Official Luthiers Forum!

Is it necessary to sand off all the shiny spots when sanding between groups of coats of Nitro.It seems to me this is impossible without sanding completely thru the finish.
James W B

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

I sand completely flat after 8-10 coats ... nothing till then, unless I dropfill and want to flattten that along the way .... then shoot the final 4-5. let cure.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I sand lightly after the first couple of coats, but not enough to get bare spots. Tony probably shoots thinner build coats than me, because I can usually sand flat after about 5-6 coats. I then add 1 or 2 coats (thin, just on the verge of running), sand flat with 800 (1000 if I can get away with it), let it cure for 2-4 weeks before I start the wet sanding, buffing and polishing.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I`m not exactly shure what I`m doing .After 3 coats of Nitro I`ve lighly sanded and I can see tiny shiny specks.Is it fine to proceed with more coats or should I sand until these specks are gone ,like when pore filling?
James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

There is no need at all to sand for adhesion of subsequent coats.

If you started with a good pore fill and you are not spraying too much "orange peel," you should be able to spray most of your coats, do one level sand, and then spray a couple of topcoats and be done spraying; then let it cure before sanding and rubbing out. If you are getting rougher orange peel, you need to sand it out and refine your lacquer mix, spray equipment, technique, whatever. In theory (and sort of in practice, if you don't mind a thick finish, which you should mind) you could keep spraying with a lot of orange peel until a lot of lacquer is built up and then sand all the orange peel out. Much better to fix the application problem now, if that's what is going on.

When doing the level sand like you are now, it's not necessary to get out 100% of the glossy spots. More like getting rid of 90% of them.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Thanks Howard for this reply ,which I can understand.I appreciate it. James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Make sure you get it completely flat prior to going to the buffing wheel.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com