High Gloss Without a Buffer - Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag
In this episode, Robbie O’Brien shows you how to achieve a high-gloss finish on your guitar without using a buffer.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag]
Mailbag question: Is it possible to achieve a high-gloss finish without using a buffer?
Robert O'Brien: Today's Tips du Jour mailbag question comes to us from Arizona. "Dear Robert, I've just finished building my guitar and I'm contemplating my finishing options. I want to do a high gloss lacquer finish, but I don't have a buffing wheel. Is it possible to achieve a high gloss finish without a buffer? John, in Arizona."
Micro-Mesh finishing products
John, yes, it is possible. However, it requires a little bit of elbow grease. Let's go over to the bench and I'll show you how to do it. So John, here's the Micro-Mesh products I got from LMI. They go from 1,500 up to 12,000. What I'm going to use on this guitar is about 3,600 up to 12,000. The reason why I'm going to start with the 3,600 Micro-Mesh is that I have already wet sanded this guitar up to 1,500 grit using sandpaper. There's a little chart that comes with the Micro-Mesh that shows you the equivalent sandpaper comparison to the Micro-Mesh. If I look at the chart here, 1,500 sandpaper is about the 3,600 Micro-Mesh.
Wet sanding with Micro-Mesh
So I'm going to go ahead and start wet sanding a portion of this guitar to show you how you can achieve a very high gloss with not very much effort. So I'm going to be using a small dish of water that I've added one small drop of liquid detergent to it, and then I'm going to use a backing pad and then start with the 3,600 Micro-Mesh paper. Just get it wet and come in and sand just like you would wet sanding.
I don't mind doing circular motions with the lower grits, but as I get into the higher grits, I like just going straight marks, and that helps hide any little scratches that you might leave in there because they're going with the grain instead of a circular motion. Then just progress through the grits. That was 3,600. So now I'm going to jump up to 4,000 and do a little bit more. Next grit is 6,000 and we're going up to 8,000. Notice I'm starting to get into my straight strokes rather than just the circular motions, but it doesn't really matter. Just find something that works for you.
Then my last grit is going to be 12,000. Once you get done sanding to the highest grit, wipe off the excess. As you can see, I've got a very high gloss going in that area, and it didn't take me a lot of work. So it is possible. Now if I spend a little more quality time on the rest of the guitar, I'll have it looking like this too.
So John, as you can see, it is possible to get a high gloss finish without a buffer. Now it requires a little bit of elbow grease, and with the Micro-Mesh products from LMI, you should get the results you want.
[on-screen text reads: More Luthier Tips and online courses available at www.obrienguitars.com. Private and small group guitar building and finishing instruction available.]
