Official Luthiers Forum!

Michael Payne just finished day one of his two day French polish class at Red Rocks Community College. He is a great teacher and really knows how to get across his technique.
Here are some pics.

Robbie,
Did you video it and are there any other of the OLF gang there?
Looks like a fun time and class. You guys wear gloves when FPing?
What's that green bottle? A Rolling Rock? You sure that's not a FP & Bartender Class?

Hey Chris,
I'll answer for Robbie at least partially. Myself and Mike Lindstrom were there. In the top pic I'm squatting at the workbench to Michael's right (I'm the bearded guy toward the front center in the denim shirt) and Mike L is directly behind Michael (he's the tall guy in the black shirt holding the piece of ribbon sappele). There may be others but I'm not sure. The class is a blast and Michael and Robbie are both great guys, as are all the others I met in the class. We did wear Nitrile gloves in the FP process and will be finishing up tomorrow. The green bottle belongs to the guy on the other side of me in that pic and it looks like a good bottle for some home brew but I believe he has some 2# cut shellac in there. At least, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If there are any other OLFers in the class I'm sure they'll chime in. And yes, that's a piece of quilted spalted Maple I'm working on in the "green bottle" pic.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

No, this time I didn't film the class.

It's been a great class. I am amazed at how dry the process is. It almost feels like I'm rubbing a chunk of beeswax on the wood. It seems that when I've done it in the past, I was way too wet. I was not french polishing. The wood still got shiny, but apparently this is better. And when I first tried to french polish, I had the same revelation. I couldn't believe using such little liquid was going to work. It did, but now I'm using way less and it's working much better. So far, I've kept my fingernails out of the way. We'll see how tomorrow goes...

_________________
Mike Lindstrom

Looks like a good time was had by all......


But where was the guitar???

Rolling Rock ... uhuh .. thats a Grolsch !!!

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

Right you are Tony...any self-respecting French Polisher knows that the gasketed ceramic tops of the Grolsch beer bottle make for a superb vessel for the various concentrations of shellac. I forced myself to drink a 6-pack years ago in order to accumulate the necessary shellac containers...what we won't sacrifice to support the craft!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Geez, JJ, you must have really had to choke that stuff down. How did you do it? However given certain circumstances, it seems not to matter what the brand of beer is. I remember drinking Ballentines Ale, as a last resort, at moments in my life.

By the way, who makes that much shellac up at a time? That would be enough to FP 4 guitars.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

In actual fact, Waddy, They are great bottles for storing any liquid where a good seal is important. When I buy Everclear, which is extremely hygroscopic, I transfer it into Grolsch bottles to keep the headspace to a minimum so that it doesn't absorb moisture from our relatively humid environment. Any shellac or other finish keeps quite well when sealed with minimal headspace. I just make sure to label them appropriately to avoid accidents when my alcoholic friends visit!

_________________
JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

What does it say about me that, when I first look at the first photo, all I see is the canoe hanging on the wall in the back? And then I start to analyze it for construction method and try to figure out what design it is...

THEN I look at the FP class huddled below.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

Canoe? I thought they were building a really big Mountain Dulcimer.

What a great class! Michael has a way about teaching others this art. And it is an art. This is such a technique sensitive process, but if you're willing to put the effort in, you no doubt will be thrilled with the finished product. Thanks to Robbie for putting this together! Dennis

Well I am back in town. I really enjoyed teaching class! All you guys were great. All in all the class did very well from start to finish.

A question that was commonly asked was in the proper shellac/alcohol load for boding. I tried to explain and hope I got the point over that 4-6 drops of shellac and 2-4 drops of alcohol were a good starting point but that it was more important to watch how the shellac was going on and to adjust you load accordingly. One of the attendees said that in my process that it appeared that the shellac was going on much like bees wax. This is in my mind a good description to keep in mind when adjusting the load properly.

Once again; I had a blast giving this class. Robbie and I are planning to do this again next summer. We are thinking a 4 day class that is not on a holiday weekend so that I could take everyone form start to finish on a guitar body.

Robbie thanks for having me. I look forward to next year!

Rolling cameras next time! I'll keep suggesting it until it happens!

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I'd like to have been there! Look like a great class. Thx, Tony

P.S. Nice to see the table saw in the first picture fore ground with all the safety guides removed.

_________________
**************
Tony Flippo