Official Luthiers Forum!

As these newish chemical things role off the shelf, the most important question is what does time do to it. I've sprayed nitro for over 40 years on about 700 new instruments and more than a thousand instruments if I include my repair days too. The u-tube videos, mostly from the promoter of the product, are fairly glowing. Recently I took the plunge myself and tried it on one of my own new instruments. I discovered a deep, not sanding, scratch on the tail just when I was ready to ship it to Japan. Lovely! The thicker GluBoost Fill actually worked almost seamlessly and quickly on a 30 day old cured lacquer finish. Pretty impressive. I was able to ship the instrument the next day. Today, when we were doing set-up for our Big Island Ukulele Guild Annual show, I was shown a total Glu-Boost finish. No lacquer or other finish, just Glu-Boost. It was a first attempt by the builder with GluBoost, but it was not bad. Basically it seems that a 1 day finish is possible. Compare that to the average 45 days it takes me to complete a cured nitro finish, and the time advantages are obvious. I don't see myself using this on my better guitars and ukes, but I also build lap steels which scream for a less highly sophisticated and time consuming finish. So, just curious. Any negative experiences with Glu-Boost? I'm talking about the thick and thin Fill n' Finish products. The other stuff seems more like just expensive super glue to me, but the Fill n'Finish is definitely something different. For one, none of those eye stinging fumes, which is nice.

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“ The meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away” Pablo Picasso

Hi Bob,

I’ve been a GluBoost user since they first launched their accelerator (before they had the line of CA to go with it). I’m a big fan and have switched over to using their CA (regular and finish) for all my CA glue needs. I would echo what you said about being able to do touchup with the Fill and Finish, it is much easier to get good crack and dent fills with GluBoost CA than any other brand I’ve tried. They have 2 thicknesses for the Fill and Finish. If you haven’t tried the thinner one (orange label) try it out, I prefer it over the thicker one. I have used the GluBoost to finish the entire face of several peg heads. Properly sanded and buffed it comes out great, and is really hard to distinguish from Nitro. The tricky thing I find when using it to finish a flat surface is to get an even application of the glue. It wipes on real nice (especially the orange label), but you end up with some fuzzies if you are using a rag or paper towel. If I’m doing a pegged I will often spread it around using wax paper. It doesn’t come out real even, but not fuzzies. What I’ve been doing is putting it on a little thick to be sure I have lots to sand level before buffing. I could possibly see using this on an electric guitar, but I really don’t know about an acoustic, especially a softwood top. I don’t know how you’d every get the coats thin and even enough? I can tell you that being able to finish the face of a peg head (raw wood to polished out) in 30 minutes is cool!

For their line of regular CA, I like the viscosities that they offer. Of course they have the water thin (they call Ultra thin) stuff like most lines of CA offer, but their regular thin is a viscosity that I really like. It is in between what most other suppliers have as Thin and Medium. The GluBoost thin is great when you need a really thin CA, but don't want it to just soak into the wood and disappear the way Ultra Thin does.

In general I’m a big fan and highly recommend their product. I have not tried any of the colour touchup product that they are not offering.

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Josh House

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