stripping guitars

Jetfire

You can bring your hot love gun down any time you like. haha, Im even closer to her now btw (which sounds really creepy!)

 

Jalapeno

Jetfire said:

You can bring your hot love gun down any time you like. haha, Im even closer to her now btw (which sounds really creepy!)

Not as creepy as @DrBob taking his heat gun to his sister ! :-O

andypwudtone

WezV said:   wetting the grain with water before sanding back  also helps get a smoother finish too -   but this is apparently all a big no-no for wudtone

 

 

Wudtone is a just brand name, it refers to a range of finishing products. 

Hi @WezV  if you were refinishing a guitar body and so to establish whether you were back to bare wood ( which is porous ) applied some water ( lightly with a damp cloth), and so you could then see any areas that still had sealers on etc , then let it dry , and then final sanded with 240 grit , and repeated etc until you were sure the wood was bare etc ,  you would not be doing anything that is in anyway incompatible with using Wudtone. 

But as you mentioned Wudtone refers to a range of products . The Wudtone Dye only translucent kits see table here   http://www.wudtone.com/forum/?topic=kitwood-suitability-table   need bare wood and that is because the deep colour coats have a high concentration of dye, designed for bare woods, and work best on woods with attractive grain / character,  However , Wudtone also offers a range of dye and pigment based colours, see example of a guitar finished by a the fretboard member here,http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/459150/  . The dye and pigment kits are a very different product, they produce different results, indeed they are quite easy to solid colour with the right technique see tip here http://www.wudtone.com/forum/?topic=instructions-tip-when-aiming-for-a-solid-colour-kits . and the condition of the surface of the wood ( eg when refinishing) has less impact on the final outcome. This surface needs to be effectively keyed,  240 grit is good enough as a start) . Wudtone dye and pigment kits do to some extent grain fill and self level, so there is plenty time / opportunity to gets things nice and smooth after the base coats are on. Really fine sanding in advance is just making it harder for the finish to key to the surface you want it to stick to. kind regards    

WezV

fairly sure that is contradictory to what you told us when I had issues... it was never a wudtone issue but a WezV one - but whatever.  

The point is he has options including, but not exclusive to, Wudtone.   And i will continue to use other products that work better for me.

on a separate topic:

I was just looking at your link above, and the link within the link  -  can anyone tell me what's wrong with this sentence?

"The Wudtone finish will grain fill itself to some extent and so if you applied on Alder or Maple you would have what appears to be a smooth surface."

http://www.wudtone.com/forum/?topic=new-lady-teal-colour-plus-tip-when-using-pigment-based-kits

andypwudtone

@WezV absolutely 100% certain you referred to thinners as part of a stripping process and yes that could have caused you issues depending on what thinners you used. 

Damping with water to check if wood is bare, letting it dry, sanding it etc and repeating to help you know you have sanded back to bare wood is not incompatible with any of the Wudtone finishing products.kind regards

WezV

yes - i know the difference between thinners and water.  I know you said thinners was a big no-no for your finishes and I know I gave many examples of finishes where it was a perfectly acceptable, even beneficial, cleaning technique. 

You will remember that I had issues with 2 guitars, but only one of them had a previous finish stripped and cleaned with thinners.

But we have done this a few times now and I am fairly sure in one of those you have mentioned that the common finishing technique of damping wood to raise the grain so it can be sanded back smoother was not recommended for wudtone, and may have been one of the reasons I had issues.  

can you confirm if this technique is okay to use with wudtone or is water only allowed if its not followed by any finer sanding?  i.e. could somebody sand to 220g, then wet the grain, let it dry thoroughly and do the final 240g sanding before applying wudtone.   I only ask because our previous interactions led me to believe this was not advisable.

Is 240G too high a grit for wudtone as I have seen others say 180G works better for colour absorption?

Obviously we never got to the bottom of why i did have issues as even when i tried in on untreated freshly sanded wood It still didn't give the results I would accept.  I was able to get it to work on some woods in later tests (almost acceptable on ash) but not others (hard to get depth of colour on maple)  etc etc...

