Official Luthiers Forum!

It's getting pretty cold around here, and so I'm hesitant to keep spraying in my garage. The instructions on the product say not to apply under 15 degrees celsius. Plus I don't like standing in the cold. So I've decided to try and finish a couple kits I have by brushing the lacquer on instead. I've heard people have good results thinning the product a little more than usual, I was wondering if there is anything else to take into consideration?

I've experimented with some color on the back of a tele, and it seems hard to get good even coverage...

There was an article in American Lutherie a while back about brushing waterborn lacquer (specifically KTM-9) but I don't think it said anything about temperature. The author got good luck but as I remember, he had to do a lot of leveling to get the brush strokes out. KTM-9 is one of my two favorite finishes (nitro the other), I will frequently reduce it with denatured alcohol when its cold or I want better flow. Another trick with KTm-9 (and I assume others) is that when I finish I wash out my gun with warm water, then put some alcohol in it and shot it thru the nozzle - water is soluble in DA and it will keep parts from corroding. I leave a little DA in the cup and when I'm ready to spray the next day I shoot a mist of DA, then fill the cup with KTM-9 and start my spraying. The DA seems to make the surface slightly tacky and since I've been doing that I haven't had any witness lines when I sand.

Another thing you might try is warm the lacquer in warm water and put a heat lamp on the guitar.

Thanks Freeman, I thinned this Brite-tone lacquer quite a bit with reducer, and my test piece levelled itself out quite nicely as it dried. Not much in the way of brush strokes, but I'm having a heck of a time getting the color to cover evenly. But I'm wondering if that has more to do with how much colored pigment I've added, as I have the same problem when I spray, I only get good color coverage when I spray a very heavy wet coat. But the mixed lacquer looks nice and opaque before it goes into the gun or onto the brush...

Sorry, can't help with the color thing. I have only done clear and tinted lacquer, I save the solid colors for my motor cycle painting friend.