Started rubbing out the finish this weekend

[Kevin Sjostrand]

So after waiting 3 weeks, I started the wet sanding and polishing of the Maca dred. I checked and have .009" thickness on this puppy.
I was going to wait 4 weeks, but the delivery time has been moved up a month on this one so I had to get started.
It went well, starting sanding with 600 grit, then to 800, 1000 and 1500. I purchased the surbufs for my RO sander, and thought I'd try that with the rubbing compound. It appeared to be working great. Did the back first and got an awesome shine. Went on the the sides, was looking good until I got into the waist......on both sides I started to go through the finish. The reason? Well, I had worm holes in the waist areas that I had filled, but these areas remained low all through my spraying process. I obviously did not prepare this area adequately. So I put some extra lacquer down in the waists at the end of the spraying; about 4 coats. I figured I'd have plenty to sand away and make level. WRONG. I had it level, but so thin (I guess) that when polishing, I went through. So I masked off, and sprayed 4 coats in the waists. I'll let that dry for a few days and then I will HAND RUB the waist so I don't take too much finish away. I think I will be okay. Today I started polishing the top, same process. Endind with NOvus #2 polish and the surbuf pad. It looks awesome......until I got it right under a strong incandesent light. There are little teenie tiny pits scattered around on the surface. They don't even show up when you look across the finish, just directly down on it with the intense light. Did I not wet sand the finish enough? Do I need to go to a finer grit? I am puzzled. I also see some swirl marks, but I plan to use a swirl remover on there as well.
This will be by far the best finish I've done thus far, but I don't like those little pits. Any suggestions?
This is Behlens nitro over their vinyl sealer. I took some pictures, but they really don't show much...not even how shiny it is.
I'll post some when it is all put together and strung up...hopefully next weekend.

Kevin

[David L]

Sounds good Kevin, can't wait to see pictures of it all nice and shiny!

David L

[Tony_in_NYC]

I did that on my first guitar. But I used the nitro thinned 50/50 as a sealer so I just used more nitro on top to fix my sand throughs. I cant offer you any advice on your fix, but if nobody else can either, I would recommend contacting Behlens for advice.
Good luck!

[tippie53]

tiny bubble or pits in the finish can be from a few things. Most often dust or tiny micro air bubbles. I use a retarder and thing 10%. Not much you can do at this point but shoot a few more coats. Are you using cans or sprayer ?

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Air sprayer, sprayed at 45 psi. Thinned Behlens lacquer instrument stringed lacquer with 10% reducer andd 10% retarder. Two coats of vinyl sealer, and 12 coats of lacquer. Before final sanding, I have about .009" on there, so I figure I am ending up with around .005".
These are not everywhere, just isolated areas, and then are definately on the surface. Shouldn't be dust, I was in my spray booth, but I suppose that is still possible. Where would air bubbles come from? Next time I hope to have a HVLP system to spray with.
I'm going to try and wetsand a little more where I can spot these things using 1500 grit and see if I can reduce or get rid of them.
Doesn't show much, but here are a couple of pics.

Kevin

[johnnparchem]

Kevin, the guitar and the finish looks great. Whatever your talking about does not seem to effect the way the guitar looks like in the pictures.

[tippie53]

shyny

[David L]

That sure is looking good!!!

David L

[Tony_in_NYC]

NICE!! I hope you can sort out your issues. Its going to be a heck of a guitar when it is done.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I hope so to Tony. I was wanting this finish to be a big improvement over the last one, so I am being pretty finicky. I don't have enough time now to respray so I will have to deal with it.
I don't think I could even get a picture to show the "teenie tiny" spots.

Kevin