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The blue cast is cuased by the acrylic molecule. Thickness of application matters as well. Thin is definitely better. Lighter woods provide less contrast so it's harder to detect. It is not an effect that goes away with time. Most producers proudly tout that their products will not yellow with time.

Hesh, you reference the blue cast as if it were a given.
I am no expert, but I have sprayed 30 guitars over the past 5 years with EM6000 and have in the past experienced the blue cast.
After upgrading my gun to a SATA mini and learning how to apply uniform thin coats, I have eliminated the dreaded blue cast.
My latest, a very dark Bolivian Rosewood project, was my very best result.

Agreed, Mike, once the blue cast is there, it is there for good.
I have a couple of examples from many years ago on my "wall of shame" to remind me what can go wrong...

While I am happy with the instruments I am making with EM6000, I am not arguing that it gives a nitro finished look. It is the closest of the WB products I used. I use zpoxy or blond shellac under the finish to give the instrument a bit of amber. Maybe that helps with any faint blue that still exists in a finished product. In real life there is no blue tint in the pictured guitar that I can see. Color perception varies across individuals. Also photography is hard. In this case it was photographed under incandescent light near an open window, The blue highlights are the outside. The white balance of the photo is set for warmer light.

I have sprayed nitro outdoors. I had bugs and stuff getting into the finish, it dry fast but not fast enough. So possibly building a temporary booth outside might help. You will also want a place to hang the guitar that is outside as it gasses for awhile. Depending how sensitive family members are to the smell even hanging it next to the house in the summer can be an issue.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Appreciate the response guys, thanks!

Another question: We repair finish all of the time in our busy repair business but I can't recall a single instance of having to work with a water born finish... Aside from why this is the case my question is about one of the "big III" that are my primary considerations when it comes to guitar building.

Serviceability: Does any one have any experience repairing dings, repairing the finish in and around a neck reset, pick guards needing to be removed and replaced and possibly shrinking? Or when an instrument cracks it's top and the guitar has to be humidified, the crack glued shut and cleated and then the cosmetic aspects of the now repaired crack - will CA work and not show or specifically how would the finish if water born be repaired?

How's it buff?

Please don't get me wrong here because again my hope is that water born will one day be a viable solution for everyone including risk adverse sorts who warranty our stuff of the rest of our days. But to do so it has to be predictable in application (no blue cast), look great to all (water white may not flip the switch of some...), safe as billed and this means truly safe keeping in mind that some idiot may do something pretty stupid with it at some point, look good aging what ever this means to individuals, and be serviceable because people mess up their guitars every day and want them repaired.

Admittedly this is a tough list and hence the problems with selecting a great finish for Lutherie.

Countless guitars have been built by small builders by going to school on the f*ctories. We even describe our creations with names given by the f*ctories such as OM, dr*ad, J-45, Les Paul, etc. We use the same materials and shoot for similar appearances. We also may sell to folks who would otherwise buy a f*ctory guitar. Like it or not the f*ctories have a lot to do what what we may consider to be the industry standards.

What manufacturer uses water born finish and why not? Seems to me that hurdles for manufactures such as OSHA and EPA requirements would be lessoned by using water born finishes and we can always count on the f*ctories to show the way forward to a cheaper.... way to do things.

Point being why are not the major producers, f*ctory producers using water born if the value delivered for the price, ease of use, less toxicity, and ultimately the results.... is a winning way forward?

Where does a crazed nitro finish found on so many vintage instruments fall in the "failed finish" category? My limited understanding is that it more common on instrument exposed to freezing temperatures. I'd think this wouldn't be covered under warranty, due to owner neglect..?

Sorry, I meant no harm. It is a beautiful instrument, and I believe you are correct about color perception. Remember this?

Robbie, that is good to hear. Guess I will do the same. I just cannot stand the thought of blowing up my house.

Its my belief that until a coating manufacturer comes up with a formula that etches into the previous coats the solvent based products will rule.

Factories skirt the EPA by using very high solids, minimal solvents plus pre-cat and UV cure coatings. Emission permits are based on what goes out the exhaust stacks -- you can bet their preferred coating are those that can be spot/area repaired --- witness lines was another thing I found problematic with the "all" WB that I tested.

