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I've not used any of these, but why wouldn't you just use the High Performance product instead of stacking them?

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

It's possible that some prefer using the Endurovar to get the ambering it imparts, but want to moderate it by using High Performance for the final coats. Using High Performance and tinting the first couple of coats may have the same effect if that is what is desired. Sometimes it is desirable to have water white topcoats so uneven finish thickness caused by level sanding doesn't show up as uneven color. Damhikt

Okay, this is what I am seeing sometimes when finish sanding and buffing the instruments using 4 layers of High Performance on top of 4 layers Enduro-Var II. I'm not even sure this is witness lines.
I hope you can see the horizontal lines reflected around the light bulb. Just simple wood texture? What do you think?

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

OK, this is a little larger image.


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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

Those don't look like the witness lines I've seen. The ones I've seen looked something like this:




The lines look like brush lines. Not saying that they are, but they look similar. Did you brush the EV coats on in that area in the cross grain direction? Did you level sand the last EV coat before applying the High Performance coats?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I brushed each consecutive coat of Enduro-Var and High Performance at 90° to each other. In other words, 1st coat length-wise, 2nd coat width-wise. And no, I did not level sand the last coat of Enduro-Var before adding the 1st coat of High Performance. So that last coat of Enduro-Var would have been width-wise. Do you think I could be seeing the brush marks of that last Enduro-Var layer? You may be right on target with that. If so, why would it not buff out the same as the High Performance?
Thanks

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

I'm wondering if you sand into the transition zone between the High Performance and the EV2 without having level sanded the EV2 you might get alternating bands of EV2 and High Performance on top of EV2 that might refract light differently.

Here's a very rough sketch of what I'm wondering with the vertical scale greatly exaggerated. The perspective is looking end on to the brush strokes. I hope that makes sense and I apologize for my lack of artistic talent. If you sanded the final finish down to a level that cuts through the high points of the brush stroke lines (horizontal line in the center), you could have EV2 exposed at the high points and have High Performance on top of EV2 in the troughs. They might look slightly different. Just speculating.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I think you may be right on. Makes perfect sense.

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Formerly know as Mandodiddle.

Another short article from the finishing Guru on brushing finishes:
https://thefinishingstore.com/blogs/new ... h-a-finish
I learned some things about cleaning finishes out of brushes I didn't know.

Thanks to Woodie for the initial report and thanks to everyone that filled in some more info. Here's my $.02 on the subject.

I preferentially brush finished with oil varnish for many years, but as manufacturers continued to drop oil varnishes from their product lines I found I was spending far too much time and effort auditioning and then getting used to new products, only to have them pulled as soon as I was comfortable with them. That particular handwriting being on that particular wall, I switched to waterborne varnishes and settled on (original) Endurovar, applied with a foam brush. Typical of most waterborne finishes, the stuff had good burn in between coats, and in general was pretty much foolproof (Ask me why this last quality is so important to me!). When General Finishes announced new and improved (words that I generally never want to hear about pretty much anything) Endurovar II, I immediately contacted John Greven, figuring if anyone had already vetted the new stuff it would be him. But unfortunately (for me, not for John) he was working from a substantial inventory of the original product and had not experimented with Endurovar II at that time. I finished some test boards with it and everything worked great, so I finished some instruments with it and all continued to be fine.

But Woodie's report made me realize that I had just assumed EII had good burn in properties, but it was possible that I hadn't really tested that. Being that most of my varnishing experience is with oil varnish, which goes on in discrete layers, it is possibly and likely that I just never cut through the top coat when I was using EII. So I went back to the test boards, and indeed there is a distinct lack of burn in.

I am now using General Finishes High Performance only. This works about the same as original Endurovar. Doesn't have any tint. Burn in is good. I will experiment more with tinting the varnish, but have so far not done that.

Thanks again all.

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R.M. Mottola
LiutaioMottola.com

Author of the books Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar and Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms.

While you’re here, just want to say thank you so much for your site and for gthang. So much information there that truly has helped me elevate my instrument building.

Brad


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Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

Ditto to Brad's comments above. GThang is wonderful. Thanks for all you do!

Anybody notice the difference in hardness between GF high performance and EVII? 123 Koenig for EVII and 59 for GF-HP. I wonder if this could be affecting results?

M

I found three web sellers that still show original EV for sale and they show the accompanying tech sheets. They show a Koenig number of 123, so the same as for EVII. I emailed one of them and they confirmed that what they have in stock is still original EV and the tech sheet on their website hasn't been updated to EVII. That suggests that the difference between EV and EVII is due to something else in the new formulation.

