Official Luthiers Forum!

Has it been invented yet? Ok, that wasn't nice of me.

If something better has not come along yet, guess I go with what I know: EM 6000.

Tease! I've got a can of BriteTone that I'm going to try.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Sorry about that.

I have done many guitars with EM6000. Just noticed the cross linker product. Is this product recommended for this application? Does it change the appearance? Workability? Is it noticeably effective? Has anybody here tried it?

Mike

Have you tried KTM-SV ?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

No. Can it applied over zpoxy? I've heard it was a durable finish. It's not re workable, right?

maybe this is not the place to ask this question, but what are the advantages of waterborne lacquer?
thanks jack

For me it's all about the toxicity of shooting nitro. My shop is in my basement and nitro stinks. I can't do that to my lovely wife. The only thing I don't like about WB is the blue cast noticeable on darker woods in certain light.

M

More environmentally friendly

Personally I much prefer solvent based both for application and final appearance -- However I do know one high end maker who uses General Finishes Enduro conversion varnish and it looks real good.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I've given up on water base years ago. I just could not get consistent results with it. Sometimes it was spectacular other times I'd have to refinish my work. It very well may be user error but I've never had so many issues with any other type finish. ymmv.

I've yet to see or know about any water born finish that stacks up to nitro, poly, etc. when it comes to appearance, toughness, ability to expand and contract as our instruments do and will. The only thing that water born has ever had going for it in my view is the absence of toxic chemicals.

Trust me I've been silently watching the results of others for a decade now starting with Mike Doolin and System III epoxy fill followed by KTM9. Even Mike dropped water born when he very much pioneered it's use and made his toots and experience public on LMI's site.

I sprayed nitro, further learned that what I was doing and where I was doing it was not at all safe and then outsourced my finishing. When at Healdsburg in 2007 I did an informal poll of the exhibitors and roughly half of the pros present outsourced their finishing. This is always an option but there are costs and of course you also now have someone else in your supply chain for better or worse.

When I gained an existing spray booth with explosion proof fan, lighting, etc. I went back to spraying my own with nitro and in hindsight there are very good reasons why nitro has been the standard of the industry for nearly 100 years. It's easy, it's predictable, you can go satin or gloss, it can be repaired without any unnatural acts.

As water born finishes evolved and others became available I still read stories about the dreaded blue cast or the ultimate nightmare for a maker someone's body chemistry, possibly PH being incompatible with the finish and causing it to come off or dull down.

Personally I don't think that water born finishes are a good solution for guitars. We are not building furniture here and our stuff in order to sound good has to expand and contract or be built light enough to do so. We also have exposed human skin in direct contact with the finish which is not always the case with a book shelf, etc. We often want enough of a build to be high gloss and this alone has issues associated with it in terms of how the stuff links/burns in from coat to coat - See Don's currently running thread about hard shellac.

If someone was to ask me which water born finish I would recommend even for a beginning builder I would not recommend any of them... You are better off doing what it takes to spray nitro (safely) perhaps in a garage, etc. or, of course, outsourcing your finish.

By the way of the two pro finishers that I have used they both made it fairly effortless on my part AND they both added a new opportunity to be excited when you receive it back and open up the box - wow!

It should be mentioned too that if you sell your stuff two additional considerations kick in in my way of thinking. First can you afford to have the thing come back, need to be completely stripped, and a new finish solution found and applied? Liability or future liability is very high on the list with finishes that are nontraditional and not proven for what we do.

Next if you sell you will be judged like it or not against the greater market and what else is out here. Like them or not glossy finishes are desirable still to likely most buyers - it's what they know.

Something that I have learned from my own personal experiences building and selling guitars is that although a good non-water born finish can easily be found which finish benefits which client the very most may vary from client to client. A gigging musician will benefit from poly back and sides because it's likely the toughest finish out here but it is a bit restrictive in my view. If ding resistance is a priority poly is a good choice.

For an adult owned player who's guitar stays at home with good care and who is not a scotch drinker and drooler... (I have a client who does this... ) french polished shellac is in my view tonally superior to anything else sands an instrument in the white. But it has very little ding resistance, is easy to mess up with contact with solvents, booze, etc. and it's a PITA to do and can take a long time and a lot of effort. We have an 1870's Martin in the shop with FP shellac and the finish still looks pretty good considering.

Anyway Mike sorry to be pedantic here but what I am trying to convey is that I don't believe there is a best water born finish and although lots of folks use them from time to time the number of folks who sell guitars and use water born is very hard to determine and even find. I seriously doubt if very many pros use water born.

