Buffing out lacquer: techniques, pads, and compounds

Tom Ely - 09:26pm May 27, 2000

What is the best way to buff out a laquer finish after the final coat? I need to know the best products to use and the correct technique. Thanks!

Hi Tom, there are many, many ways to go for buffing. Assuming your finish has cured for a few weeks and is flat, then if you have a buffing arbor you might wet sand with 600 or 800 (as high a grit as possible), then hit the buffing wheel. If you don't have a buffer, elbow grease will do fine. You can wet sand with 800, then use micro-mesh all the way to 12,000, then final polish with Maguire's mirror glaze (available at auto parts stores--3M has similar products that some people prefer). Other's have recommendations?

I'd agree with the above, there are many, many 'recipes' for final rubout, I only wanted to add that Stew-Mac sells buffing pads that fit onto a drill that I use quite extensively in the absence of a true arbor buffing machine.

I can hardly stress enough to you how much easier buffing is when you use the right tools---a buffing wheel setup like Stew Mac sells along with the correct buffing waxes/compounds. There's no comparison to doing it by hand or using an automobile-type horizontal buffer. It's like using the correct saw blade--a rip for ripping or a crosscut for crosscutting--and even this analogy isn't quite on the money considering that there are decent "combination" blades.

We use what start off as 14" buffs---Lea "Airway" buffs which are self-cooling;they draw air through the buff to cool the work piece. We go about 2" to 3" wide by stacking the individual buffs, and we use Menzerna wax # 38 and then #6 for final buff on polyester. We sand dry to the equivalent of 1,200 grit before buffing. It's reasonably quick and easy.

Rick, do you have a direction to point the old search engine for your source? And do you use different wheels for the menzerna grits? I have just been using one wheel with the different grits, but somehow I think it would work better with dedicated wheels.

Also, you can make your own buffing set-up with an arbor, motor and pulleys from Graingers. Buy the Stew-Mac buffs and Menzurna and you're on your way. The arbor is about $25 as I remember.

Good advise about the luxury of proper tools.

I have just been using one wheel with the different grits

The problem with using the same wheel for all grits is that it's difficult to completely remove the coarser abrasives from the wheel when moving to a finer grit.

I'd have to dig through some old purchasing records for that, Randy. Just check a Thomas register or something. Lea Abrasives, I think it is...

You've got to use dedicated buffs for this kind of work. We have a double headed buffer--I think about 2 hp. Now we've got two more we're going to set up. I want a small diameter high speed buff to do the insides of waist curves as well as cutaways.

Pau Reed Smith now has a robot buffer. The robot holds the guitar, twisting and turning is appropriately. I just talked shop a bit with Jean Larrivee about making a very wide buffer with a conveyor belt below or perhaps a shuttling table which holds guitar bodies to do tops and backs. We both came up with the idea of blocking the soundhole and inflating the body with just enough air pressure to resist the tendecy for the buffs to push to tops and backs in.

OK, so I'm a production freak.....

OK, so I'm a production freak.....

Don't appologize for being a production freak; if it weren't for cost effective production lines, I'd have never had that cheap, but playable, guitar to learn on.

I always try to keep my buff narrow, under an inch, in fact, to keep from heating the finish too much. It would seem to me that a full width buff would heat the finish way too much, or is this not a problem with finishes other than lacquer?

I know that Michael Hornick also likes narrow buffs for lacquer. You might be able to go wider with the "Airway" buffs as they are designed to self cool.

We don't have a finish burning or melting problem with polyester. The biggest problem with overheating is actually heating the wood under the finish causing grain lines raising prematurely. I say prematurely because the showing of the grain lines in the surface of the finish tends to indicate to the more sophisticated guitar purchaser that the finish is thin---and that helps sell "hand made" guitars, even those made in multiples. The guitars which maintain a mirror-like flatness tend to have too much finish on them.

Mario, do you think a slower wheel reduces the burn through problem? If I remember the video where Hornick talked about this, he did say that his ran at about 12-1500rpm.

