Can you shine up a satin finish?

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I bought a Larrivee OM-03 last week. It has a satin finish. I prefer a gloss finish but I couldn't afford another $500 for the OM-05. Is it possible to add some shine with polish?
 
Possibly

I have refinished a few of my own in Satin and have gotten a fairly decent shine using #000 very fine steel wool. This is the stuff for polishing. I don't think wax, etc. would give you the desired effect.
 
sync said:
I bought a Larrivee OM-03 last week. It has a satin finish. I prefer a gloss finish but I couldn't afford another $500 for the OM-05. Is it possible to add some shine with polish?
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My Guild is satin, over time and usage, especially the part that comes in contact with me has developed a shine on its own.

Be careful taking wool to your axe though...
 
Sounds scary

But that wool is so fine it doesn't leave scratches or anything.. Again you must use the #000 very fine.. I don't blame you though it is a new axe. Wait a month then hit it with the wool...
 
Light! Where are you?

Satin finishes can get glossy through wear as eyeslikefire points out - I wouldn't be steelwooling anything, with any grade.

Learn to love it or save another $500 is my recommendation.
 
Armistice said:
Light! Where are you?

Satin finishes can get glossy through wear as eyeslikefire points out - I wouldn't be steelwooling anything, with any grade.

Learn to love it or save another $500 is my recommendation.
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Sorry, but I was doing lights on a show, which has kept me busy 38 out of the last 60 hours. Most of the rest of the time, I have been sleeping.

First of all, OOO is really coarse stuff, from a finishing point of view. People who do use steel wool for this (we don't) use OOOO, and it is only a first step, and leaves HORRIBLE scratches that you have to get out. People who do use (never on guitars, by the way) use pumice and rottenstone to get rid of the steel wool scratches. Old time furniture refinishers use this technique. The only thing we use steel wool for is cleaning fingerboards.

Larrivee uses a ultra-violet catalyzed polyurethane finish, which uses a UV light to cause a chemical reaction, which cures the finish. It is extremely hard, and extremely tough. Unfortunately, if you do damage it, you are screwed, as there is no way to touch up the finish. It is, however, much cheaper to spray, as the environmental filtration is much easier.

The finish we (and Gibson, and the high end Martins, and some other hidebound folks) use is called nitrocellulose lacquer. It cures by off-gassing solvents. It is merely very hard, and very tough. It can, however, be touched up invisibly (usually). It also sounds better (this is an opinion, but I hold it very strongly, as do the rest of us hidebound folks). Most individual builder shops use nitro. Once you get the hang of it, it is easy to spray, goes on quite well (with proper technique), and is, as I said, easy to repair. It is also, however, very toxic, and its solvents have some pretty bad environmental concerns, in large quantities. For this reason, they require a very serious filtration system to be used in a production situation. That serious can be read expensive. Even in small shops, like ours, we have to spend a fair bit of money, because nitro is explosive, so we must have an explosion proof fan in our booth.

Now, more to the point of the question. There are two ways to make a satin finish. One, can be wet sanded and polished to a high gloss, the other cannot. Unfortunately, nobody uses the one which can be in a production situation (mores the pity). If you simply wet sand the finish with a 320 grit, it will be nicely flat, and also feels really good. The other way to do it is to add a flattening agent. This is what is done in most production situations. No amount of sanding and polishing will ever make the surface truly glossy in this situation, which is, I am afraid, what Larivee does. they can be come a sort of semi-gloss, particularly (as others have said) on area's which ones arm comes into contact with while strumming, but they will never get the high gloss look you are looking for.

I guess that is all a longwinded way of saying, learn to like what you have. By the way, the reason inexpensive guitars have satin finishes is that they are much faster, easier, and cheaper to produce.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks for the great explanation. I knew when I bought the guitar that I would have to learn to like it.
 
sweat stains!!

Hi,

I just bought a washburn WD32S model that comes with a satin finish, the guitar is awesome, beautiful sound and extremely comfortable with a light to medium gauge set of strings.

At first I kind of didn't liked the finish but now I'm in love with it!!!!

So You'll have to learn to like it.


Is there a way to prevent the finish from getting sweat stains around the area where my arm comes into contact with the guitar while strumming????
 
Re: sweat stains!!

Emperor !!! said:

Is there a way to prevent the finish from getting sweat stains around the area where my arm comes into contact with the guitar while strumming????
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Old Spice High Endurance!
 
A long sleeve shirt...

But seriously, avoidance is the best policy if you want to keep it pristine looking for a long time, I don't really have a real answer for you unfortunately.
 
At a folk festival last summer, I saw Roy Book Binder (no Grammy yet) perform. He had a small towel or dishtowel that he carefully folded and put under his forearm and over the top of his guitar. He sits while performing, so the towel wasn't going anywhere.

(Go here to see Roy holding guitars. No towel in sight, but he obviously has some intruments worth protecting.)

http://www.roybookbinder.com/gallery.shtml
 
towel

Cool pictures!!

I tried before the little towel under my arm, but then my shoulder gets tired trying to maintain the guitar in position while strumming, because the towel lets your arm slide a little over the guitar.

Guess I'll try the long sleeve shirt while performing, but what to do when practicing, still don't know, maybe just forget the whole thing!!

what do you think??
 
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