Most recent guitar: The Tree of Life

That’s a lot of work out of the way. I can cut the body & neck pretty easily on the CNC but the finishing is a month long job. Nitrocellolose lacquer is a multi day dry & cure process and the sanding to 3000 or 5000 grit before polishing is tedious especially around the curves. With a dozen coats of lacquer you’ve got to keep your paint & drying area pristinely clean of dust. Fixing defects isn’t bad since lacquer will melt into the layers beneath but it’s still really irritating when you think you’ve got it perfect and you find another nib :sob:

Unfortunately my son is a big fan of customs and now that I’m retired the pressure is on. I can’t show him your pics because then I’d be in trouble. It’s unfortunate because my local mill always has some nice swamp ash and I know lots of luthiers would kill for it.

It must take you months to get a guitar out the door. Kudos to you for your patience :slightly_smiling_face:

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we don’t do the crazy multiple layers of nitrocellulose or similar finishes. we buy prefinished, do natural (sometimes whitewashed or colorwashed) with an oil or a clear lacquer from the autobody shop. the only one we’ve truly put a paint finish on was the white leopard, and that was the auto body shop again. neither of us have the space or patience for all the nitrocellulose layers and incessant buffing.

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