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Hey gang,

I used Endurovar on my last build and really liked it! It’s a much harder finish than EM-6000, is not acrylic so it doesn’t have the dreaded blue-cast, it is easy to work with, and buffs like a dream. The down side for me is the cure time. According to General Finishes it requires 21 days. I read in #118, pg.18, of American Lutherie that John Greven is going from pore-fill to buffed in 4 days. The only things I’m doing different, material wise is I’m not adding cab-o-sil to the Silvertip epoxy, and I’m not sealing with shellac (something general finishes says not to do).

Has anyone tried it? If it was anybody other than Greven I’d call BS.

I’m gonna give my current build a few days to cure and try leveling and buffing and see what happens.

Result to follow.

Best, M

I use EV all the time. I have been levelling and buffing after a week, but it does need another 14 days in warm conditions to completely cure, and needs pretty gentle handling if fitting bridge/neck and FB Extension until after those extra 14 days.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Hi Colin,

Agreed. Gentle handling is kind of the order of the day no mater what you use.

I was a historic restoration/rehabilitation contractor for a good portion of my working life. I remember the “month of Mondays” getting everything perfect just before the owners moved in with their 3 Great Danes. Guitars are kinda like that too, strangely.

Best, M

I am always looking for a new finish to try. I'd like to hear the finish schedule you guys use. And of course the material for pore finish. (Michael, I did notice that you use silvertip. I am a Clear Coat user and I never seal with varnish, so we are pretty close on that.)

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Woody G posted his shop’s finishing schedule for EnduroVar here on the OLF.

Jay Lichty has a wonderful video on his website regarding pore filling with Silvertip.

Those two resources taken together have been very useful to me in my recent experiments with epoxy pore filling and finishing with EnduroVar.

Thank you Don, I'll have a look

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

No worries. I should say that I misspelled Woodie G’s forum name. If you search by name, it is Woodie, not Woody. And the finish schedule I’m thinking of was for brush application, although he might have provided a spray schedule, too. I can’t remember, because I just copied and pasted what I was interested in.

The Jay Lichty video can be a little hard to find. It is a very long video on his entire finishing process, but it starts with the pore filling, and he uses Silvertip.

Michael did you read grevens article in gal on enduro var ?? . I did a uke with it, but did not fill any pores, I also put the tenor under a warm heat lamp to dry. I believe john has his finishing room in a warm room to cure in sunny portland I buffed it out after 5 days , but to a flat finish not gloss. I sealed the pine top and sycamore back with blonde dewaxed shellac. As I find water based finishes lack the amber
look of traditional varnish. I think a lot of these finishing results depend on climate and application methods. IMHO

Here is the link to Jay’s finishing video:

https://lichtyguitars.com/2016/05/02/ap ... -ukuleles/

Hi Ernie,

The GAL article I read was “How to build 48 guitars a year” #118, pg18.

Is there another one?

M

I've read several of her posts on this subject (Woody is not a "he" btw) and they have been quite informative.

Been using endurovar and am happy with it and will continue to use it. I would not say it is easy to apply. Spray is tricky. It also runs away from the edges so one needs to take care in both applying extra at the edges, and during sanding.

I have two positive discoveries to share:
- my last finish surface was highly figured Koa. I didn't silver tip fill at all. Sprayed 3-4 coats of endurovar. Then block finish flat with 400 grit wet dry (only ever sand endurovar DRY not WET ... witness lines otherwise).
- shoot finish coats. Wait 24-36 hours and block sand with 400 grit to flat.
- Let cure (cross-link) for the remaining time, then finish sanding, buff, etc.

Endurovar seems to work well to fill pores as well. There really is not much shrink back after the initial cure. Second by blocking flat the finish prior to cross-link cure, it saves a lot of time instead of blocking flat when the finish is fully hardened.

This isn’t the first time I’ve made the “gotta be a guy” assumption. I made the same mistake with Charland Guitars, Brigitte Charland...

As for ease of application. EV is definitely harder to spray than EM-6000 but only a little. Both are so much easier than the old KTM-9 was. That stuff ran like crazy and yet I tried and tried to make that stuff work. I do think the EV is the best WB choice for me. It gets harder, and has no blue cast.

M

Can you guys say more about what makes it difficult to spray and what your spray routine with it is? Sounds like it runs?

I did some test panels with EV, Nitro, and FP'd shellac a few years ago, and remember preferring the look of Nitro. It brought out more chatoyance, and had more warmth than the EV. However, I also remember Michael posting a pic of an OM he finished in EV, and it looked fantastic. I'm still interested in experimenting with it since it's low VOC.

I've always filled with Z-Poxy. What do you like about SilverTip? Is it worth the switch?

