Guitar Finishing Step-By-Step

I must say that I questioned this purchase....after I received, read and applied what was in this book....no second thought...an absolute must have!

This is a great book for an education into the different ways guitars have been finished over the years. From that point on, you need to figure a lot out on your own through trial and error. I found this 1931/32 L1 in a trunk in my Aunts house after she had passed. It is the best looking L1 I have ever seen except for the front which had/has multiple cracks and the bridge was pulled out with less than a square inch of backing plate left.
Needless to say, I am still working on it, but getting close thanks to StewMac.

Very good book.I would like to paint a new projet but i c,ant to do the Honey Burst color. Thanks My last les paul.

Good, not great.

great book!!!!

This book is full of useful info. Color recipes and stain charts. As others have stated I wish it would have had a little more detail on water based finishes.

très bon livre mais dommage qu'il n'existe pas une version en français!
je suis bricoleur mais pas linguiste mais quand on n'aime....

This had a lot of fairly detailed information, and lots of good pictures. The 2 books I have on the general topic of guitar building do not go into nearly enough detail on guitar finishing. If you don't know much about wood finishing, get this book (or something like it). If you don't know much about guitar finishing, but you do know about wood finishing, you should still probably get this book. I have the wonderful 'Understanding wood finishing' by Bruce Flexner, and I still found the Stewmac book helpful.

-1 star because I would have liked some more information on specifics related to water based finishes. The book has some, but I think it could have used more. Also, this book did not mention one crucial fact pertaining to the application of StewMac's very own water based finishes: you need to sand the sanding sealer before applying topcoat.

This is a great book for starters. Covers every basic aspect in a very well explained way. I bought it over a year ago and I'm still learning from it. I have not read any other book on finishing, but i think this covers pretty much every thing for the needs i have in my shop.

Forget the net to look up facts and ideas. Excellent book, works great when you have the Colour Tone sets too :)
Very handy colour matching pages.