Official Luthiers Forum!

I just sprayed some cat urethane on a guitar.It looks great except a little dirt and or maybe dust in the finish.How in the world do you folks clean your guitars enough before spraying.I cleaned it with naptha and thought it looked good.But it seems a little BS always gets in the finish.
James

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Clean gun. Clean finish room. Filtered air coming in. Blow off guitars, then use a tack cloth. Solvents and paper towels just seem to move some of the dirt around, not remove all of it.

James, Did you tack off the guitar with a tack cloth? Is your environment (booth) clean and dust free. Is your body clean (tyvek paint suit) I could go on and on............

Skin what the others said and I'll add that when I was doing my own finishing the tack cloths that I found at the Borg and Lowes were suspect to me that they may have silicon in them - so don't use those...... Just a very clean, lint free cloth.

Pros like Rick and Joe also go to great lengths to install venting and exhaust fans that will pull the crap away from the guitar and not pull new crap onto the guitar.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

do not wear one of those disposable spray suits...they shed a hell of a lot of cr@p which usually ends up on the work you are finishing!...I decided I'd rather have lacquer all over me than have cr@p in my finishes, and if you are spraying multiple coats in a short period of time its arguable that once you get covered with the stuff lint sticks there as opposed to getting on the work...

just my 2¢

Real paint suits don't shed anything. They are designed for protecting the sprayer and the item being sprayed. Don't really understand what type of paint suit would shed anything? Can you clarify?

cheap disposable ones available at places like Home Depot and such...yep, they are not 'real' suits as they certainly offer no real protection when dealing with highly toxic products...I have loads of work clothes so I really have no issue getting those covered with lacquer, hell they are already covered with Titebond II and look dirty even fresh out of the dryer! total ignorance led me to believe that use of such a disposable suit would limit contamination of work and I found the truth was quite the opposite...

the advice already given here about filtering, exhaust and use of proper tack cloths is dead on...

I`m thinking about a tack cloth.I know Hesh this may seem suspect ,but I`ve used them before on cabinetry and never had any issues.I`ve got to sand tommorrow,and then try a couple more coats.I know I need a dedicated spray booth that is set up properly.Hopefully this can be achieved in the future.
Thanks Skin

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Mike, Understood on the cheap Home Cheapot paint suit. A real paint suit is redily available at most paint centers or even automotive paint stores. They cost around 20 to 30 bucks and come hooded (recommended) or non hooded.

James, Any time you suspect a product might cause contamination, just run a test spray over something to see if any problems arise in the finish. better to have a failure on a test area that your guitar.

my problem is that lacquer seems to be an aphrodesiac to gnats. The minute I spray one coat of it the gnats from 4 different counties comes over to have a swim in the stuff. Another reason I am hiring out my finishing work to someone else.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Yeah, gnats taking liberties with guitars...that can be a problem. Luckily it's illegal here.

I hear ya Ken!! At least I live above the official gnat line, but I have the same problem, especially in summer, because I spray outside currently. I'm thinking of building a spray booth. I don't know what it is about lacquer, but bugs love the stuff. As far as the dust and such, I barely dampen a lint free cloth with naptha and wipe off the guitar after blowing off with compressed air, and still get the occasional somethinorother in the finish. At least with nitro, it's not noticed after rubbinig out. Of course, I do have to remove the occasional gnat that is looking for his lacquer "fix".

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Brad Tucker

I hear you Joe.And the test piece came out perfect.Wouldn`t you know.I think as Rick stated,any kind of solvent just spreads crud around.I`m gonna vacuum and then tack after sanding tommorrow.I don`t think there will be adhesion problems.I`ve got some finish stuck to my thumb that I`m sure will be there for eternity.
SKIN

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

We have "noseeums" (biting flies that are so small you can hardly seeum!) here & they too are attracted to the scent of fresh finish.
You sure can seeum when they hit your fresh lacquer though! They wiggle around enough, before the fumes overcome them, to make it right to the bottom of the lacquer. Out with the scalpel, dig 'em out & drop fill the hole.
The new spray booth will be ready before my next finishing job! Whew!
I understand the reluctance to rub a sticky rag (tack cloth) all over your freshly sanded guitar... But it's a good idea to get past it... I know of no other way to safely remove the fine dust that resists all other removal strategies.
Fold the tack cloth so it presents a flat surface (no sharp wrinkles) to the surface. A crease in the cloth can leave a streak of residue on your guitar. Use firm (ish), even pressure & avoid putting extra pressure on edges. I'm not sure if the residue will mess up the finish, but I don't want to find out, either.
When spraying outside, I found it effective to hold the guitar above my head with the top facing down while spraying. For some reason I seem to trap fewer (often no) bugs that way. This only works if you hold your instrument in one hand while spraying with the other.
I like to hand hold my work so I can keep moving & turning it so the light is always glancing off the working area.
Good Luck.

Jim, I use tack cloth too. I also clean the booth each time before spraying. I have a broom handy, and just go after all inner surfaces of the booth, and usually whack the filters and then...

I take my air gun and slap it in my hose, and blow off all surfaces, including the guitar bodies and necks. All of this with the fan running to help clear any airborne dust particles.

Finishing.....

..... the other half of Building.

I sanded and then tacked this morning with tack cloth from lowe`s .It came out real clean.
YIPEE SKIN

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Great to hear James! There are also tack cloths known as "Low Residual" we used these between matallic base coats in auto refinishing. They are basically less tacky and less prone to leave behind any tackifier. Now Post Some PICS!!!

Joe I`ll post pics when I`m done.More coats to go and then buff out.Thanks for your help.
SKIN

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

the one trick I've found with tack cloths is to just very lightly drag them across the surface

What Rick said. Solvents are not dust removers, but they can extract dyes from the wood and blur its natural contrasts. Blow off and then tack cloth is all the cleaning you need.

Also, there are some utterly useless Chinese tack cloths on the market. Watch out for them.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

There are a lot of utterly useless Chinese products on the market here. They're designed to extract dollars from us so we can borrow them back to buy more lead infused toys for our kids and other products that will poison our landfill sites forever.