Posted: May 17, 2016 1:15 pm
Selecting a finish French Polish?
There are several choices of finish that can be used. For steel strings guitars, Nitrocellulose lacquer is the most traditional and still used by Martin Guitars and that's what I'll be using too but I thought it worthwhile to go through the other options.
For classical guitars French Polish is the traditional choice. It involves applying many, many thin coats of shellac over time on the guitar. I find it to be an amazing difficult process to get right but in the hands of a master the finish lays down like magic. The trick is knowing how to keep the pad with the shellac in the right state so that it goes on the surface and doesn't muck up what is already there. You also need to know how much you can work the surface in a given sitting. And there's a feel that you need to develop for how hard to press. It's just not as easy as some make it look.
Here's a classical guitar I made, also with Myrtle wood back and sides, that I French Polished.
Here's a youtube video I found that explains the process.
And here it's being applied to the top of a guitar.
French Polish is beautiful and natural looking finish but it's not very tough. However, you can, with a lot of work, touch it up from time to time.
There are several choices of finish that can be used. For steel strings guitars, Nitrocellulose lacquer is the most traditional and still used by Martin Guitars and that's what I'll be using too but I thought it worthwhile to go through the other options.
For classical guitars French Polish is the traditional choice. It involves applying many, many thin coats of shellac over time on the guitar. I find it to be an amazing difficult process to get right but in the hands of a master the finish lays down like magic. The trick is knowing how to keep the pad with the shellac in the right state so that it goes on the surface and doesn't muck up what is already there. You also need to know how much you can work the surface in a given sitting. And there's a feel that you need to develop for how hard to press. It's just not as easy as some make it look.
Here's a classical guitar I made, also with Myrtle wood back and sides, that I French Polished.
Here's a youtube video I found that explains the process.
And here it's being applied to the top of a guitar.
French Polish is beautiful and natural looking finish but it's not very tough. However, you can, with a lot of work, touch it up from time to time.