for a while during drying.

In real cold climates tung oil/tru-oil finishes are good "dead-of-winter" projects as you can apply them indoors without making everyone get buzzed/hallucinate from the fumes....

 

[-CB-]

One thing to consider is trapped moisture.  And going from cold to warmer etc ... what will form on and under newly sprayed and curing finishes.

 

[jackthehack]

It's a DRY cold....  I've probably shot at temps down to 40 degrees in the garage; trick is to keep the cans at room temp, and just leave the guitar out long enough for most of the fumes to clear, didn't have any issues this past winter... Could see that being an issue if you're in a cold damp place. Again, hang it in a corner and run a space heater... Lot of variables, is the garage insulated, do the temps get way below 40-45 degrees?

 

[g2]

Ok...good stuff to know/think about.

The temps definitely can get pretty low around here, but not for another month or two....but who knows, it's been so warm during the day for this time of year.....in the 50s....right now it's 44 and it's almost 11:30pm.

I would be doing the work during the day when the temps are warmer.....

Like I said, i'm just doing 'test' work...basically learning how to finish a guitar as I've never done this before. I'm going slow and will be VERY patient....

By time I get around to finishing the actual guitar it could be the dead of winter or early spring.....we shall see!!

 

[-CB-]

Ya know what.....

I'd spend time doing filling of grain, sanding, getting the wood as smooth as the inside of yer girlfriends thigh.... and leave the finish testing and work for spring.

Just my 2c

 

[g2]

Ya know what.....

I'd spend time doing filling of grain, sanding, getting the wood as smooth as the inside of yer girlfriends thigh.... and leave the finish testing and work for spring.

Just my 2c

Hmmmm.....good idea. Though that's a loooong time to wait!!! Don't know if I could hold out that long!! But...good suggestion.

 

[stubhead]

Conversely, you could do it all indoors with non-smelly, water-based aniline dyes and water-based polyurethane finishes if you want - the cat hair is the biggest problem, believe me. There's one single point where you have to go smelly, if you do it this way you have to lay down a few thin coats of sanding sealer in between the dye and the poly-U, about an hour apart - you're looking at a moderate, varnishy smell in your apartment for a few hours each for neck and body. I modified a camera tripod and a neck plate to be able to hold the guitar, then the neck on the tripod. Make sure the cats are sleeping, slap on a coat in the kitchen, stash it in the closet. Wait one hour, repeat. Wait another hour, repeat. Do this 8 times and you're done. (Helps to wear the cats out first :icon_biggrin

For the in-between dye sealer, you have to use an "all finishes-compatible" dewaxed shellac, either from shellac flakes, Zinsser Bullseye Sealcoat, or it looks like a few of the other new Zinsser products will work:
http://www.zinsser.com/subcat.asp?CategoryID=1 (Cover-Stain, High-Hide, even High-Hide Odorless?)

The whole category of water-based finishes is changing so rapidly that what was gospel info a few years ago is obsolete now. Of course if you want to be a he-manly nitro-sprayer, like all the great legendary finishers of yore, you have to get stinky.... I'm quite anti-vintage in temperament, but maybe nitrocellulose really does sound more "authentic".... :icon_tongue:

I will say, you'll probably never achieve a high-gloss, mirror-polished SG/Les Paul type of finish this way, it's going to look like wood colored with dye. That's fine with me, but I just build these things to get guitars I can't find any other way, like Mustangs with real bridges and pickups, scalloped-neck guitars with humbuckings, 7-strings that don't suck etc. If the guitar makers would make what I want I'd buy them. arty07:

 

[Tonar8352]

The garage works for me but please be very careful with fumes around hot water heaters and any kind of electrical sparks.  I know two painters in the last thirty years of my career selling paint that died in lacquer explosions.  I would hate to think something terrible like that would happen to one of our friends from the discussion board.

 

[g2]

The garage works for me but please be very careful with fumes around hot water heaters and any kind of electrical sparks.  I know two painters in the last thirty years of my career selling paint that died in lacquer explosions.  I would hate to think something terrible like that would happen to one of our friends from the discussion board.

Thanks for the heads up......thankfully the water heater is in the basement of the house and I would most likely work with the garage door open if it's not too cold out. I don't mind the cold at all...I just want to make sure doing this kind of work in cold weather won't alter the results in a negative way.

Thanks for your ideas Stubhead....i'm not set yet as to what kind of clear coat i'll use. I would like to use nitro if I go down that road or maybe a satin finish.....I also want to experiment with oil finishes as well.

 

[jackthehack]

Forget about most basements, usually the systems are down there and if you're spraying nitro the fumes will be picked up and distributed through the house by the central heat. This will make you VERY unpopular.

 

[Alfang]

I wanna know how CB knows how smooth your girlfriends inner thigh is,  And I'm doing a finnish too, so I will need to inspect that as well for comparison :icon_biggrin:

 

[stubhead]

I know if you use sanding sealer it helps prevent splinters, but it's sticky and it smells bad. I.... oh wait I'm on the wrong website. :blob7:

 

[-CB-]

A good razor prevents splinters too.