guitar 5

A while ago I posted a picture of a project in progress. Last day of the holidays today and I managed to sneak off to the man cave garage for a couple of hours to do some finishing on the body and neck; both are very nearly ready for staining and varnish. As I don't have professional spray equipment I tend to finish guitars using 4-6 coats of water based varnish (much thinner than oil based) followed by wax applied with very fine wire wool; it makes a quite durable, semi-matt finish.

If you happen to be doing something similar, a good tip is to use a scraper to remove old finish or to reshape instead of sanding. You can buy scrapers but you can also make them yourself: take a stanley knife blade and run one side of the blade against a hard steel surface e.g. the jaws of a vice or similar. This turns the edge of the blade over and makes a very fine cutting edge which, when pulled along, will remove very thin layers and leave a very clear surface.

Having re-read this entry, I'm off to don an old knitted jumper with elbow pads and smoke a pipe or two. Toodle pip!