Early on when GM was forced to go to WB by the EPA we still used solvent acrylic lacquers for repairs -- again because they actually burned into the last coats unifying the finish no matter how old.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Ken, did you test EM6000?

I wish I would get an answer on the Target Coatings cross-linker.

With government regulations being what they are, they may move that way. The catalyzed UV systems (re: Taylor) have almost no emission issues, but they are very toxic to humans. And they are repairable (in the nitro sense). But then, they are hard to damage. However, you make a good point.

Can I "safely" apply nitro in my garage? With the door open? Or is it like the Corvair? Unsafe at any speed? For me, this it what it comes down to.

Right it's considered abuse, clearly.... since crazing finishes are very well understood in terms of why this happens. You are also right that thermal shock is usually the culprit.

In our shop in Jan., Feb, etc. we often have to ask the client how long the instrument has been in a cold car and in some instances send them to have some coffee for an hour before we are willing to open the case. Dave has a direct experience with this at another shop where a cold case was opened at once and the finish crazed right before several people's eyes including the guitar owner AND you could also hear "tick, tick, crack" as it happened - audible finish damage... Makes me sick thinking about it...

Nitro is not the only finish that will craze with thermal shock and we have seen it as well on Japanese Fenders, acrylic I believe, and I've seen it on FPed shellac as well. Thermal shock seems to not be kind to any finish and should of course always be avoided. One of the poly guitars that we gave to a homeless young man who we try to help when we can also crazed in the cold.

Very thick finishes seem IME to be more prone to crazing with thermal shock than thinner finishes.

Mike the last Target product we tried was the Oxford Ultra spray.

I will have to admit more than anything else I am comfortable with nitro -- we have the safety apparel and equipment to use it relatively hazard free so I really have no reason to pursue WB any further.

I should also add that the main reason we were doing research was the hope that we could direct our kit builders toward a product that was less hazardous and environmentally friendly. But, since its seems virtually "all" the coatings WB or otherwise get some sort of bad press (along with the good) on and off the forums I simply do not make finish recommendations. I do point them to product info and schedules etc.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I love the Corvair example!

I sprayed nitro when I was finishing three guitars at once in my garage. It worked but you do have to be mindful of RH through out the entire spray schedule which was four days for me back then, a bit less now. Bugs did get in the finish maybe several times but I simply waited for them to dry in place and then sliced them out with a razor blade, did a quick level swipe with wet/dry and sprayed additional coats. Probably was not the kindest thing to do to the bugs either...

Where you are Mike the RH in the summer may be too high for outdoor nitro spraying.

Back to another comment on the previous page. For lots of you guys learning to do all aspects of the build is important to ya and I too share this belief as well. But some of us, many, many of us who sell or have sold guitars got over the "I did it all myself" thing when we attended shows and actually got an intimate look at what our competitors were doing - outsourced finishes.

Guys like Joe White, Tony Ferguson, Addam Stark are masters of guitar finishing and can out do anything that I can do likely blind folded. We didn't see outsourcing the finishing as shirking our personal responsibility to be sure that every single aspect of the instrument was excreted by yours truly. Instead what at least I did was learn to finish my own and be good enough at it that the commercial standards were met or exceeded but I went outsource for two primary reasons and some additional reasons too.

1) It provided more value to my clients because they pro finishers better at it than I am AND were tooled up to spray things that I could never spray such as cat poly.

2) More than half the professional Luthiers at Healdsburg 2007 were outsourcing and they set the standard for the most attractive finishes at the show.

3) Finding and doing an acceptable finish solution at home as Mike is struggling with and we all struggle with is not.... easy... Lots of down sides to any solution, safety and health issues and most people don't want to blow up their homes either which can happen with nitro.

4) In time I appreciated the ease of the process, sand to 220 and ship it off or take a road trip to Joe's and eat some Chinese food with him in his neck of the woods. It was always a good time! I'll add that when I would open the box some weeks later and see what I had it was always very exciting AND rewarding too!

5) Don't know about you guys but crafting the wood was my favorite part of building, finishing not so much so I was happy to outsource.

