Official Luthiers Forum!

I can't remember any mention of this possibly silly question, so I'll ask it. How long should you wait before removing masking around bridge and fretboard extension patches with lacquer? It seems to me that it works better to remove it sooner rather than later (before the lacquer starts to become more brittle and/or prone to chipping).

TIA,

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

Well I dont do mine that way ... but ... in another thread it was mentioned that you do all the wetsanding and buffing out PRIOR to removing - you dont want any contamination under there.

When Joe W or Tony F spray folks guitars, it stays on till the very end I think.

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

Hi Ken,
I remove the tape just after I have buffed the finish.
Like you said, it seems that there are less risks to remove chips of lacquer.
One thing that I do before I remove fingerboard tape is to give a few strokes of the fret beveling file in order to cut the lacquer at the border of the fretboard.

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Christophe Grellier

After the buff is the right time to do it. If you know how thick your tape is you can sand back to the tape and then you will know how thick the lacquer is around the bridge and fingerboard area. Stop before you get into the tape edge, the buffer can put it off and take lacquer from outside the bridge with it and that could make for a bad day.

All info mentally noted (better yet, I think I'll write it down!)

Thanks, everyone... I appreciate the feedback!

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Ken Mitchell
Durham, NC

I could never really see any reason to use tape in the first place. I'd be interested so hear if there are any that have done it both ways and still tape off the bridge prior to finish.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.