Joes Custom IB-1 Kit

[Joe3334]

Hi all...

I'm going to start building a kit guitar roughly 3 weeks from now. My kit guitar is a custom IB-1 kit, it's customisations are a mahogany body, ebony fretboard, abalone binding, and spalted maple. I'm planning on doing a natural finish with a gloss clearcoat but I'm not sure on the process and where to buy the clearcoat, I'm hoping it comes in aerosol form? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Joe

[FrankenWashie]

Ooooh Spalt on 'Hog. I whole heartedly applaud!

[Simon Barden]

Ah, I see you did go down the custom route.

There are a wide choice of clearcoats you can use, especially if you are keeping it all natural, and yes, it comes in aerosol form. You've got a choice between polyurethane, acrylic and nitrocellulose clearcoats.

Nitro is the classic finish, but it's expensive compared to the others and the solvents used are nasty, so a solvent mask is required when using it. But it is generally considered to be the finish that ages and wears best (in terms of looks).

Polyurethane is a tough protective finish, and a lot of guitars (e.g. almost all Fenders) come finished in polyurethane. The only downside is that being harder, it does tend to chip on contact rather than simply leave a mark.

Acrylic is what's in standard car spray paint cans these days. It can be a bit slow to dry thoroughly at times, so thin coats and leave plenty of time between coats. Too many coats too quickly and the lower coats are still wet when the outer coat is dry and this really slows the drying process down.

All will give you a nice finish, and all of them will require rubbing down with sandpaper to get a flat finish which you then polish up again (you won't get anything like as nice a finish if you just spray and leave it). You don't want too thick a finish, as this can kill body resonance, but you do need to put on enough coats to give you the depth to sand down for polishing without sanding back to the wood. Any spraying really needs a suitable mask, but it's most important with Nitrocellulose, which does need a mask with a HEPA and carbon filter built-in. If you can smell the spray whilst wearing it, then it's not fitted properly or the carbon filter is worn out and you need a new filter.

Mahogany is an open-pored wood, so will need grain filling before the clear coat goes on. You can leave it unfilled, but it will take an awful lot of spray to fill up all the pores, or else you get a very rough finish. So I'd use a water-based grain filler like Timbermate on the mahogany. You van use a mahogany colour if you want the filler to blend in, or a darker colour if you want to highlight the grain pattern.

The spalted maple veneer is a closed-grain wood, so doesn't need filling. Only sand with a very fine grit, say P1500 as the veneer is very thin.

Even though you are not staining and just going for a sprayed clearcoat, I'd still check it thoroughly for glue spots as they may show up as lighter areas under the clearcoat.

[Joe3334]

Hi Simon

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, It's greatly appreciated. I unfortunately have multiple glue spots on the veneer around the binding, would sanding be the best way to get rid of them or is there another way to deal with them.

Cheers, Joe

[Simon Barden]

Goof-off, or another glue removal product usually does the trick. Sometimes using an old toothbrush to rub the remover in helps.

[Joe3334]

Update

I just sealed the mahogany with timbermate and the mahogany is looking nice, however the suspected glue stains on the veneer that I believe is from a sloppy binding job have not gone away despite using goof off and a toothbrush. Also the goof off has removed some of the natural colour of the wood and it looks kinda grey, As of now I feel as if this kit guitar will never become a nice looking guitar.

Cheers, Joe

[Simon Barden]

Try wetting the veneer with metho, turps or white spirit from a rag. That will give you an idea of what the veneer will look like with the clear coat on. It may just be that the surface has been polished by the rubbing, giving a different look when dry and the colour may homogenise once wet.

[Joe3334]

Update

The mahogany has now been properly sealed, the glue stains will not go away and appear as a significantly lighter colour than the rest of the veneer once soaked in metho. when applying a clearcoat, is there anything I need to apply to the body before clearcoating? Or can I just clearcoat as is.

Cheers, Joe

[Andy40]

You got a photo as to where you are up to Joe?

[Simon Barden]

Once you've grain-filled the body and sanded that back flat, then there's nothing more you need to do than apply the clear coat.