Official Luthiers Forum!

Is the General wipe on poly satin or gloss and where can you buy it? I did a search online and found lots of General finishes, but no wipe on poly.

http://www.generalfinishes.com/where-buy
What I have is,
"Seal-A-Cell" clear sealer,
and "Arm-R-Seal" oil and urethane topcoat, gloss.
I pretty sure they make a semi gloss.
I wouldn't use it on some porous woods on an acoustic,
or any acoustic top, but it might be okay.
I did a test on a side cutoff of mahogany,
and it went all the way through the pores on a .095" piece.
Really tough surface.
Good for an electric,
and I think good for less porous wood back and sides.
I bought it at Mt. Storm, a hardwood store in Windsor CA,
which is where I live.
I'm lucky, Mt Storm 10 minutes away,
LMI 7 minutes away,
Allied lutherie 13 minutes away,
yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You are very lucky. I almost moved to Healdsburg about 18 years ago, before I knew you could hand build a guitar. Stupidist thing I ever did was not to. I was ready to make an offer on a nice house there. I had this idea that I wanted to raise goats and make goat cheese and the house had the acres that I wanted, but they were all planted in income producing Zinfandel, no room for the goats! I didn't make the offer! Wendy

Before I tried a wipe-on polyurethane I had read Mario Proulx's post to this forum saying that it doesn't hold up. The finishes on my test pieces seemed so hard that I just had troubles believing him so I did finish a guitar with the Min-wax product. Sure enough, before too long it was wearing off of the neck, making it feel bumpy. I ended up sanding it off and French polishing it which I have found, surprisingly, much more durable (at least on a neck).

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

+1 on the French Polish.

It's easy enough to do and it costs very little. True, it won't hold up to abuse as much as nitro or poly, but I figure we treat our self-made instruments with more care and respect.

A well done FP looks fabulous, IMO. You don't need expensive spray equipment and it's less harmful than most other finishes. If you take good care of your instrument, there's no reason a good FP shouldn't outlive you. In fact, IIRC, Mr. Carruth once mentioned that FP takes a very long time to become impervious to water.

And, if all else fails, shellac is thin enough and will sand off very easily if you decide to go another finish route. You've got nothing to lose.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...