Spraying Nitrocellulose Lacquer

NITROCELLULOSE FINISH HISTORY 

Nitrocellulose is historically a very forgiving finish. Many mistakes have been made and fixed within 1 coat. Spatter, runs, orange peel. It is all repairable.

Nitrocellulose is a highly sought after finish for a reason. It is all top manufacturers most expensive/ top of the line finishes. It has been used in the finishing of musical instruments for over 100 years. It provides a durable finish while aging with the player. It is light and thin and lets the instrument resonate and vibrate more freely than any other protective finish. Poly finishes do not. Poly finishes are very thick, weigh a ton, and when they do chip or crack it looks terrible. Oil finishes are nice, but a custom colour oil finish? No way. Nitrocellulose only has one real downside. It isn't good for your health. So people, please be smart about it. Don't spray indoors (your house...ever). Use a well ventilated area (ex. garage, spray booth, shed, or outside). Always wear a respirator and safety glasses. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to email the shop. Or read the back of the product, look up the SDS or product information sheets. We will answer all of your questions to the best of our ability.

Spraying Nitrocellulose Lacquer

Spraying Nitrocellulose lacquer has a few rules (guidelines). That being said, many manufacturers have their own way of using/changing these rules and it all works. A couple of quick "guidelines",

1) Make sure your work area is always clean and dry

2) Spray when conditions permit. Humidity being the most important factor. Try not to spray much over 60% humidity to be safe. An increase in humidity can cause blushing.

3) Spray warm lacquer. Never cold. Cold lacquer will spatter. Large builders use heated lacquer, but you can use hot tap water. Warm your can a few minutes before spraying for best flow. This step makes sure the lacquer flows out like it is supposed to. (Very Important). If your shop, Garage etc is a temperature controled environment. Your lacquer and parts should be the exact sample temperature. This is ideal conditions and warming your lacquer isn't 100% necessary.

4) Spray enough lacquer, but not too much. Too little or to far away from your guitar body can result in orange peel or an "over spray" effect (a rough surface caused by lacquer drying before it hits your guitar). Too much can produce a run or sag.

*Essentially, you want your part to look like a fresh sheet of ice or a glassy lake for a perfect coat of lacquer.

5) Spray approx 8-12 inches away from your guitar or neck. Overlap as much as possible usually 50% is enough.

Our lacquers and toners are mixed to the perfect spraying consistency allowing you to have all of the control over your finish. Unlike other lacquers which are thinned down considerably.  These lacquers tend to run easily, and blush more due to their over thinned properties.

6) If you have a run or sag, STOP! Let dry and sand out with 400 grit. Remember it is fixable. Just let it dry. This is key. It doesn't have to be 24 hours, 1 hour is plenty.

*If you make a mistake during the clear coating or with a transparent finishing process sand with a higher grit sandpaper to avoid scratches being seen in the clear. 600,800,1000 depedning on the mistake.

7) Do not sand metallic (unless a mistake is made). The small metal particles suspended in the colour coat is what makes a metallic a metallic. The particles are meant to be suspended. Sanding will ruin this effect and more colour will need to be applied.

8) Let dry/cure a few days after spraying your final coat. It needs time to cure/harden. A week is ideal for finishers, and it will harden more each day it cures. Gibson and Fender don't let their guitars sit for a month or two before sanding and polishing. Draw your own conclusion, but a week or two is recommended for first time finishers.

9) Wet sanding and polishing is time consuming. Especially by hand.Take your time. Sand in one direction. I have found it produces less obtrusive scratches than a circular direction. Use a block to help stay flat and always use a lubricant. If you don't use  lubricant, the lacquer will clog sandpaper rendering it useless.

When you sand up through the grits supplied the sandpaper will level the lacquer by scratching it. Each grit will remove the larger scratches with smaller scratches due to its level of abrasiveness. Going all the way up to the polishing level. 

10) Spray vintage toners and shaders very lightly. Use until you achieve your desired colour or burst. You can always add colour, but you can't take it away. These don't have a build like nitrocellulose lacquer they are designed to add colour with minimal building. They melt in and flash off leaving colour behind. If you spray them to heavily you will have the product run. It is much wiser to reach your degree of colour with an additional pass that force it and have it run.

11) Have fun. Enjoy learning what makes these guitars so special. If you have questions, ask.

