Making Things Perfectly Clearcoat

admin · Post by **admin** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:31 pm

Paul: I have often wondered how far back clearcoating goes and how it should be best treated. Just how tough is it anyway and are there some common waxes or cleaners out there that can hurt it?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:03 am

A good question, if I do say so, Peter. Now I'll leave home, drop my daughter at school, and when I get to my office, I'll get this thread begun...

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 8:21 am

My own history in applying industrial finishes, goes back to the mid-1960s, when nitrocellulose was used somewhat, acrylic lacquer was coming on strong, and we had yet to see epoxies and urethanes take on the significant part of the paint market that they possess now.

The first custom-color guitar I ever saw was a Lake Placid Blue Fender Jaguar with painted headstock, and it knocked my socks off! This must have been sometime in '64, the year before I saw and played my first Rick (which was a FG 12). That LPB Fender had a nitrocellulose clearcoat for gloss enhancement. Leo's marketing department, wanted Fender's guitars to look like candy in a store window...

But clearcoating goes back even further, actually to horse-and-buggy days! Back when shiny black was in, and buggy fenders were made out of leather, a "patent" finish was developed. It was an offshoot of the centuries-old Asian technique of "lacquering" adapted to American materials, and consisted of many layers of varnish, to which was added a varying percentage of lamp black, which was a cheap and readily-available pigment. The final coat of many of this black varnish was left transparent.

The first clearcoat. Varnish was durable and fairly long-lasting at a time when 20,000 miles was the projected life of a motorcar.

Duco (DuPont's name for their nitrocellulose lacquer) was introduced by Pontiac on their Oakland car in 1924, in a funny periwinkle blue color, giving rise to the "True Blue Oakland" advertising campaign.

But clearcoats, per se went into a long hibernation on automobiles, except in very exclusive cases and for use on prototype show cars. Lacquer clearcoats had one major flaw which rendered them largely impractical for everyday use. They were unstable in sunlight, and this led to fading, checking and peeling over extended periods of time.

Paint chemistry advanced in lockstep with polymer chemistry through the 1960s, leading to some real advances in ease of application, physical characteristics, and durability.

The end result is a catalyzing clearcoat. Rickenbacker's version is termed "conversion varnish", and is used in architectural and furniture applications requiring great durability and low VOCs. Rick's conversion varnish is also commonly used by manufacturers of caskets!

VOC is an acronym for "Volatile Organic Compounds". These are the portions of the liquid formulation which evaporate into the atmosphere and contribute to photochemical smog and other pollutant factors. Southern California's South Coast Air Quality Management District has the toughest VOC restrictions in the nation, and other locales are following suit. Rickenbacker runs right up against their quota VOC limits every year, and I've heard rumors of a change to a superior, lower VOC clear coat being in the offing, which should help take the pressure off for awhile and might even lead to an expansion in production without compromising quality in any way.

Nowadays, depending on manufacturer, most mass-produced shiny guitars are clearcoated with either a urethane-based or a polyester-based formulation.

More later...

desertgoldenboy · Post by **desertgoldenboy** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:20 am

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:56 am

Uh-oh. Lost my first reader...

desertgoldenboy · Post by **desertgoldenboy** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 10:58 am

Paul, can you suggest any good reading material on the history of guitar finishes, in particular how the major manufacturers differ in their choice of coatings, application procedures, equipment, etc?

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 11:23 am

You're reading it, my Guitar Polish friend! or

That's why I'm here, and that's the global question that hopefully we can break into bite-sized bits and digest over my next few lifetimes.

Too seriously, this part of the constructor's craft is immensely varied and I hear about things all the time as paint technology is updated and application procedures and equipment is in flux and being installed and upgraded all the time. And there is no single source, like "Guitar Manufacturer's Paint Application Magazine", to which you can be referred...

So ask smaller questions and hope for easier-to-read answers.

And thanks for sticking 'round.

janglebox · Post by **janglebox** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 2:09 pm

Paul, this section of the Forum is a brilliant idea (yours or Peter's?) and wonderfully executed. Your writing is so clear and insightful, I actually think I understand what you're talking about...

Really, a great read!

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 4:03 pm

Thanks, Steve!

Peter proposed this to me yesterday evening, in an e-mail. In a second, separate e-mail, he suggested six amusing titles for the series.

I read the the titles e-mail first and couldn't figure out what he was on about. When I got to the original e-mail about 15 minutes later, it all made sense and I agreed to his proposal.

britye · Post by **britye** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 4:34 pm

Paul, I have a product that I bought called Dri wash & Guard, I've used it on my son's cheapee Epi LP special, only a few times, seemed to do the job, wonder if it could have a deleterious( did I spell that right?) effect on my better guitars ie, Gretsch Tennesean, er Rose and martin 12 1974 vintage

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:46 pm

Hmmm. Deleterious effect, he says.

The marketers of products to consumers fight a never-ending battle in an effort to provide a point of difference which they can exploit to gain a leg up on their competition.

A trip down the "car care" (i.e., wax) aisle of your favorite auto chain store like Pep Boys or Kragen, provides ample illustration of the above point. It seems like every manufacturer has its own secret ingredient with a strange or memorable trademarked name or ingredient.

In the case of Dri Wash 'N' Guard, it's called "PolyGuard-3". BTW, there are marketing firms whose sole reason for existence is to cloud our verbal landscape with glitzy but meaningless words like this.

PolyGuard-3 is their name for a proprietary chemical compound termed a polymer. Polymer is the chemical name for a complex crosslinked molecule. These polymers can be good or bad where finishes are concerned. They are the building blocks of the wonderful finishes like conversion varnishes used to beauty and protection to the instruments which we love. But when they are used in protectants, like Armor-All or Dri Wash 'N' Guard, they take their toll on paint finishes. When it comes to protecting a guitars finish, their longterm effect is untested (their chemistry is not too old), but there's one thing for sure--when it comes to finishing and refinishing, nothing could be worse than a few molecules of a polymer like the so-called "PolyGuard-3" on a surface or floating in the spray atmosphere.

For now, stick to nice waxes on your pricey instruments. RIC says Turtle Wax 123 and for now I love Zymol, but there are other good waxes that I'll go into in a future post.

britye · Post by **britye** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:34 am

Thanks Professor, Now fer a confession, I gave some of that stuff away for xmas gifts. Should I just play stupid or should I yell warning Will Robinson!! you could ruin yer finish

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:31 am

Tell them to use it on their cars. Body shops expect to run into this when they refinish a car...

brammy · Post by **brammy** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 9:34 am

Paul.... my refinished (to mapleglo) Tuxedo 360 has those small little fretmarker dots and I'd like to make them bigger... not huge, but more noticeable. I experimented on one with a dab of permanent magic marker but it wore off pretty quickly.

Is there anything else I could use? I was thinking of nail polish (put on with masking tape) but hesitate because I dont want to destroy the finish or anything like that.

jingle_jangle · Post by **jingle_jangle** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:10 am

Stationery stores carry various colors in self-adhesive dots in 1/4" (6mm) diameter.

A couple of non-permanent solutions:

Kids' stores like the Discovery Store have glow-in-the-dark ceiling decorations in circles, stars, ha 'oles, etc. Great for those poorly-lit evening venues...

Both can be trimmed carefully with scissors, Ex-Acto knife, etc.

Any other suggestions on this? Heloise? You there, honey?