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Thinking about trying a UV finish
I read doncoparker’s post about Clear Armor.
I’ve been looking at Solarez.
Looking for suggestions on what makes a good UV finish on an acoustic guitar.

Thanks

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

I have played around with solar rez as a pore (or is that poor) filler. It seems to keep bleeding out, perhaps stuff that soaks into the wood doesn’t get cured, or perhaps it doesn’t like rosewood. I did seal it with shellac before filling. I live at 7000 ft in the south west, so I have plenty of uv.
It looked very good initially, but over time it started to bleed under my finish causing me to have to strip a finish.
Wish it worked.
Again I was only looking for a filler.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

The ability to get it thin and relatively durable.

I believe UV Polyester is falling out of favour and UV Polyurethane is gaining traction. The first tends to want to form thicker coats than the latter, even though ‘it’s about how much you leave on’ etc. It may be too hard as well, adding unwanted stiffness. I’ve had reports from friends that say it raised the top freq significantly after paint. I found the polyester to be disappointing on my instruments, haven’t had the chance to try the polyurethane yet, but those that have had both report thinner final film coats with the urethane.

I tried hard with CleanArmour but eventually ran out of time to play with it, but I haven’t given up on it yet. I know that their porefill works for me, just never got around to playing with it on a guitar for topcoat. Moved, ran out of time, and hardly do any gloss anyway.

Solarez didn’t work for me, but I tried it so long ago it was before I knew you needed a coat of shellac on oily woods, and it didn’t dry. YMMV…

I had to pause my experiments with Clean Armor last year because of a complicated, 2 year moving plan that has left me without a decent shop until the fall of 2027.

When I ceased, I was happy with what I was seeing from Clean Armor. My goal was to get the features we all want from a gloss finish, but to get what I want from hand application of a UV cure line of materials, rather than needing to spray. Clean Armor looks very promising for someone interested in the same thing. If you prefer spraying, other products may be a better choice. You should ask Brad Combs about spraying UV cure finish. He’s got it dialed in.

There are a few recommendations I would make regarding Clean Armor. Use the instrument finish line, rather than the general wood finish line. Always start with their sealer, no matter what species of wood you are finishing. Err on the side of using the pore filler, even with wood species that don’t normally need filling; it’s just a handy way to get to a completely flat surface. Use a thick enough coat of any of the products to let it cure properly; super thin coats of Clean Armor can have issues curing. Buy a higher quality curing lamp. Don’t start level sanding until several minutes after a cure; it will feel hard to the touch, but it needs a few minutes after a cure. After those few minutes, it will sand to powder just great, but if you rush it, the sanding won’t accomplish much.

I look forward to hearing how other folks’ experiments with Clean Armor turn out while I am shopless for another year.

I'm moderately active on another forum that features a lot of builders (mostly electric) and Solarez was discussed quite a bit at one point. I don't remember the details but could go back and do a search. There were enough issuses to convince me not to want to try it.

Thanks for all the input, we are scraping the UV finish

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Say what you do, Do what you say.