Downsides to outsourcing:

1) It does have a cost and with shipping can be over $500 a pop. Of course you can make up for this in your pricing. Considering the hours that it took me to finish my own the $500 is actually a bargain provided that I redirect my productivity to something profitable as well.

2) Although in my experience the delay to get it done was very, very minor I know from folks who use other finishers that this is not always the case. I read a post on the OLF years ago about one finisher taking upward of 6 months on one job. So there is a dependency on others, something I rarely want.

I've never had any issues with the two pro finishers that I used and in both cases they were quicker than I would have guessed. I'll add that in both cases there is or for me was zero possibility of a dispute, everyone knew where one person's responsibility ended and another one's began.

I wanted to add something else too. I have some of my creations here things that I did not want to sell for one reason or another or that I simply built for me. This also means that I am currently looking at guitars made 8ish years ago that have the pro finishes of two different finishers on them. To my eye they still look every bit as good if not better than what I see coming from f*ctories and that means something to me - good stuff. In other words the pro finishers that I used did better work than f*ctory work and then some. It may be for those of you who have not attended Lutherie show that you have not yet seen in person just how truly beautiful the work of a pro finisher can be.

So the guys do superb work too.

So if it's your bag to do it all and you don't care about making your own tuners, strings, bridge pins, etc... go for it! For me once I could do these things well enough my attention often went else where and outsourcing and what other people thought about it meant nothing to me.

I chuckle because back in the day one of the biggest cry babies over the fact that some outsource decided to try to sell his stuff and promptly started outsourcing his own finishes.... To each their own!

Re: burn-in... I believe one of the benefits of EM6000 is that it does accommodate burn-in - per their website "provide a unique, 100% burn-in functionality"
A while back I had to repair a broken headstock on a L*s Paul copy I built.
Sanded the finish back and re-sprayed the repair and the new finish bonded perfectly to the old finish.
2 years later and it looks like new....
Just anecdotal, I know, but I am pretty darn happy with this product... IMHO, YMMV, etc...

I found EM6000, easy to use, levels nicely, sand and buff well after a bit less than a week cure time and it is repairable.

If I was building to sell or mainly building on commission I would out source the finishing of my steel string guitars and continue to French Polish the classical guitars I make. At this time to be perfectly honest my finishing skill are commensurate with my building and prep skills. Meaning I would be embarrassed to send my guitars to a pro. I suppose a plus for using a pro finisher is that I would get feedback on what good prep work really is. (or how bad mine is)

Luckily for me it was Ken who thankfully stopped me from spraying nitro in my garage when I was ignorant of the dangers involved. I avoided creating a fuel-air bomb.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Are Gerald Sheppard and John Greven still using waterbased?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I seriously don't get this business about a blue cast being an inherent characteristic of waterborne lacquer. You can cite physics or personal experience, or whatever, but you can also hold any of my guitars under whatever kind of light you want and there is NO blue cast. That's on rosewood, maccassar ebony, bubinga, and mahogany. And spruce, of course. I don't doubt that it can happen, but based on my experience it doesn't have to happen. My guess, and it's just a guess, is that people who have seen a blue cast are looking at finishes that were applied with coats that were too thick and/or too frequently.

I don't buy the idea that just because big manufacturers do something a particular way, I should also do it that way or that it is necessarily "the best" way. Context is everything for making those sorts of evaluations. I'm not working under the constraints of operating a mass production company with the need to produce a product on a large scale while minimizing cost and maximizing profit as driving factors in my decisions. Nitro is still used by lots of big companies not just because it's proven, but out of inertia. It's what they know, have invested in, and have convinced their customers they want through marketing. I would bet that the main driver for Taylor adopting poly was a business case for reduced manufacturing cost and not that it was "the best" finish method in some abstract sense. Waterborne finish is still in its infancy compared to nitro or French polish so its long term performance is still to be proven, but in my admittedly very limited experience with five guitars, I've had zero problems and two of the guitars are coming up on five years. For me, the speculative liability of using waterborne is completely outweighed by not having to deal with the hazards and hassles of nitro. I don't especially enjoy doing finishing but, at this point, I prefer to do it myself and try to become as good at it as I can. I am getting finishes that are quite nice after only five guitars and will get better with experience. I've only had one commission so far, but the buyer was totally thrilled with how his guitar looked. I'm going to keep in touch with him to see how the finish performs in someone else's hands.