I have the two issues of GAL with Greven's routine, btw.

I’d love to be able to shoot nitro but my shop is in my basement, so nitro is out.

The EV will sag if you aren’t carful to keep the body moving for a few minutes after spraying. Once the finish has self leveled I hit the finish with a hairdryer to get it to stay put, less that 45 seconds with the dryer does it. Greven used heat lamps. Greven is also brushing on the first 4 coats then spraying the last 2. I find that it never fails with instrument making, you can watch videos and read all you want, but in the end you kinda gotta figure out what works best for you.

The Silvertip cures faster and as long as you do it within 72hrs it can be recoated without sanding the previous coat. You can put on 2 coats in 4-6 hours then let that cure for a day or two before leveling. It’s sort of what Greven does but I’m in less of a rush.

So one of the Greven articles is in GAL #118. What issue is the second one in.

#117...I would love to see how he builds 48 guitars a year by himself.. . If anyone has those issues. I would buy them, but thy are out of print.

Michael, I have to say I'm in the same boat as you in this regard. But that said, I'm quite certain Woody has made it rather clear to us on the OLF that, well, she is a SHE. If I'm wrong, a thousand apologies. But I'm rather certain that's correct. I swear I recall a post of her holding a hand plane or something. The hands were not any man's hands I've ever seen lol. All in good spirits I'm sure.

[EDIT: After I wrote this response, I did a search recalling something about a tool show ... here you guy. Horrific hands for a man; I'm pretty sure our proof is in this pudding: https://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=50277&p=663830&hilit=PATINA#p663830]

James, unfortunately the problem with text is that it only conveys so much. EV looks horrible sprayed ... it bunches and such. I tend to move the object around while the finish starts to set, to prevent runs. It's nothing like spraying nitro, and nothing like working with shellac. I never worked with other systems and honestly I think they all sucked and was a waste of my time. EV is excellent. It is chemically near impervious to people with acidic. The finish is effectively impossible to discern from nitro. On cedar I saw it lay down thin enough that grain line tracings are visible weeks later. That's a thin finish.

Finishes are the most process intensive part of luthiery. There is NO other way to really gain experience and knowledge than by doing it. None, in my experience. What I can tell you is that EV, unlike all the other like finishes, is worth going down that path. I've probably shot nitro on a hundred instruments. EV is that good in my opinion. But the spray on application will make you think you are shooting a glob mess. It will level out.

I've also tinted the finish with transtint and it works well with tint.

i don t remember which GAL article it was, but john wrote out extensively. his method of using endurovar in his shop, It was at least 7 or 8 yrs ago .If your a gal member you can check the online archives. Hope to make it to their Tacoma festival this july 2020. yes , I applied it by hand no spraying.

Brad says it's in #117. I should have it, now to find it.

I'm planning to exhibit at the next GAL. I'd also expect to see John Parchem and Jay De Rocher. Are you planning to exhibit?

Best, M

There is another article called waterborne solutions with doolin and greven #73 , 2003 , but i doubt its.the endurovar. No I/m not exhibiting . I will be flying into seatac , and after the gal ,heading off to van bc .Wife was just there visiting. I think you will find it , endurovar user friendly. Like that old joke . How do you get to carnegie hall . Practice practice practice, an like my old shop teacher said practice on scrap only. Which is How I finally figured out how to use the product and I did not follow all their directions to the letter. I also thinned it with water in the winter due to the low humidity 35% in ourhome in KC Mo. Cheers

It is GAL #118 part 2 of grevens article on how he makes his guitars , and finishing methods

Have any of you tried Crystalac BriteTone? LMII is carrying it and I’m going to try shooting it for the first time next month. My first time shooting waterbased.

Here’s what I learned,

I did my standard pore fill using System-3 Silvertip. It was applied over the course of two days. Once the pore fill was sanded level I shot 6, 3 mil wet coats of EV, 1-1/2 hrs apart placing the instrument in a warm storage closet between coats. The closet was heated to 75° with an RH of 35%. I let the finish sit for 4 days in the previously mentioned conditions before leveling and buffing. I leveled with P600 3M gold, followed by P800. I switched to my Festool ETS-125 RO sander and Abralon pads at 1000, 2000, and 4000. Then I buffed as usual.

The finish was definitely harder than EM6000 after curing for 2 weeks and buffed beautifully. The bridge masking measures .0045”, with finish it measured.0075”. .003” finish thickness. Not bad...


I’m not suggesting anyone change their approach. I just wanted to see if John G was full of beans. Turns out he’s not.

Best, M

4 day cure time is pretty sweet..

and it’s pretty forgiving, and it’s fairly thin!

Greven was going from raw wood to buff in 4 days. I’m happy being able to get a finish on in a week.