Long phone call, water based finish

[Rick Turner]

Back to topic...kind of.

The latest company to start swinging in the polyester undercoat direction is Santa Cruz Guitars. My friend and associate Addam Stark, who shares my spray booth with me, was the lead finisher at SCGC for five years, and he still does their sunbursts and is a consultant on new finishing methods. He's showing them how to use polyester as the build coats under nitro top coating...the same finish system used by Dana Bourgeois and Bill Collings on most of their guitars. The advantage is that when you do this properly, you don't get forever-shrinking finish into the pores of the wood that you get with solvent based pore fillers and sealers. What you buff out flat stays flat. With nitro over poly, you get the burnished buff of nitro for a little bit more of a liquid look. Personally, I have no problem with well buffed out poly, but there are those who still want that final buffed nitro look.

I highly recommend looking into epoxy pore filling and sealer coats no matter what you choose for build and top coating. Some classical builders are even doing French polish over epoxy for the best of both worlds there. Epoxy pore filling is a no-brainer for home finishing, too, and it promotes incredible top coat adhesion. I generally use WEST Systems epoxy which is quite available in Australia and New Zealand because of it's popularity with wooden boat builders. If you're in a hurry, use the fast catalyst. If you want less color, use the slow. It's also great for laminating necks and gluing on fingerboards with a bit of the thickening additives.

Once again, I think pointing to prejudices is a kind of red herring with all of this. Conspiracy theories are kind of attractive, but when you're dealing with production issues, you really can trust that some of the leading companies have done their homework. It's luthiers who tend to be more prejudiced, not manufacturers. And sometimes this is for worse, not better...as with the use of some of the glues like TiteBond which really are not as good as the traditional choices for many of the glue joints in a guitar.

You really have to evaluate every material you use free of preconceptions but also being open to the knowledge gathered in the past. So you may wind up with an epoxy laminated neck with a hot hide glued bridge. You may decide to poly finish backs and sides but nitro lacquer or French polish the top. You may pore fill and seal with epoxy and then French polish or tung oil varnish over all that. And you may even finally find the water borne finish that actually works. Let me know, will you?

[kiwigeo]

Rick mate I dont care who started it. I want you BOTH to desist and take the D-Tar dispute offline. I dont plan on discussing the matter further.


Cheers Martin

It was not I who brought dissatisfaction with me to this forum...Jim made what I consider a wholly inappropriate and bitchy remark. I snapped back.

Jim's got his schematic. He can do with it what he will.

I participate here and elsewhere voluntarily. If I am unavailable at some point and for some length of time, that is my right. There are plenty of other people with answers who can jump in here or there or anywhere with answers to questions re. lutherie, electronics, etc. My own participation on line in this or any other forum or via email is hardly necessary to anyone's life or career outside of a small circle of family, friends, employees, and associates. I reserve the right to be unavailable, to be very private, and not to answer all questions directed at me. I also reserve the right to be available, to be very public, and to answer the questions I choose to answer. If anyone thinks that I'm an a...hole for not being immediately available to them, all I can say is find another person to be your guru. I'll certainly disappoint you.

[Rick Turner]

No problem, mate.

And you'll never see me be the first to express any dissatisfaction or air any problems with another luthier here. If I'm challenged, I shall defend myself, though.

I would like to suggest that the practice of using on-line handles instead of real names is one that can lead to impolite behaviour. There are forums that either require or strongly suggest that participants use real and verifiable names. I think this is a good practice.

[Tigermyrtle]

Hi Jim, sorry to see you at Rick Turners throat having met Rick a few times now.
He has gone out of his way to help me, and I see in other forums he is in he gos out of his way to help others with good free advise. there is times when I e-mail Rick and I do not hear from him for months and then he is back I think Ok he is busy but he will answer when he gets the time.
But one other thing I do agree with Rick on lets start using our real names I do in all my Posts sign off with my name, here a few months back it was brought in to the offical luthier forum in the U.S for members to use there real names its nice to address some one with there real names not a handle Christ I am 62 not a teen, Beam me up Scotty.
Cheers Jim Best regards Bob

Mr Turner I have, so far, PM'ed your ANZLF, Emailed your ANZLF, PM'ed You at D.Tar Forum, Emailed you at D-Tar and also joined your forum and posted three threads (all asking the same question) which have only just been posted by you (one week after the first submission) after I made this comment "I'm not real impressed with Rick Turner at the moment Pete" on the ANZLF. The first time I put my question to you was months ago via email and you did not respond. I understand you are busy as am I. I still manage to answer my customers quickly though and I feel I have been patient enough to now be unimpressed by your lack of response.

Nice bit of name calling Rick, I had to look up "chimera" although I know what hiding means. My real name is Jim and I live in Darwin you will find (If you really need to find me) that there is only one guitar maker in Darwin by the name of Jim. As for my sir name I would be happy to supply that to you as well as my phone number and address, just email me as I have instructed on my web site.

To me ( I could be wrong) it seemed you were avoiding giving out information that did not fit within the standard range of your product (that would be fine by me and all you needed to do was say so) although you have now answered me on your forum and offered to supply me with the information I was seeking.

I now find myself in a difficult situation, that is to say that although I am very impressed with your D-Tar products and would like to use them but I am feeling personally uncomfortable with you and am left wondering why you managed to answer me in this thread within twenty four hours when this thread had very little to do with your D-Tar products.

Maybe you did not receive any of my PM's or emails and if that is the case I will be happy to retract the statement that has prompted your reply to this thread.

Also I feel I should thank you for offering the information I have requested. Last night I almost hit the buy button on a L.R. Baggs but did not complete the transaction as the thought of this D-Tar situation was nagging at me. Now that you have offered this information I would like to try the D-Tar product as I have tried the L.R. Baggs before.

This is your offer from the D-Tar forum "Jim, email me off-forum and I'll send you the schematic for adding the volume and tone control. rickturner.rtguitars@gmail.com" I have emailed you at this address but if you do not receive my email you can forward that information to.... toejam@post.com

Jim

[kiwigeo]

Bob,

Jim and Rick have agreed to take the D-Tar dispute off line and I thought that would be the end of it. I expect others to take note of my request and not bring up the subject for further discussion.

Kindly desist and keep your posts on topic.

The subject of posting under real names has been raised by a number of people and will be discussed amongst Bob and the moderators.

Thanks Martin (Turner)

[Bob Connor]

This is a thread about finishes.

If any other off topic posts appear here I'll delete them.

[Rick Turner]

I'm finished!