Along the lines of potential future liability, I would love to have been a fly on the wall in conversations about the potential risks of using torrefied wood. If those tops start failing down the road, that would be a big problem indeed.

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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've had a few "opportunities" to repair finish dings and chips (my fault) in EM6000. The repairs blended perfectly with the surrounding finish in both types of repairs. No witness lines.

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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

All good points J and thanks for making them.

It's not a question at all that it might happen because anyone who has frequented any Lutherie forum for very long will have read the posts, heard the stories, and many, many of us didn't go that route as a result. I'm glad that it has not happened to you!

When I provide advice I'm usually serious as a heart attack. I don't want someone coming at me and claiming that something that I advocated was unsound and damaged them or their instruments in any way. I specifically vet my post for this by the way.

There is no way that I would ever recommend any water born finish with the likely hundreds of posts in the past ten years on the OLF alone complaining of blue cast, incompatibility with someone's arm, 20 coats needed instead of 10 or less, a water white look that some people simply don't like, and I'll add adhesion issues as well because there were some of those too.

So sure it works for you and that's great but I'm not going to attempt to rewrite history on your experiences only - that would be pretty irresponsible of me no?

Regarding the big f*ctories there is some truth that some continue to do what they know. Although not a big f*ctory in my neck of the woods we have Heritage making G*bsonesque guitars pretty close to the traditional ways that were used at the Parson's street f*ctory for decades. They spray nitro just like G*bson did while still in Michigan.

Taylor is a great company to discuss too. As you know the Taylor bolt-on neck is an advancement for the trade. I can reset a Martin neck for $600 and a Taylor neck for maybe $125... That's what Taylor set out to do by improving the serviceability of their instruments and they most certainly succeeded as well.

Taylor also was early on in the high-end market with amplified acoustic guitars. Likely noting that at one time Ov*tion had 1/3 of the US market and they were even earlier in amplifying their stuff Taylor took note.

Taylor has lots of clients who are gigging musicians. This means the instruments are subject to abuse, rain, RH swings, travel abuse, theft, flying beer bottles, etc. IME the poly that Taylor uses is the toughest finish on the market and perfectly suited for the gigging musician. I seriously doubt that Taylor went with poly as a cost reduction thing and it's likely that the Taylor neck joint has heavier manufacturing costs than a traditional dovetail because there are more elements, hardware, etc. My belief is that Taylor does what Taylor does because it better suited the market in terms of value that they address with their instrument.

No one is attacking your use of water born finish and again I'm happy that it works for you. Would I use it or have I used it - no. There is too much history out here with it that I can't get past. I'll add that first it was something called Enduro that was to be the cat's meow which when found to be unsuitable for one reason or another was replaced with KTM 9. Then Doolin dropped it, lots of folks complained about the blue cast, etc and in came EM 6000 and later KTM SV. All of these finishes seem to come and go... and it's only a matter of time before someone gets bitten and tells us all about it.

Again I am glad that it works for you but decidedly I am at a disadvantage because I can't see in person and evaluate the results that you have achieved. Back in the day I had not been exposed to the work of others much and that's why I encourage anyone and everyone to at least attend one of the better guitar shows. That will show you where the bar is in the commercial sense. If you don't care about being commercial great, many folks do....

I'll say again I'm always going to believe that everyone should do what ever they wish. Makes no difference to me but the advice that I provide is super important to me to get it right. That's actually how I learn because I tend to learn the material better when I am tasked with explaining it to others and having it be accurate, make sense, and vetted for safety.

You know at the end of the day if one wants to be a gold miner one likely has to go where the gold is, know what to look for, know how to look, get dirty, miss other opportunities with the time spent, etc.

IME if one wants to build acoustic guitars as a hobby one has to address the finish problem and it most certainly is a problem as well. It may be that the only solution that I would get behind these days is FP shellac if lack of toxicity is one's bag or nitro done smart, safe, and well. Anything else for now the jury is still out and/or specific considerations such as with poly have to be additionally weighed and tooled up for.