 

I still think you need to consider adding a more thorough do's and don'ts to you instructions as most of my issues with Wudtone seem to come from lessons I have learned from successfully working with other kinds of finishes.  never stopped me reading the instructions thoroughly but I can't claim prior knowledge didn't affect the way I interpretted them.     And a more complete colour chart on different types of wood might help too - manage customer expectations and all that.   

Andyjr1515

Hi, @Jetfire

I think the linked forum here allows unregistered visitors.  This is one of a series of blogs I did a while ago about stripping and veneering

 This one is the epic thread I did for the FretBoard 2014 Summer Challenge, which covers ink-staining and ronseal-ing amongst other stuff.

Hope they help!

Andy

 

andypwudtone

Hi @WezV ;

re damping to check for porosity , letting it fully dry , sanding after with 240 is OK before using Wudtone.

but as far as fine sanding smooth afterwards see below

The coarser the grit the better the key for any fine particle dye, but too coarse ( especially if used across the grain) and you may see marks / scratches that you don't want to see when using the dye only translucent kits. 240 grit seems to work well. using coarser 180 grit with the dye and pigment based kits isn't an issue.as any marks will filled and invisible after 2-3 base coats anyway , 

The later tests where you got it to work, only demonstrated to you that the condition of the surface is key. But you still pre - judged the outcomes of the product  "almost acceptable on ash) but not others (hard to get depth of colour on maple)  etc etc.".. based on a single application like you were comparing it to just a stain.  

The system ( particularly with dye only translucent kits ) involves application of one ( maybe two)  deep colour coat and several base coats . The base coat intensifies the depth of colour ( and the final outcome)  way beyond your tests. Cherry Flamenco for example actually has three base coats to achieve the final result. 

here is an example of a using goldenrod / lioness on some maple , intense enough?, 

may be , maybe not , in which case apply and blend additional coats to keep intensifying the colour.  The luthier here is trying to get a ice tea type look.   Ageing top coats work well on such a blend and will warm it further. You can also use something like our Dark Onyx first and sand back if you want extra tiger stripe like contrast etc. 

kind regards 

WezV

andypwudtone said:

The later tests where you got it to work, only demonstrated to you that the condition of the surface is key. But you still pre - judged the outcomes of the product  "almost acceptable on ash) but not others (hard to get depth of colour on maple)  etc etc.".. based on a single application like you were comparing it to just a stain.  

that's a fair point, although worth remembering that I had previously gone beyond the initial application on other projects and not had acceptable results.  the pre-judgement was based on previous work with wudtone as well as previous work with stains

andypwudtone

@Jetfire what kind of re-finihed look are you after?

kind regards

andypwudtone

WezV said:-  can anyone tell me what's wrong with this sentence?

"The Wudtone finish will grain fill itself to some extent and so if you applied on Alder or Maple you would have what appears to be a smooth surface."

http://www.wudtone.com/forum/?topic=new-lady-teal-colour-plus-tip-when-using-pigment-based-kits

Hi @WezV does this help?

the cap is a nicely carved piece of maple with a  burst , looks smooth, the back is a more open grain mahogany, the Wudtone base coats and top coats, haven't quite filled the more open grain. Nice intensity of colour, delighted luthier delighting customers which after all is what counts.  Now I did say I would send you a replacement kit and we will be at this guitar show in Birmingham so if your attending let me know in advance and I will bring one with me. kind regards 

 

WezV

Looks nice!

On grainfiller: It should probably be called porefiller. The purpose of grainfiller is to fill the grain on open pored wood such as mahogany, walnut, wenge and ash.

Maple and alder do not have open pores so do not require any grainfiller process at all. You should be able to get a smooth feel just by sanding to a high enough grit... But with some finishes like yours and most lacquers sanding too far can adversely affect adhesion so sanding sealer (a high build coat) is used to even everything out and fill small inconsistencies before more finish us applied. It also helps even out the porosity of the wood so subsequent coats go on more evenly.

From what you are saying I assume the wudtone will act like a coloured sealer coat, rather than like a grain filler

WezV

andypwudtone said:

Now I did say I would send you a replacement kit and we will be at this guitar show in Birmingham so if your attending let me know in advance and I will bring one with me. kind regards 

 

And thanks for the offer.  Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to make it to the show... if I do it will all be a last minute get out of jail scenario

I am tempted to try again - but what happened to the purple you did?