Poly finishes

[craigh]

Am I the only one that does not like the poly finish on new Rickenbacker's? I just got a new 4003 in Jetglo & was disappointed that it's poly instead of nitro. I would trade her in a heartbeat for the same bass with a nitro finish. Poly is plastic & chocks the sound. The wood can't breathe.

Craig

[Grey]

Rick's have never been finished in Nitro.

[RIC_FACTORY]

This is one of the most widely held misconceptions out there. The Fender marketing machine has done its job apparently! Fender has been putting polyester underneath their "thin skin" nitro guitars for years!

[teb]

Rickenbackers were previously coated with conversion varnish. As a wooden boat builder I can tell you that the whole idea of breathability on solid body guitars is basically hogwash spread by people who don't really know anything about wood or finishes or who are taking advantage of other folks who don't. The actual amount of moisture transfer in either direction through one of these thick, glossy finishes (of any type) is so small that it's virtually meaningless. If they were to "breathe" anywhere near as much as some people believe they do, the bodies and finishes would be expanding, contracting (and most likely cracking) on a regular basis and you would constantly be needing to readjust your guitar's set-up to make up for it. Enjoy the fact that your new guitar doesn't breathe any more than your old ones actually did. If the sound has changed on your newer solid body instrument, there are a whole bunch of construction details that could be responsible for it, but switching from one thick, glossy finish to a different thick, glossy finish is way down on the list of possible causes. Even though they tend to be pretty similar, it would be far more likely that the density of different hunks of the same species of wood could make a difference in the sound than the finish itself. There are certainly reasons why someone might like the sound of one solid body guitar better than a different one, but if the sound is being "choked", it ain't the finish that's doing it and you are getting hyped by anybody trying to convince you otherwise.

[craigh]

Ben, I read your answer on the other forum. I will have to live with it.

Craig

[cjj]

Way back when, Ricks did have "Nitro" finishes, I have a '58 that sure seems to have a "nitro" finish. But about that time, they changed over to CV or Conversion Varnish, which is a POLY finish, polyurethane. So, since the late '50s, Ricks have all had POLY finishes. The new UV finish is also a POLY finish, polyester if I recall correctly...

[Grey]

Way back when, Ricks did have "Nitro" finishes, I have a '58 that sure seems to have a "nitro" finish. But about that time, they changed over to CV or Conversion Varnish, which is a POLY finish, polyurethane. So, since the late '50s, Ricks have all had POLY finishes. The new UV finish is also a POLY finish, polyester if I recall correctly...

Oops, thanks for the correction. Learn something new every day.

[jingle_jangle]

The change to a polyurethane topcoat was made back in mid-'59. This was for durability and ease of sanding and buffing.

Clear nitrocellulose lacquer was an unstable topcoat and would inevitably check heavily with very little encouragement. It also was a bear to color-sand although it touched up and polished OK. CV was superior right from the start. It could be built up and allowed to flow out for great gloss, was easily sanded and flattened and buffed, and touched up very well for the most part.

However, right up till today, color coats have been lacquer, although nitrocellulose has given away to acrylic lacquer.

Now RIC uses polyester, UV-cured, as a topcoat to cut down on wait time during production and open up the VOC window again. (Since polyester is reduced with acetone, when necessary, and acetone is considered not a contributor to photochemical smog, the restrictions on its use are much looser in CA.) Polyester is tough to sand and tougher to buff, even with power tools.

[RIC_FACTORY]

The UV polyester allowed us to kill several birds with one stone. When we started to really get serious about UV in 2005, the primary goal going in was to speed up production because the dry time went from days to minutes. The fact that it is a low VOC coating was somewhat secondary as the CV we had been using by then was also well below the limit (though the UV has made a big difference in our VOC emissions over the past year). However, as we tested it more, we realized that it also looked a lot nicer than the CV we had been spraying. It just had a deeper, mirror like finish that did not shrink back as much as the CV and was more durable against checking and dings.

Also, there are quite a few companies that use what we spray and buy from the same supplier(s). That's important because we have a ton more leverage with the supplier should they change their formulas or neglect customer service. You'd be surprised just how often people in this industry communicate to one another about this kind of thing.

[Clint]

Let's also not forget that nitro is some hazardous, toxic stuff.

[jingle_jangle]

...If you want your guitar to "breathe", strap on a scuba tank!

Great line, Clint!

Anyway, though nitrocellulose lacquer has solvents that are damaging to the CNS, the actual pigments are flushed by the respiratory system's natural defenses, from the mucus membranes and lungs.

Catalyzing polyester and polyurethane, however, are far more toxic due to the presence of styrene monomer in the former and isocynates in the latter.

Both of these substances cause CNS damage, and furthermore, the body cannot flush inhaled urethane.

Toxic heavy metals used in pigments are also CNS-damaging, and some like lead and cadmium have cumulative debilitating effects.

[nukebass]

Would the new UV coat be more resistant to the paint bleed some people experienced with the Midnight Blue color?

I'm still trying to reckon the science behind what actually impacts an electric guitar's sound. I understand that an acoustic would be impacted by pretty much any component since it is amplifying the natural sound of the guitar, but I figure only things that directly impact string vibration will impact an electric guitar's sound. I figure that the most important items are pickups, bridge/tuner mounting (maybe?), and body mass. I don't see how a thin layer of paint or gloss coat would really impact the string vibration and therefore the induced voltage in the pickup.

I could be completely off, too, since I still can't grasp the physical reality of why a capacitor bleeds off treble frequencies. I need to look some more stuff up in the electrical engineering book I have on the shelf

[jingle_jangle]

It comes down to whether "measurable" and "audible" refers to the same thing, and it doesn't. You could, with a sensitive enough device, measure the difference between a dirty and clean paint job--maybe even between different colors.

What difference can you honestly hear, and what effect does this have on you? Most people with normal hearing cannot hear the difference between paint finishes on solid-bodied instruments, and a few can hear an audible difference between two different types of finishes, on semi-hollow ones.

[RIC_FACTORY]

It should be pointed out that even the more well known acoustic makers spray more coats of polyester than we do (Taylor, Martin, Larrivee, etc).

Heck, Kevin Ryan showed Eric how he sprays six coats of the same UV material we buy on his acoustics. We're talking about a maker that has sold some of his guitars for more than $20k!

[cjj]

Heck, Kevin Ryan showed Eric how he sprays six coats of the same UV material we buy on his acoustics. We're talking about a maker that has sold some of his guitars for more than $20k!

Now, don't you guys start gettin' any ideas there...