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Hello all,
Finishing up first classical guitar and I'm in the last stage. I want to give it a French Polish finish. I found an online course from Robert O'Brien for $50. Has anyone bought this course? Would you recommend it? Any other suggestions?
Thanks for any info!!

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Yes and yes, it was a great course and Robbie is a great teacher!

Highly recommended!

I generally think Robbie's videos are great. I have not seen that particular course, but I trust it will be good.

Another suggestion: Tom Bills at the Art of Lutherie website. Here's my take on his educational videos in general, but also why I think his French Polishing course is especially good:

Tom spends a lot of time explaining things. Every single little detail. No stone unturned. Frankly, for some of his other videos, I wind up getting just a tiny bit impatient. Not angry impatient, because I know he means to not leave anybody behind. Just impatient impatient. If it were a book, I might skim those pages.

With the French Polishing, though, that slow pace is exactly what is needed. He doesn't skip anything, hardly. He pretty much takes a guitar from sanded wood to fully finished right there on camera, talking the whole time about what he is doing and why he is doing it. I think it is an excellent resource, and I highly recommend it.

Robbie O'Brien's online French Polish course was recommended to me by several luthiers who I greatly respect - i've only French polished to complete instruments so far, but found Robbie's instruction to be an incredible help. The great thing about Robbie's French polish video series is that he takes you through each component of the instrument top, back, sides, neck, and speaks to very specific considerations for each area. Sizing for the spruce top, different approaches to pore filling for the back versus the neck.

His method is not the most traditional, but it gives great French polish results with all of the benefits.

I've gone through both. The Art of Lutherie is far more detailed and explanatory. He also takes you through the traditional method of pore filling.

Robbie's process is faster. Tom Bills' is slower and much more exacting.

I've had much better results with Tom's method.

Steve

+1

This is the process I use --- On-line ---- Free!

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

The Milburn tutorial is all I ever used to learn French Polishing. The very first guitar I did came out great. Personally I don't think French Polishing is as difficult as most would lead you to believe. But tutorials certainly help. Some of the issues you run into when trying to go it on your own is, how much shellac? How much Pressure? How much Pumice? And that sort of thing which can be addressed in either a class room or a video way better than an article but still. This worked well for me:

https://www.guitarsint.com/article/Intr ... al_Guitars

I do things a bit differently now like for example I brush on several coats of shellac at first just to get the base up fast. And I think what you will find with most things in guitar making you learn to do something and then you apply your own experience and knowledge to it and then it becomes your own way.

Thank you all f
or the great input. I think I'm going to give Tom Bills a try. It looks like The Art of Lutherie website has a lot of info I want to look into.
Thanks again!!

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