Zinsser BIN under black lacquer? & other finish questions

I don't know what kind of wood you're finishing, but my take would be to apply sealer, sand to 600, color it with your black, then go over with clear lacquer.

 

BIN is formulated to block stains...it may even say on the can "not for use as a whole primer".
I know shellac is used as an undercoat...but the heavy amount of pigment in the BIN white pigmented shellac makes it a poor whole surface primer.

 

Wait - are you going to be storing this guitar on your patio?

 

I assume you are finishing a piece of wood.

Forget all that stuff you listed above.

I will also assume you already bought a can of Rustoleum and you won't switch for something better. In that case:

Apply sanding sealer (e.g. Deft, Watco, etc.)

Sand back to 600, apply your black lacquer, then clear over it (I'd do 6 coats.)

Then you'll have a nice black guitar.

I don't know why you want to mess around with shellacs & sealing primers and such. Is this knotty pine or something?

 

OK, just saw your most recent reply...

Want a really durable finish? Then (God help you) do what the other guy over in the other thread is doing, and use catalysed car poly. You could drive your guitar down a salty Michigan highway, and the finish should hold up very nicely.

 

The finish you want is black lacquer. As practised by the Japanese, it's plain black lacquer, polished by hand.

Not very durable though. If you want a black lacquer finish, do as I wrote above, and do 2 or 3 color coats, followed by 4-6 coats of clear. That's how Gibson does it, for example.

Seal your wood first, if you're using anything other than maple. If it's an open-pore wood, like ash, oak, mahogany, etc, then apply filler as well. Color won't matter under black lacquer.

 

Shouldn't be necessary, though I still don't know exactly what it is you're finishing.

You can mess with the grain if you want, though that really shouldn't be necessary either, unless we're talking spruce or bamboo. Sand, seal, (fill,) sand, color, clear, sand & polish.

 

Then you want 3 coats of black under 6 coats of clear.

 

Re: sealer, yes.

YES.

Re: having it "wear in," I guess you could do that. Depends on how long you plan to keep the guitar, I suppose, and how quickly you want it to wear in.

If you want it to look like the 5-year-old occasional furniture in the lobby at your local sushi joint, after only a few months, then I guess you can skip the clear. I wouldn't though.

 

OK, well, if you think about a Gibson finish, they are not really as durable as the poly finishes that come on modern Fenders. Not even nearly.

After a few months of playing, say, an SG or a Les Paul, you will see plenty of fine "fingernail scratches" aroudn the knobs & such. The area at the top of the guitar where your right forearm rests will start to look a little dull (most noticeable on their black guitars, by the way.)

After a few years, you may start to see the finish wearing through to bare wood in certain areas on the back of the neck, depending on how you play, if you're a "thumb over" kind of guy, etc.

I would suggest to you that this is the type of finish you should aim for. If you want it all to happen faster, then use fewer coats of clear.

But yes, you can dispense with all the Zinsser stuff, etc. I missed the part about using alder, sorry. For that, yes, you are correct, all you need is Deft lacquer sanding sealer.

Your black will cover mostly everything. It is a very forgiving finish. The clear on top is to give it some depth, and some protection, and to enable you to level the finish through sanding & polishing without having to worry about compromising your color coats.