Day 13. After staining I left it to dry for another day before sanding it down and spraying it with a couple of coats of clear amber from a rattle can that I had left over from working on another guitar, partly to protect the wood and partly to take the edge off the yellow and make it a bit darker.
The grain in the top and back was looking quite nice and detailed. However the sides weren't quite so good. Had I done a burst finish on the sides, the areas which are traditionally light had various light marks in the wood running from side to side - either stress-marks from being bent or else due to the timber planing process - so at this point I decided that they were going to be finished in a nice and simple dark tobacco.
It is also that this point that I was now held up by the fact that I hadn't actually got the air compressor and spray gun that I needed to complete the job. So it was time to investigate compressors and spray guns and matching them up and buying all the associated useful bits and pieces.
So due to various delays due to the wrong bits getting delivered and chasing up non-call returning suppliers, I finally got my compressor and spray gun (plus vapour masks, goggles and gloves etc.) up and running on day 22 (3rd October) and ran over the guitar with several coats of clear lacquer.
It was now that I realised that my spray gun was oversized for the job (1.4mm2 nozzle), and was getting through lacquer at an alarming rate, so I ordered a mini spray gun (0.8mm2 nozzle) which came the next day. This has proved to be good for general spraying plus much better for the more detailed work (and far easier on the lacquer supplies), though the bigger one is good for getting nice even clear coats on.
With several clear coats on, the body was now looking pretty tasty on the top and back:
But despite calls from friends to leave it plain as a result, the issues with the sides and with things like the neck heel blocks being very visible...
...convinced me that I was still going to sunburst it so that I could cover up these areas.
The guitar now had to wait a few days for the lacquer to harden enough so that I could sand it down to a nice flat finish. After a good deal of wet sanding, there were still a few areas where there were still small dimples. Not wanting to start sanding through to the amber lacquer, I filled these areas in with clear lacquer using a small brush, sanded down, and repeated until I knew the guitar was nice and smooth with no glossy dimples showing up under an oblique light.
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