Video: Applying a Finish on a Homemade Electric Guitar

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Find out how to apply the finish on a homemade solid body electric guitar in this free video guide to making musical instruments.

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Video Transcript

Hi I'm Frank Pope and I'm here on behalf of Expert Village to give you some tips on how to build your own guitar. I'm going to talk to you about the kind of finish that you can put on your guitar. There are really two traditional finishes that are used on electric guitars. One is nitrocelulos laquer and that was used mainly by Gibson and Fender in the early days. The vintage Fender instruments and Gibson have it on them. It's a very soft finish. Takes a very long time to dry. You can buy nitroscelulos laquer from McFaddens. It comes in spray cans like this or you can buy it in a regular can and apply it with an air gun. Laquer you'll have to spray approximately 15 to 20 coats. You'll have to let it dry at least 30 to 45 days before you can do the final buffing of the instrument. And even when it is complete it will be somewhat soft. The other type of finish, which is very popular among moder builders, is what's called two part finish. This is acrylic finish, you'll mix 4 parts of this with one part of this. You can get this from McFaddens. This particular one is actually from Dupont. It is one molecule different from then the ones that they use as clear coat on the automobiles. This stuff is very volatile, can be dangerous to you. You have to wear a carbon filter mask to spray it or else you can poison yourself. It is known to cause cancer in the state of California. So if you live there don't use it. But you'll need to wear that mask and it's important because this dries by chemical reaction. If it gets in your lungs it will dry and it will stay there. There's no way to get it out. This provides a finish that dries in two hours, can be wet sanded in three, you can polish the instrument the next day and put it in a case and send it on the road. Acrylic finish is what's used on the high end guitars, in modern times. You don't have to have a spray gun to use it. You can utlilize one of these, which is a disposable spray gun. These things cost about $4. As you can see it's got a little canister on the bottom. You pour the contents in there, stir it up, put it on this, pull the cap off. You can spray it on your instrument and then toss this in the trash. You generally will only have to apply about 3 coats of the two part acrylic. Remember you'll need to sand it while it's still slightly plyable. Which will be in the first 12 hours.

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Applying a Finish on a Homemade Electric Guitar

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