Out of curiosity, I searched for a hardness number for EM6000 for comparison and had no luck. Do you by any chance know what it is?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Well good news from my recent experience, though I was about to throw a fit (or guitar body) at one point. I am currently finishing two guitars with Endurovar2. I followed the instructions on the can by spraying a coat and allowing 2-3 hours to dry, smoothing the coat with a sanding pad and applying the next coat. I did this for 3-4 coats then level sanded. Then applied 3 more. After three weeks curing I went to sand and buff one guitar today. It was the one with the roughest final coat. I leveled with 1000 and noticed some witness lines where I went through the last coat into the lower layer and got concerned. So I went to the buffing arbor and tried buffing with menzerna pink compound only to find the witness lines were still visible in a raking light (it was at this point that I nearly threw something into the wall) so I stopped part way through buffing and took a break.

Then I went ahead and level sanded the other guitar (p1200) very carefully and went ahead and buffed it and it came out great. So I had the thought to go back to the witness line guitar and give it another try. I did a quick sand of the back with p1500 and then off to the buffer. This time I worked at it like normal, not just a quick shot like before, and I found that with a little work the witness lines totally disappeared . The back looks great and I couldn’t be more happy. I have yet to do the sides or top of the original guitar but I think it will work out fine. I will post some picks later if I remember.

So for me it is a reasonable experience with Endurovar2 for now and we will have to see how it hold up.

Kent

The guys looked for old stock (with a request for a quart for some for grand-baby ukes), but only found a gallon at one of the local Woodcraft stores. The issue with Endurovar is the shelf life - three years unopened and what we found to be under a year once uncorked. If you are buying old stock EV1, you might ask for the batch information to confirm you'll have time to use the material before it begins to degrade (and it does... eventually failing to fully cross-link, etc.).

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

So I finally got the guitars I was working on finished. Overall the Endurovar 2 seems to be working out fine. Though witness lines may show upon sanding they disappear completely when buffing. I also was able to fill a dent in the cedar top with Gluboost and it also was reasonably invisible. One spot on the headstock had a sandthrough so I tried adding a few more coats to the headstock and a little down the neck and again there is no witness lines as I feared I would see. The sanding and buffing was reasonable and the gloss was pretty good to.

I didn’t notice any adhesion problems but will have to keep my fingers crossed that none show up in the future.

Overall I will use it on future guitars and see how it goes.

Looks great! Thanks for the update.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Somebody asked above... is the original formulation still available? (perhaps I missed the response..)

They stopped making it so the only EV1 that's still available is whatever is left over in stock from more than a year ago.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

What has been the effect of the finish not fully cross linking?
Some finishes can have a "cross linker" added to them after the fact. Have "the Guys" found anything that can be added to restore the cross linking qualities of Endurovar?
With finishes that degrade with contact with the atmosphere I will sometimes pour into smaller sealed containers, and hopefully extend the shelf life that way.

Partial cross-linking resulted in layers separating as the guitar was sanded and leveled... very distinct separation between coats. Mr. Morelli was lucky in the sense that the failure was a late coat that likely went about 40 minutes prior to application, so the final two coats were carefully sanded back, leaving a thinner finish than desired, but not so thin that it produced any sand or buff issues.

Nothing on additional cross-linkers for EV2, but if applied as directed (scuff-sand/Scotchbrite between coats), the finish sanded and buffed out much more like EV1.

We stored any opened 'curing' finish such as EV1/2, solvent varnish, etc. in laboratory-grade Nalgene bottles topped off with Bloxygen or other oxygen-excluding inert gas treatment. While we had some phenolic-based Rockhard varnish which was likely 15 years old and stored in this fashion for touch-up work on varnished guitars, EV1 lasted a maximum of about a year once open, despite all efforts to extend that timeframe.

'The Guys' are still Messrs. Morelli and Stock, although I believe Mr. Stock has begun identifying as an attack helicopter... or at least according to the t-shirt he was wearing in the shop yesterday. So funny... not. We shall see what he thinks he is this AM once I get my Royal Bakery bagel fix and we get started on the day's festivities. We were supposed to be headed to the range this afternoon, but too much work to do to break away and play. Very annoyed.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Nice job kjaffrey your guitar looks great!

SO, what is the consensus? Is it as amber as the original? What is the shortest time between coats to avoid witness lines? Does it indeed spray better?

I do not even see the amber gloss version anymore! Edit: Found it at Rockler

Mike

Has anyone determined the max time between coats that begin to result in witness lines? Or better, the min time to avoid?