Tru-oil/Shellac/Waterborne lacquer

[moobox]

Hello everybody
Been checking the Warmoth site out for some time now wanting to get a body and neck but really, cant decide. It's a stratocaster I want and I cant make up my mind about a couple of things. First, should I get unfinished or finished and I am inclined toward the unfinished. I was thinking about what I would finish the body and neck with and a few ideas popped up. First I was wondering about a shellac undercoat (to give a bit of a vintage coloring) and top off with Tru-oil. Then I thought mabe the shellac undercoat and top it off with waterborne lacquer. If I went for the lacquer I would be spraying with a turbine apparatus. Anyone use those at all? Any good for burst finishes? For the neck I was thinking maybe just a Tru-oil filler and then satin Tru-oil. Has any of this been done successfully?
Cheers - Ed

BTW, I'm wanting to put this on swamp ash body. The neck will be maple fingerboard.

 

[Cagey]

Unless you want a finish that you absolutely cannot get from Warmoth, I'd strongly recommend you let them do it. It might look pricey at first blush, but they're actually very reasonable. You'd never get anything like it anywhere else for less, and you'd have to be pretty well set up and have a lot of time on your hands to reproduce it yourself.

But, if you want to proceed on your own anyway, I understand. It can be fun, particularly for the masochistic <grin>

I have a couple in process, with this mahogany Strat being shot with an HVLP setup. It's still not final, but it's getting closer.

 

[moobox]

OK so it looks like I'm a masochist then. I've just ordered a Strat body unfinished. I met a chap who actually finishes guitars and had a chat with him and he is quite happy to show me the ropes. But tell me please, whn you order an unfinished body or neck from Warmoth, at what stage does it get shipped i.o.w. is it sanded and to what grit about? Is there a base coat? Has it been pore filled?
Cheers - Ed

 

[Cagey]

I believe the raw bodies are sanded to 240 grit, but I can't find anything to support that belief. They're definitely not pore-filled and there's no base coat. The raw necks are sanded finer, I want to say 320 grit, and they're not pore-filled but they are sealed.

 

[Tonar8352]

I find Warmoth body and necks need very little final prep prior to finishing. At the most I will have to steam up some slight dings and dents they get during package, shipping and unpacking. I have finished guitars from several different manufactures and none come close to Warmoth as far as quality of preparation before being shipped.

Pour filling will be the biggest challenge in prep for a beginning finisher but there are threads here that address the topic.

The last major hurdle for the beginner is the final wet-sand and rubout but it sounds like your contact will be able to help you out with that.

 

[moobox]

Thanks guys. Yip, I'm trusting that he will be able to help me with that. I'll be spraying and he reckons 2K is the stuff for the job. We'll see. I'm also planning on pore filling with Z-poxy.

 

[moobox]

OK, I enquired from Warmoth adn they got back to me pretty sharply:

2. Our bodies are sanded to 220 grit and redy to be filled and finished.
3. No sealing has been done to the wood.

 

[moobox]

Well, now I need to go out an buy the kit. I guess I'm going to get a 50 litre compressor. Sorry man, but I really dont know how to convert that to imperial. And I need a spray gun. Maybe two? Can anyone give me some outline of the kit I need to get please?
Cheers - Ed

 

[Cagey]

Google has an interesting feature where it'll do conversions between just about any related unit of measure if the query is reasonably formed. So, if on the search line you type in: 50 liters in gallons, the first result that comes back is: 50 litres = 13.2086026 US gallons.

You can go watts to BTUs, inches to centimeters, miles to kilometers, furlongs per fortnight to miles per hour, on and on. Unless something is totally unrelated like centimeters in litres, it's tough to stump it. It's pretty handy.

Anyway, you might want to look into HVLP sprayers such as one of these as well. They produce excellent results, are less messy, mechanically simpler, physically smaller, use less power, are easier to clean and don't cost as much. The only downside to them is they don't really produce compressed air per se, so if you wanted an air compressor around for other reasons besides spray painting, it wouldn't be the right thing.

 

[moobox]

You know that Google feature is rally something hey. Thanks.

As far as the HVLP sprayers go, I was reading in the Stewmac book and they reckon they're pretty good and waste less paint i.o.w. less overspray and they are less expensive. Now I am going to have to scout around to see if such items are available in South Africa. I see that someone does import products by an outfit called Accuspray. I think I'll speak to the guy at the paint shop tomorrow and ask him where these things can be had. I know that Bisch makes a spray painting range of equipment the PFS 55, 65 and 105 which I was interested in at one stage. Maybe I should get interested in them again.

Thanks for the info Cagey

 

[AutoBat]

As long as precision isn't terribly important I usually consider a liter & quart (1/4 gallon) to be the same.

 

[moobox]

OK, so with the help of someone who has done this quite a bit I went the 2K route and the results:

I've got a Warmoth one-piece maple neck and the plan is to Tru-oil it.

 

[Cagey]

Wow! That's a beautiful job! I'll bet you're getting anxious to get it done at this point. Playing that is going to feel special.