French Polish: First Attempts

[glasalle1]

Update on the Prairie State body. I finished the French Polish, and hit it with a little Meguire's Swirl Remover. L-00 is done, and I will let it sit for a few days before I hit that with the swirl remover. This week. I buff out the necks that were True Oiled. Next step after that I think is to get a peg head reamer, and get the peg head in shape for the hardware. Then final neck setting, and getting the bridge on. Thankfully I have John's videos as reference!!

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Glenn

[David L]

That is an awesome looking finish there, after seeing yours I may want to try my hand at French Polishing one of these days!

David L

[johnnparchem]

Very nice!

[Tony_in_NYC]

Really? This is your first attempt at FP? You are making it look easy!

[Darryl Young]

That looks great! You should post your process.

[glasalle1]

That looks great! You should post your process.

My process is pretty simple, I am Essentially using the Milburn process (do google search), with some of Robbie o'Brien thrown in. I load my inner cheese cloth as Milburn describes, then use the process laid out by Robbie O'Brien. I just did a lot of coats put on very thin, and slowly (over a 1 to 2 week period for each guitar) build up. After the first 4 or so sessions, I leveled with 1200 grit, then did another 4 or 5 sessions, let it cure for a few days, then rubbed out with Meguire's swirl remover. Process wasn't hard, having the patience to slowly add was very hard :-).

Glenn

[glasalle1]

I finished hand buffing with Meguire's Swirl remover - here they are. The neck angles went out slightly, so some minor tweaking to get them in line again, and then on to putting on the neck hardware, and looking to align the bridge. I made several bridges that are at slightly different thicknesses, so will pick the ones that make the most sense. All appointments on the guitars are Mad RW, and I made the bridges out of Mad RW (as well as a couple out of BRW).

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Glenn

[johnnparchem]

Nice looking finish work. I french polished my classical guitar using the milburn method, except for their pore fill. Their description of the body sessions and spirting and glazing were great.

I tried to pore fill their way for an an entire weekend making no progress. I did do a pumice and shellac fill but I was a lot looser with the pumice and the shellac than they advice, but with good results. Robbie uses dyed drywall paste with good results.

[tippie53]

Yup they look like guitars from here

[Tony_in_NYC]

Nice guitars, nice finish! It wont be long until they are singing! Or, if you play as poorly as I do, it wont be long until they are screaming!