Last night I was up late (again), so I opted to spend some quality time with my Les Paul Custom. I got my Marshall Micro Stack that PW got me for my birthday out, along with my Grado headphones and rocked out for awhile. Before I knew it, hours had flown by and it was 2 am.
I’ve been continuing to do some research into building acoustic guitars. One of the more interesting parts of the process is the finish that is applied to most really nice acoustic guitars. It’s called a french polish, and is very interesting. The whole finish consists of shellac flakes, grain alcohol (at least one person uses Everclear), and paraffin wax. You build up the finish by rubbing small layers of finish onto the wood using a small ball of cheesecloth. You use the paraffin wax to lubricate the surface, the shellac/alcohol suspension dries almost instantly so you don’t even need a dust-free environment to apply it.
It is acoustically the best possible finish because it is so thin and doesn’t restrict the vibration of the wood as much as other finishing processes. The only downsides are that it takes a period of days/weeks to apply completely and due to its thinness it isn’t the most durable, but you end up with a beautiful mirror finish that makes the guitar sound great.
I understand that I’m WAY ahead of myself, but I find the finishing part interesting. 🙂
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