Finished with ubeaut French Polish of my classical guitar.

[David L]

I really like that finish John, It is nicely done. I see that you have side purfling, can you tell me what your binding/purfling line-up is? What materials and sizes?

David L

[johnnparchem]

Thanks!

I bought the bindings and purflings from LMI. The bindings were East Indian Rosewood with a basswood laminate for the side purfling. On the top and the back I had a black\white purfling. The purfling I bought was the full depth of the binding so I just had to route one channel.

All Binding measures 1/4” x .080” x 32” The laminate is .020 thick.
purfling, BW, 1/4” x .020”

[David L]

It sure does look like the side purfling is wider than .020". I checked LMI and found the binding. I used .020" white purfling on the back of my Dread and it looks like a pin stripe compared to yours. Maybe my eyes are playing tricks on me, one of them there optical delusions.

David L

[Ken Hundley]

Gorgeous, John. Keep it up!

[jrc127]

I'm considering FP for my first kit and just saw the hard shellac on LMI website today. I was wondering if it's possible to use a hand mixed shellac for the buildup coats and then finalize with a coat or two of ubeaut. Actually I'm thinking if after a few months the regular shellac is not wearing well if I could go back and put on a couple of coats of the hard.

Thoughts?

[Jim_H]

/raises hand

John, that guitar looks terrific.

Can you share your FP schedule? Is it available online?

[deadedith]

Gorgeous, John, just gorgeous.
That finishing schedule would be good thing to save to my computer for future reference.

[johnnparchem]

Thanks!

The finish above is only French polish, with no buffing or polish with any compounds. Traditionally that is the way they are left.

As for a schedule ...
After I have pore filled and sealed the guitar with a wash of shellac I do not use a schedule. Rather it is a process. The process dictates how long I go during a session and how many sessions I do. With French polish you can alwauys go back a step when there is a problem. I asked Robbie O’Brien how long one should go when FPing and he said right before your arm is going to fall off.

This guitar has a zpoxy fill on the back, sides and neck. I used between three and 4 sessions of zpoxy. After the guitar was nicely filled I wiped on a very thin coat of zpoxy diluted maybe a touch more than 10% with DA. I hit it with 1200 grit paper, just to knock off any nibs.

Once the zpoxy cured I gave the whole guitar about three thin padded on coats of 1lb cut amber shellac that I made from LMIs amber flakes.
After that I start applying body coats with 50% diluted ubeaut hard shellac . As I described earlier I put about 6 sessions worth of polishing on during the boding stage. Each session for me includes charging the inside wad in my muneca. I actually dunk a wad of lambs wool in the shellac and squeeze most of it out. I place the wad in a 4 x 4 piece of cotton. Fold and twist until I can get a little shellac to squeeze out. I back off and blot the muneca off as I do not want anything resembling a drop or drip. For each session I lightly apply the shellac with long ways strokes. I keep applying until things get a little sticky. At that point I put a drop of oil on the muneca and use small swirls to cover the surface I am working on, usually a few times around. As the pad dries out and it is harder to swirl, I get rid of the swirls with relatively hard long ways strokes until the surface looks pretty good and there are no swirls and very few streaks. Through all of this the pad should not stop on the guitar. Also when doing the long strokes pretend you’re an airplane coming in for a smooth landing.

After enough boding sessions I spirit off the polish. The pad is charged with only alcohol; dunk a wad of lambs wool in the alcohol and squeeze most of it out and place it back in the cloth. Not so much that it will drip. I do long strokes with the grain, very gently, evenly across the guitar until the pads starts drying out. As it is drying out I am applying more and more pressure burnishing the finish. I watch the alcohol evaporation trail to know when I should apply more pressure and when the pad is dried out. On the back I did this three times. I lost count on the other parts. I basically did it until I was happy with the look.
If you ever want to FP watch Robbie O’Briens FP online class. You almost see it in real time. I also read Milburn's description http://www.milburnguitars.com/fpbannerframes.html. I tried to pore fill their way on my first classiclal and had little success. But there FP description is excellent.

[johnnparchem]

I'm considering FP for my first kit and just saw the hard shellac on LMI website today. I was wondering if it's possible to use a hand mixed shellac for the buildup coats and then finalize with a coat or two of ubeaut. Actually I'm thinking if after a few months the regular shellac is not wearing well if I could go back and put on a couple of coats of the hard.

Thoughts?

I am not so sure if I would do that. I did put a few coats of amber shellac I made up for the amber color. The ubeaut really went on nicely. I still have more than half of the bottle.

I put a longer description of my process in the post just before this one. I notice this one bumped to a new page.

[Jim_H]

Thanks John! That is awesome information =)