The Steel Guitar Forum

Restoring a S10 ZB. Is there a preferred sheen? Can't decide thanks

most had a thick glossy clear coat. zb finishes were beautiful and strong.

I would have to say most PSGs have a gloss finish. Even the mica guitars seem to be high gloss. RP

I've got a bunch of coats of semi on there now which looks kind of cool in it's way but think I'll switch to gloss, which'll look best. Just looking for the extra push. Thanks for the above

What kind of clear coat are you using?...Brush on or spray?

I'm using Watco lacquer and spraying with HVLP sprayer. For color I chose TransTint concentrated dye after doing some research/reviews. great results with TransTint and it is CONENTRATED. Can use it with water, alcohol or use it to tint the lacquer. After dye to the body (green and some orange on the inlay), I added some green dye to the lacquer (not too much)for a translucent effect which starts to create a beautiful depth and dimension with each successive coat. Helps to smooth over little defects and problem areas too. I'll finish off with pure clear. When adding dye to the lacquer you have to mask off the inlay of coarse with thin auto body masking tape. A little tedious but it's worth it. Remove the tape when you switch to pure clear.Before I added dye to the lacquer, I seal coated the whole thing with sanding sealer.

Steve,
I've had issues spraying gloss over flat. Might have been something in the flat, but whatever it was, something didn't let the gloss get hard. It stayed kind of tacky. Wound up starting from scratch because you need a nice hard finish to wet sand and buff. RP
PS- Luv the Trans tint.
PPS- I some time read what you said after I've already posted My way to keep any dye from bleeding into your inlay is to mask all around your inlay(I use pin striping tape) and spray the inlay with sanding sealer/or clear shellac. Take the tape off and proceed.

Ron Pruter wrote:Steve,
I've had issues spraying gloss over flat.

My experience is limited to varnish, brushed, versus lacquer, sprayed. But the received wisdom was to build depth with many coats of gloss (perhaps eight), with an optional final coat of matte (aka satin or semigloss or "rubbed effect"), if straight gloss wasn't desired.

I'd work hard to remove any old finish before adding anything new.

Sand between each coat: very lightly for the initial coats (since there's not much finish built up yet), heavier for the later coats. Be sure to clean up carefully after sanding and use a tack cloth as you brush (that is, wipe a small area, then brush it).

Initial coats are significantly thinned; the final coats are barely thinned.

Let initial coats dry for 24 hours. Later coats should dry for a couple of days each.

For flat surfaces, the sanding's not too difficult. With care, the results are delightful.

Preston

Ron, since I'm using the same Watco product, and since this is Lacquer cut about 50% with lacquer thinner in order to spray, I wouldn't expect any problem with switching to gloss as each new coat 'burns in' to the previous one. I find lacquer, especially cut with lacquer thinner dries ridiculously fast and usually can be recoated in a few minutes. Plus I'd do some light sanding before spraying the gloss since what i've done so far has been curing a few days. Actually Woodcraft was out of quarts and only had spray cans of the same stuff. I figure the spray can must be cut about the same with thinner or it wouldn't spray.

Preston, I think lacquer's a different ball game than varnish. Especially when cut with thinner for spraying. You can recoat withing minutes as soon as it's not tacky successive coats 'burns' in the the previous and becomes one coat. Hopefully all this will remain true when I switch to gloss from a spray can
Your sure right about removing the old finish> I thought I did a good job but I was having a problem rubbing the dye in with rag smoothly on areas of middle deck which used to be natural wood tone (now green). But I didn't want to remove any more wood from this nice aged stuff. So I bought a $10 air brush, since I already had a little air rush compressor, from Woodcraft and mini sprayed the dye/alcohol solution and it worked like a charm.