If I'm not mistaken, the MinWax lacquer is acryllic, not nitrocellulose.
As I alluded to earlier, the www.reranch.com site has everything you need in the way of know-how to do the job, along with most of the supplies you'll need to do it. Their spray can nitro lacquers can deliver a professional finish and their tutorials are most helpful. Buy their clear grain filler, spray paint, and clear finish, and also the 3m polishing compound they sell.
Stew-Mac has all the grades of sandpaper you'll need, as well as any polishing pads etc. you'll need. You can even use one of the orbital car polishers with a good, CLEAN, bonnet for buffing out the final finish.
Remember that nitro lacquer melts into itself as each new coat is applied. So, if you use a solid color lacquer you don't need a lot of coats and minimal finishing to the paint itself. It's with your clear coats that you get the final finish and shine.
To do a step-by-step "how to" on lacquer applications would take too much time and space to do here. That's why I refered to the reranch link. There are many others that you can find as well just by doing a google search for "guitar finishing with lacquer", or something similar.
To get the two-tone finish you're looking for you would use a variation of one of the sunburst application methods. Generally, it would consist of applying the lighter coat of the transparent amber to the center of the body, **then applying several coats of clear, and finally applying the dark brown/black edge paint. To achieve the proper burst look for the edge, you would cut out a piece of stiff cardboard to the shape of the body, leaving it a little short around the edges. You would then have to suspend the carboard template above the guitar body about 3/4" or so using toothpicks or something similar, and then spray the darker paint at about a 45 degree angle on the edge of the guitar body and template. A little overspray will get under the template all around the body giving it the feathered "burst" look.
**Remember the clear coats I said to apply to the transparent amber before moving on to the edge paint? Well, this is where it may be needed. Should any dark paint get too far under the template or cause "spotting" on your amber finish, you can wet sand it off the clear finish without damaging the amber undercoat. Again, read up on this and other methods and try everything on scrap wood with cheap paint before trying it on your guitar with nitro.
Oh yeah...
And what M29 said about nitro finishing being time consuming? He's right, it is. It's not an apply tonight play the guitar tomorrow finish. It takes weeks to do correctly...and that's when you can devote the time to a schedule to do so. But...there's nothing like a good nitro finish applied correctly. When done right it'll come out looking like a sheet of glass. And because it's very thin and hard, it interferes far less with the natural resonation of the wood in the body and neck.
Last edited by Bloozcat; July 27th, 2010 at 07:18 AM.
Ah, nothing relieves the discomfort of GAS pains like the sound of the UPS truck rumbling down your street. It's like the musician's Beano.
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