Refinishing my Squier Jaguar (brushing nitro)

[j-stylez]

I'm sharing my experience and results brushing on nitrocellulose lacquer. It's work in progress and since there isnt much info and reports about this approach, I'll add a bit of my personal experience. Hope this goes well, so far it seems to be alright.

Here's where I'm at:

- stripped my ex-surfgreen Squier CV 70s Jaguar body of its thick poly finish with a heatgun
- Did some sanding to remove remaining bits and get it all level, 320
- wiped on a couple layers of shellac as a barrier between whatever was below that poly finish I took off and the nitro lacquer I'm brushing on
- very light sanding to level out any remaining unevenness resulting from the shellac
- started with nitro sanding sealer, brushed that on and sanded level to 320 again, that gave me a quite smooth surface

Now the interesting part, brushing the first layer of nitro lacquer. I use a Vintage white nitrocellulose lacquer meant for spraying. I thin it with about 10% retardant and 10% regular thinner, which gives me a consistency that flows out of the brush fairly ok. One I noticed is that my brush is still too hard, some bristles leave valleys that dont flow out well. I am getting a softer fan brush from artist supplies for the remaining layers.

The first layer was difficult, working on getting the thinning ratio right. It was still a bit too thick at first.

I am wearing proper protection gear and working outdoors.

After a day I do the next coat, really light brush strokes to not dig into lower layers, only touch an area once during the pass. Which is freaking hard haha

I have about 5-7 layers on there now, and it is now a solid color, cant see the wood through in any areas. I am letting it gas off for a day or two, then I'll start sanding down the major brush marks and drips. Then I will let it gas off some more, followed by hitting any sand through spots with a small soft brush or using drop fills.

Then, some finer sanding for those spots, something like 800 and let it gas off for a week or two, followed by final sanding and polishing.

It looks pretty ugly right now, so we'll see how that all goes. A lot of the lacquer that is on there will be sanded off. The major blotches are results of covering up some other brush marks and ensuring I at least have coverage before sanding it all level.

I am somewhat confident though that it will go well. Wish me luck!

 

[RodeoTex]

I wish you well but I see a lot of block sanding in your future.
Lacquer doesn't brush well.

 

[stormin1155]

Curious why you chose brushing rather than a rattle can.

 

[ChicknPickn]

Probably would have gone with wipe-on poly if I couldn't spray.

 

[Boreas]

You are likely to find out why you can find no information on brushing nitro. It just dries too fast. Assuming you can get that level-sanded, the thick layer of nitro will likely check and crack prematurely. Respectfully, if you don't want to use a rattle-can, I would consider using a relatively inexpensive Preval system where you can use the nitro you have and still spray it in very thin layers that nitro requires.

 

[S00NERMAN]

I would wait a heck of a lot longer than a couple of days to start sanding though.

 

[j-stylez]

Definitely, I will just take down some high spots so that the solvents can evaporate better, final sanding will take place a week or two later.

 

[j-stylez]

Curious why you chose brushing rather than a rattle can.

I like brushing, and I found some people who have managed. I can get really nice colors here for little money of the straight lacquer, but the cans are expensive, so I can finish something like 4 guitars for the price of one if it works out. My investment was low.

I have sprayed nitro from cans before, i have brushed poly, I have done shellac french polish, oil, 2k cans,... I like to experiment

 

[Tarkus60]

Good luck you are gonna need it!

 

[bullfrogblues]

Another tip: always brush "with" the grain.

 

[j-stylez]

I hit the bad boy with the good old 400 (wet) as the larger streaks were not easy to remove with 800 grit. I took down all the extreme spots and got a good idea of the general coverage. Lost opaquity in a couple of spots, but no real sand throughs. Now I know which areas are still a bit on the lighter side. Letting it dry some more, then continue with a couple more coats (with the grain )

Here's the current status, still a little rough but much better. I dont want to take more off the edges, I'll only do these in the final sanding Session, when I built up enough layers, as they are tricky to cover well.

 

[j-stylez]

I also want to share my sources of knowledge on this controversial topic, this guy here can probably be regarded as the messias of the new church of brushing nitro:
It's brushing lacquer, but the process has worked before

 

[Greg2222]

Interesting, I'm curious to see how this goes. I've sprayed lacquer on a dozen or so guitars. I've always seen people say it can't be brushed on, but never much on why not. So I suppose we'll both learn something.

 

[DCCable]

Brushing lacquer is a thankless job. One suggestion would be to switch to really good automobile finishing grade sand paper from a auto paint store instead of Home Depot's sand paper; and get down to 2000, 2500 grit. From there as you get the surface flat work up to 3500/5000 grit and then move to auto finish rubbing compound. For what it's worth I use wipe on poly followed by spray lacquer.

 

[ChasboyOne]

I do wish you luck. My Dad was a cabinetmaker and he gave up on lacquer once the polys came out. Between the toxicity and smell, he had to get away from it.
Not to be too critical, but from the first pic I never thought you would get to where you are now. I agree with DCCable, since in my experience with lacquer, I treated it like an automotive product, finishing with common auto products.

 

[j-stylez]

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate it. I am already equipped with high quality sand paper in 600 and 800, but i'll only get to those in the final sanding session when all is dry and hard. I'll switch to micromesh after that and follow up with polishing on my disc sander with abrasive pads and finally swirl remover by hand. When I'm at that point, it's easy. The Challenge is getting the lacquer on, and getting it leveled uniformly before I may continue with the finer work.

 

[WalATX]

I wish you luck boss. I’m watching to see how you handle it.

I tried brushing lacquer and had to strip it off and start over with spray. I could not get it to look good, but the rattle can was okay.

If I could do it over I’d 50/50 thin some oil poly and wipe it on.

 

[j-stylez]

I now also acquired a small fan brush, like this fella: Nitro brusher over here

That should allow me to brush thinner layers than before, since I dont need much more thickness and want to focus on building up some lacquer in those spots where it is too low or where I still have some brush marks.

 

[stratisfied]

You must have really hated the color that was on the guitar.

I get maybe you didn't want to spray lacquer but how did you think you could put on an acceptable finish with a paint brush compared to the expensive, automated painting system used at the factory?

If you can get the color sanded level, do yourself a big favor and buy a can of Minwax Gloss Wipe-on Polyurethane (oil based) to finish it with. You'll be able to apply clear coats very smoothly with very little effort and get an acceptable result. You can even go Satin if you are wanting a slightly "aged" look rather than a hard, high gloss.

 

[Greg2222]

You must have really hated the color that was on the guitar.

I get maybe you didn't want to spray lacquer but how did you think you could put on an acceptable finish with a paint brush compared to the expensive, automated painting system used at the factory?

If you can get the color sanded level, do yourself a big favor and buy a can of Minwax Gloss Wipe-on Polyurethane (oil based) to finish it with. You'll be able to apply clear coats very smoothly with very little effort and get an acceptable result. You can even go Satin if you are wanting a slightly "aged" look rather than a hard, high gloss.

Poly over nitro is a terrible idea, they are only compatible the other way