Finishing 101 can be found here,

https://greatlakescustomcolour.com/pages/the-finishing-process

Spraying Aerosols

Aerosols are easy to use with less equipment and they store when not needed. There is enough product in our cans for up to 3 coats of lacquer on a normal guitar body. Usually the first coat is lighter, followed by wetter coats. As far as coverage goes. You only need good coverage on the primer and colour coats. The  sealer will build a flat level surface and the clear is what needs to be built up due to wet sanding. Hence needing more cans of clear lacquer. (Always clear nozzle after spraying) you should also put it into thinner or acetone. Our colours are supplied with a cone tip and a fan tip. Use the cone for more precise application in the cut aways and sides of the body. Switch to the fan tip (larger) for a wider pattern for the front and  back of guitar body. Clean your tips with lacquer thinner. Our fan tips are interchangeable with all of our spray cans. These tips are interchangeable and can be used on any can. Always keep thinner handy. Drop your tips into the tin of thinner/acetone for best results.

Spraying Metallic with Aerosols

Spraying metallic with aerosol or spray equipment is different from a solid or trans colour. It is easy to do, we basically would explain it as a "dry" coat. After you get good coverage colour wise you can do one of two things. Stop and let it flash off, or if your first coat wasn't a wet coat you can proceed to lightly cascading a coat over the entire guitar body. Metal flake is meant to be "suspended" in the lacquer. They fall at different angles which gives you a metallic shimmer in certain lights. If you spray a heavy coat the metal flake with basically float around in your lacquer or even worse settle to the bottom of the lacquer. After your "dry" last coat of metal flake you can apply a light clear nitrocellulose lacquer coat. Spray a little lighter so that it does disturb the metal flake coat. After that you can clear coat as normal until you build sufficient lacquer.

 Spraying with Spray Guns

If you have the equipment and know how to use it this method is great. Our colours come in a variety of containers. These provide enough lacquer for any project you have. Clears and sealers are also available in a variety of containers.These both should leave you with enough product to get good coverage while not wasting lacquer or having a bunch left over. If you know how to use your equipment you should not run into issues. If you are spraying with a ton of over spray and wasting good quality lacquer you may need more product. Make sure your gun is set right before spraying the lacquer. Guitar bodies and necks are smaller than most projects. You don't need the same settings as you would for a car to get good coverage.

Troubleshooting

If your nozzle appears clogged, stop. Remove tip and place into lacquer thinner or acetone. This will remove the clog and you can continue. This can happen if your lacquer is cold. That is why you should use warm lacquer.

This can also happen if you don't shake the can enough prior to spraying or if you don't spray the with the can upright. Should you run into any other issues please feel free to contact the shop for help.

Wet Sanding and Polishing

When you feel your finish has hardened you may start your wet sanding and polishing. There is no "one way" to do this. When you start wet sanding you can start anywhere from 800 to 1500 grit depending on your finishing experience. This is because wet sanding and polishing overlap based on products. Polish is just a "liquid" sandpaper so to speak. The more coarse the polish is the more it will "remove" scratches still leaving behind smaller ones. Nitrocellulose is a "thermo-plastic" finish. This means it "softens" as it heats up (polished/rubbed). No matter how hard your finish is, 1 or 4 weeks cured. It will still need to be softened when polished. This is how Gibson and Fender can wet sand and polish after only 6 to 8 days of curing. If this is your first time finishing we would recommend letting your finish cure one week. Sand up through the grits starting at 1000 moving to at least 2000 grit "p" grade wet sandpaper. Then polish with a medium fine compound followed by a fine compound/swirl remover. Let your finish cool after buffing a few minutes. (because it's thermo-plastic) It's still soft due to the heat caused by buffing. After it's cooled, clean off the leftover compound with a soft cloth or clean buffing pad and move to the next step until you are finished and have a mirror shine. If you are doing a relic job you can stop at any point you feel your guitar looks the way you like it.

A Word on Colours and one of the Original Charts

This image is taken from a vintage Fender book.

You'll notice a few things, 1) Blond is spelt "Blond". That's it's original name. Calling it BLONDE is actually historically incorrect. Even Fender screws this up all the time.

2) The colours were not available on everything they carried and on what they did carry it was rare anyone even knew plus it was an extra charge of 5%.

3) It says "14 Colours". You'll notice that Shell Pink is missing. It was swapped out with probably a more luxurious at the time colour Candy Apple Red. Which is also the only NON CAR COLOUR they developed at the time other than BLOND. Which was taken from the furniture industry. Shell Pink was apparently still available as its seen in other sheets. These are the original Custom Colours. 

4) At a time fender would finish your guitar in any DUCO colour with a code at 5%. Which is why there are some crazy colours out there that are very rare and worth big bucks. Like for example Tahitian Coral. They didn't advertise this which is why you don't see many around.