Please don't get me wrong I've been quietly cheering for water born stuff to improve and actually do what we need it to do. I'm completely on board with lower toxicity which is the real benefit of water born.

Sadly... I'm still waiting.

I completely agree that nitro is a supiorior product. It's very easy to use and the results excellent! I have built way too many cabinets and shot way too much nitro to ever consider using it again. I pretty sure I'm gonna set up mid-stride one day. I know a bunch of folks send their finishing out, including Somogyi. Don't get me wrong, but for me it feel like cheating... As we all know, building the guitar is the easy part. It's the finish that has the toughest learning curve.

Michael

Just a side bar -- I no longer experiment with WB finishes. Right or wrong for WB or what ever I like to lay down wet coats in hopes of a nice smooth flow out (this is what I was trained to do at the William's Painting School) ---- so the "last time" I used WB I noticed that the entire guitar, top and back had majorly puffed up from the moisture --- enough said, that was it for me.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I use EM6000 and have been happy with the results. I will not argue that it is has good as nitro or poly finish but with care it can be made to look good. I am a hobbyist and personally doing the finish is part of that hobby. To be perfectly honest my wood working while OK is not as good as the professional luthiers I know, I have no thought of outsourcing the construction of the guitar. I get that this is a personal choice for me. I have issues with spraying a lot of nitro in a home, it smells up the house for a long time. Even outdoors the right wind will take it into the house.

What I have found with EM6000 is that each and every coat needs to be about 3 mills. If sprayed thicker there is a danger of getting a blue cast. I use a wet mill guage to check my setup before spraying.

I have successfully sprayed KTM-SV. I like its look and it felt a bit harder than EM6000. It is not very forgiving. The prep work really needs to be right on. When ready to spray the last coat everything needs to be perfectly level. You do not want to sand through the final coat when doing the final sanding and buffing or you will get witness lines.

The other issue I have had is that I could not cleanly repair it.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I have been using KTM SV for the last 20 or so guitars. I wish I could say that it is the perfect finish, but it isn't. I get good results but that often comes from spending a lot of extra time. What people are saying above about SV is true. My last finish came out beautiful - clear and very nice gloss. However, upon close inspection I could see what appeared to be witness lines in a couple of places. So I sanded back and found that I had to completely remove the finish to get the witness lines out. So that I was into the epoxy fill (West 105 & 207) and down to bare wood in places. That didn't seem right as if all the finish was sanded out how could there be witness lines? I had changed one of the procedures in my finish schedule - swapped denatured alcohol for Everclear. Wanted to get away from the health hazards of the denatured alcohol. So is it possible that the witness lines I was seeing may have been residue from the drying Everclear? After I epoxy fill and sand I use alcohol (denatured or Everclear) to wipe down the epoxy. let that completely dry and then start spraying. I am now ready to respray, after using denatured alcohol to wipe the epoxy down; so I will know soon if that is the case. I am definitely leaning toward an outsource on my future guitars.

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guitarsbygiltzow.com

I am one who had gas to fake back and redo KTM9, as well, I gad the blustering problem on my personal player guitars.

As far as I know, EM 6000 seems to be the same thing, a water based acrylic, so I never explored it. The comments about blue haze backed up that thinking, true or not.

KTM-SV, otoh, laid down as easy, had zero blue haze, and, most importantly, no blistering. So as as far as my experience goes, it's the best WB solution if that is your only option.

I hardly ever do glossies these days, but I contract out now.

this waterborne lacquer sorta reminds me of a 1960's-1970's product called Johnson's Glo-Coat, a quick shine fix for dull, ailing kitchen floor and after drying, complete with the blue-ish tinge and all...
from the comments here by users of waterborne lacquers, it doesn't seem there are many upsides to using it on a finely crafted guitar, and plenty of downsides....
so, why would anyone want to put forth the time and effort necessary to produce a fine guitar only to ruin it with a waterborne finish? just my thoughts....

The key words above are "from the comments here". That's not much to go on for following up with "only to ruin it with a waterborne finish". That's a pretty harsh judgement with too little to base it on. I've used EM6000 on five guitars so far. No problems whatsoever, including no blue tinge whatsoever. The finish has held up just fine in all cases and the finishes look quite good if I do say so myself. When a luthier who has been making his living for many years as a builder saw my third guitar, he was surprised to find out it was finished with a waterborne lacquer. He assumed it was nitro by how it looked.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I have to admit that I have certain preconceived notions when it comes to water based lacquers, of which a few are confirmed here , but I didn't draw my conclusions based solely on this discussion Jay.

