Official Luthiers Forum!

I know that pre-catalyzed lacquer must be restricted to no more than 3 coats so has anyone tried building with normal nitro and finishing with a coat or two of pre-cat? It seems like a way to get a fast cure to avoid the long wait for normal nitro to get hard enough to polish. I suspect it won't work since the undercoats would still be shrinking but has anyone tried it?

Not going to work. The harder precat will wrinkle and crack because you cannot put a harder coating over a softer one.

The restrictions on precat or post cat systems have little to do with number of coats applied. It is about keeping final working films under 5 mills after buffing.Depending on actual solids content and thickness of wet spray you will find that 7 coats is about the actual maximum.

If you want fast cure and harder finish just use a precat for the whole thing.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks, this is pretty much what I expected. I tried pre-cat on three guitars and ended up refinishing all three due to crazing, swore I'd never use it again.