Fender finishes and Replicating them with Nitrocellulose Lacquer

For over 70 years Fender has used nitrocellulose in their finishing. A lot has changed in that time including their colours and process. Even from year to year. If you're trying to replicate a finish we can help. We can do it or help you achieve it yourself. For information on Sunbursts please see our Sunburst page. For all other finishes you can read below. 

*Covering every single colour finish would take an insane amount of space to do. Here we will cover some popular ones. Please reach out to us for any finish/look you are chasing.

Chasing After "Blonds"

This is a subject that could be discussed for days. So many changes and varying degrees of ageing from different products Leo could get. Many many ways to get there and unfortunately for every other supplier one "Retail" Can of "Butterscotch Blonde" is often never enough to get what people have in their head.

The "Blues"

A popular colour family from Fender. One that changed a lot from year to year and guitar to guitar. It's absolutely astounding the different variations.

Daphne Blue Over Sunburst (Front) Lake Placid Blue (back)

More Blues... Two Sonic Blue Strats and two Lake Placid Blue Strats. You'll notice that the Sonic Blues are different years and appear different colours. Could be age, could be guards, could be who sprayed it.

(Right) Two Lake Placid Blue Strats... Honestly they're both different from the actual car colour. Again different years, and different ageing. 

Reds

The first "official" custom colour is documented as Fiesta Red. Was it. Probably not. Either way.... Some very powerful colours are in this spectrum of finishing. Fiesta, Dakota, Candy Apple, Cimarron, and even Shell Pink are here.

Candy Apple Red, Dakota Red and Fiesta Red are cult classics for any fender freak. More likely to see Fading with these. However yellowing is a factor on some. Candy apple being the most interesting. DYK Fender often sprayed it over an already (yellowed) body that was ready for Sunburst. They used with Silver or Gold undercoat over a White Pimer and then sprayed a very light Red Transparent Toner over the Metallic Flake. 

Two 1955 Dakota Red Beauties

Green Machines

Like the Blues, this colour is all over the place. Sweet lord where to start. This range of colours is susceptible to both fading and yellowing. How sweet it is. Take a look at this Famous photo.

Here what we see are different guitars, from different years, different colours (Surf and Sea Foam) and different ageing. Sea Foam and Surf Green with yellowing is definitely a touchy subject they photograph very differently but... you can still replicate ever single finish here with our help.

The Paisley

This subject is a rabbit hole to say the least. Lets just start by saying whatever Fender is putting out today is much "Pinker" than the originals from 1968 and 1969. This finish did not last for a long time making these extremely rare to find. We've replicated our 1968 Paisley Finish from examples from the original finish. Originally called "Red Paisley" it was only sold for 2 years. A lot of time and attention to detail has gone into this finish. Here are some examples of the originals.

This finish is no joke. There isn't another finish that requires more attention to detail.

As you can see, it's much more of a Red with a hint of Pink than a Pink with a hint of Red. This is because the original paper had red in it more than a dominate Pink.

 

Bill Crook would be considered the Grand master of anything paisley. His work is excellent and his attention to detail based on years is fantastic. As you can see again. His finishes are a Redish Pink more than Pink. Like the Originals. He also incoropoartes some Golds to replicate a yellowed silver finish.

Here you can get the same Paisley finishes from 1968-1969. We work from pictures more often than not to replicate guitars throughout history people are after. 

Professional Photography By DeeBeeUs of Instagram

 

 As you can see, the paper did have a shine, but not a sparkle like some seen today. The green in the paper is also less vibrant than Fender uses today. The pickguard is sprayed with a properly mixed Paisley Red Formula.

Many variations can be had from more pink around the edges, to and aged silver that appears gold and so on. The sky is the limit. Reach out to us with pictures to replicate your 68 Paisley recreation.

Here are a few examples bellow ranging from the years 1968-1969. As you can see the ageing varies greatly from guitar to guitar. A lot of cool things going on with these. Every type of colour ageing, checking and fading you can think of.

 

 Fender Finishes Today

To be blunt, Fender does whatever they want these days and calls it whatever they want these days. We've seen too many examples of colours that are completely inaccurate and are being so as is. This is why examples of what you're after are so important. 

Especially custom shop. It's all over the place. They spray whatever they want, and add a fancy title.

Example

*Fender Custom Shop Super Faded Aged Candy Apple Red Over 3 Tone Sunburst Heavy Relic L Series 60s Custom Telecaster