Regarding torrified wood I won't buy any yet. It has promise, one the best sounding guitars that I have played on the last two years had a torrified top and it was also brand spanking new and sounded fantastic AND with only minutes on it to open up....

You and I reversed rolls here a bit which is cool too because you are right how well will glue hold the bridge on in 10 years, has the molecular structure been so very adulterated that it will turn to dust in time are all questions that I ask as well.

The OP asked for the best water born lacquer ever and the point that I wanted to make is that one may be asking for the best of the worst.... no offense intended... If what a number of us believe, that water born is not there yet that's what we are going to contribute in our efforts to help Mike out.

I don't know you J but would love to meet you one day and talk shop and you have a standing invitation to visit the People's Republic of Ann Arbor and spend some time see what we do. Folks who know me personally frequently hear me say that nothing rubs me the wrong way as much as having to revisit the very same problem more than once.... It's my nature and as such with all the bad stories about any flavor or water born finish I just can't currently... recommend any of it.

If I did it would be something such as for every 5 that hate it one made it work.... that's not good enough for me....

Glad that it works for you though AND you might want to consider doing a toot on the OLF with your finishing schedule sharing what works for you because it most certainly seems to be sorely needed by many others.

Great, my interest was in how it is repaired. CA, more water born, etc?

Thanks a lot for your reply, Hesh. I always enjoy reading them. I understand your reasoning for not being able to recommend waterborne finishes. I think people need to assess their own situations, goals, and priorities and make their own best decisions on what to use. Same for other methods.

I also fully get that you have no objective way to evaluate my estimation of the quality of the finishes I'm seeing since that's only possible to do in person. If I ever have the chance, I would love to come by your shop.

I didn't mean to imply that Taylor went with poly strictly for the goal of reduced production costs. What I meant was that companies don't adopt a new method or feature unless it can be paid for through reduced production costs, increased sales, or increased prices due to real or perceived (marketing) benefits. Or some combination. That's part of the inertia I was referring to. If an established method works, there is little incentive to make a change for the sake of innovation unless it can pay its way.

For me, applying more waterborne to the ding or chip worked best. I made 6-8 spot applications of finish, did an initial light leveling with a razor blade, and then sanded by pulling sand paper strips going through the whole series of grits and then polished. I've also done the sanding using just the corners of micro mesh pads, which worked. For the chips, which had sharp edges, I feathered the edges before applying finish. I tried CA on a couple dings in two-week-old finish on a top , but the difference in hardness was a problem for keeping the repair leveled with the surrounding finish during the sanding. Someone with more experience with the technique could probably make that work though, particularly on a fully cured finish.

Oh, yea, I just remembered I also repaired sand through a couple times on headstock edges . Same approach as above. Those repairs were invisible on very black ebony (no grain to hide in).

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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 for one would be very, very, very happy if I were able to match the finish applied at the Martin or Taylor factories. Fact is for me Martin 28's and above have always been my finish quality bench mark (still not even close) -- I personally spent much time in the auto industry evaluating, "copying" and improving on the best methods, processes and entire systems in the industry -- reverse engineering if you will. I do respect and have a high regard for innovators, but with something as finicky as surface coating it seems to me its best to go with a proven system. Especially when the new process "could have" quirks years down the road -- I don't need that hassle. The traditional products Nitro and Shellac no matter what brand are basic, almost identical chemically thus very predicable. On the other hand in comparison, the guys and gals using WB coatings are in the pioneering stages -- not a thing wrong with that, but vast product dissimilarities confound WB usage --- its just that the long term history has not been written.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Let's not resort to bringing hard core physics into the discussion.

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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

The Taylor road show I attended had the Taylor rep flat out calling finish a "tone killer". He went into detail about what they were trying to accomplish and why. He said it takes quite a while before a nitro finished guitar will finish out gassing and reach its final thickness. I remember wondering if this is what people equate to 'opening up'. The rep really didn't seem to be in 'market droid mode' when he talked about this. I get the impression Taylor is working very a hard on this.