Because, for a lot of people, waterborne is the only practical option.

Example of a ruined instrument With Em6000. It still looks good four years later.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

I've had good luck with EM6000...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I've been happy with EM 6000, my only concern is the blue cast. You can minimize with thin coat, but dark woods can enhance the effect. I like doing my own finish. Guess it's a pride thing. Had I never read the horrors of nitro (here) I would have blindly done that. I don't have room for a vented booth. Guess I could just hang the bodies in the open space where garage door opens, spray out. Anybody use that or similar technique?

John, like I said, I like EM6000. But your own photo testifies to the blue cast problem. It is what it is. Yes, shiny. Yes pretty. But given the right angles, the blue cast will show itself. It's just the physics of acrylic.

Guitar finishes are really difficult to photograph well but I still see some really nice work here guys - very well done and you should be very proud!

Here's my beef with the current flock of available water born finishes:

1) The history is not good, hundreds of posts on this forum alone of issues that users have had. YYMV and some of you, J, Steve, John are producing beautiful results anyway - good going.

2) Appearance: Although to each their own what I see when I look at a water born finish is a water whiteness that is a bit too water white for my taste and I have to wonder if the film will amber with time because I would hope that it would. I've used cat urethane as well on my stuff and it's also water white and so far is not ambering much which is not a good thing in my view. An older guitar needs to look like an older guitar in my view. When a client beats themselves up in front of us because they scratched their instrument we often tell them "good, now you can enjoy the thing..." I've been thinking of offering scratch services where we will intentionally scratch a new ax so the client can start enjoying the thing - I just am not sure what to charge... yet.

3) The blue cast it is visible and not something that we want to see.

4) Compatibility with how a guitar is used. We have some posts on the OLF of folks experiencing certain players body chemistry not being compatible with the water born that they used. What a nightmare this would be for the builder of say a commission. No one wants to have to sand or scrape or both off an entire finish and refinish the instrument....

5) Liability - this is the biggie for me. The last thing that I would ever want to have happen is finish issues some years out. My stuff is guaranteed for the rest of my days as a working Luthier and this makes me responsible if the finish fails in an unreasonable manner some time in the future.

For some of you guys who are hobby builders and not commercially selling to strangers none of this is as scary as it is to folks who's name is on the line for how we make our livings.

Water born finishes also fill a real need in the hobby for something safe to finish with however I will not say that they currently fill a real need in the "industry" because I am firmly in the camp that water born, regardless of flavor, is simply not there yet for commercial uses mostly because of the liability associated with what may happen over time and with use.

I'll add that some of you are spraying upwards of 20 coats.... Time is money and a finish that can look superb with 9 coats (nitro) fills the need from a production stand point.

Not trying to argue with anyone or diss what you like and use - far from it. But I am exposing you to the considerations that pros have when selecting finishes and how well it does over time is a huge consideration.

It's funny at least to me when I started this endeavor like many others I thought of better mouse traps. Over time and from experience I now believe that what manufacturers and makers have been doing for all of time seemingly is likely the best way forward. My well intentioned "let's try or use this" has morphed into what's "proven" and provides the value in an unquestionable manner.

With this said the matter of what one's perspective is, are you selling, is this just a hobby, and what your resulting expectations are for a finish does indeed vary widely.

As for me I don't want to be the first to try anything, don't want to experiment on my client's dime, and certainly don't want dozens of guitar all shedding finish when I'm 90 years old.... Not sure I want to be 90 years old either...

With all of this said it seems that good old nitro or french polished shellac (unadulterated, fresh shellac) and some of the newer "proven" finishes such as poly (Taylor) and a few others seems to be a safe, sure, understandable way forward.

You know too very few offerings were initially engineered for musical instrument use. With the water born finishes this is often the case that the stuff was made for say floors, etc. and the maker one day decided that they can expand market share by claiming that it's an excellent musical instrument finish.

These makers rarely understand our concerns which are very different from say flooring. Our stuff is dynamic in that the wood is moving with the change of the weather, etc. Our stuff tends to get abused, left in hot cars, etc and it's also subjected to someone skin, deodorants, bug spray, etc.

We also demand an appearance that is second to none. We want beautiful, tough, easy to use, hopefully nontoxic, and available finishes that don't require special equipment or considerations.

Problem is that this finish simply does not exist, yet.

I've got a question though - just what exactly causes and is the blue cast? Anyone know for sure?

And blushing can be made to go away does the blue cast have a solution to make it go away?