Yeah, running it slower helps allot. I actually run an 8 inch buff off of my drill press, and played around with the speeds quite a bit ; if you run it too slow, you'll never get the gloss you're after, and a touch too fast, and you'll be burning through easily. I must be running on the ragged edge of going too quick, as I can easily burn-through, but I haven't had problems in over a year now, so I must have the hang of it.

Maybe now I could double-up my buffs, come to think of it! Nah, why fix what ain't broke <g>.

As much as I would like to have a dedicated polishing station I just don't have the room for something that is used so infrequently, so I am open to any alternative- hand polishing, disk polishers etc.. This weekend I purchased a random orbital auto buff, and played around with it some, polishing a guitar. The jury is still out but I think that it will work out quite well. There was no problem in burning through and there were no swerl patterns. Plus it was only $20 at Harbor Freight.

When buffing nitro lacquer, one of the things you are doing is burnishing---actually melting the top few microns of material and making it flow dead flat. We don't do that with the poly finishes on which the final polish is more a matter of making finer and finer scratches, like with glass. Big difference, and it's a fine line between flowing and melting/burning through.

I just tried buffing LMI's waterborne finish by hand with some generic auto buffing compound the other day. It took no time at all to get it to a high gloss.

If it takes "no time" to bring a finish up to a high gloss, then how long will it take to scratch it??? I'll tell you......no time at all or even less----yes, minus time.

Is it possible to buff out a lacquer finish using the buffing pad supplied with some orbita sanders?

Yes it is. I have buffed out several guitars as well as some large furniture projects with a Bosch orbital sander and a lambs wool pad. The only problem was doing the sides of the guitar at the waist so I had to resort to hand buffing this area.

Having a real command of the obvious, I ordered a new buffing wheel and loaded it up with Very Fine Menzurna and guess what? The polish is much better than my lonely single buff with all of the grades intermixed. I'll be sure to dedicate one wheel for the final buff from now on. Thanks for the help.

I live and work in the UK. Can anybody tell me if there is much difference between the Behlens and mafaddens nitrocellulose lacquers? I can only get hold of the Behlens, and I am finding it impossible to buff up to a scratch free finish using my stewmac buffing arbor. I have tried all papers from 600 to 2000. Any of you guys get a good result with this Behlens Stuff?

Hi Alister, Untill just recently all i ever used was Behlens Instrument grade nitrocellulose lacquers. ( my supplier closed up his shop and went out of business,i now use Mohawk products) and i never have had a problem with bring their gloss lacquer up to a scratch free mirror shine! I too go the route of using 600 to 2000 grit paper,using Maguire automotive polishing compounds and a variable speed orbital grinder/polisher with a lambs wool bonnet. I have heard nothing but good things about Macfaddens Lacqures as well so all i can say is Behlens done good by me! If you want to,check out my web site,in the photo section,under "finished guitars",they all were done with Behlen products,and let me know what you think? Cheers...........Lou

Just got an idea which I am in the process of implementing. I do not have room for a dedicated buffing station, so I have been making do with a 6 inch disk sander/polisher, and a lambs wool pad. It struck me that if I turn it on its side and mount it in a cradle that I can clamp to my bench, I can spin a buff real nice. The sander is 7 amps, so I think that it is powerful enough( it also has a convenient screw hole up front, for a side handle, which I can use to hold it in the cradle). I'll just have to change the wheel for different grits, that's all. Has anybody out there tried this?

This discussion has a been a big help to me, as a quiet viewer, but now I'd like to pose a question. For the StewMac foam buffers that attach to handheld drills, should they be wetted down a bit first with some clean water? I noticed that the foam would work well as a spunge to suck up some moisture and become a bit softer, but I'm not sure how that would affect the polishing compound in doing its job. Any thoughts?

Tucker, to address your question, I've dampened my buffing wheel, thinking as you that it would disperse the paste and help the process. It didn't seem to, mostly it diluted the stuff and seemed to take longer to eliminate the scratches. I think it's one of those ideas that sounds great til you try it. With a different compound than what I was using, perhaps, but for me - no go. It seems that it desires dryness.

I also use a lambswool buffer with McGuires polish (two grades) on Behlen's instrument lacquer and get great results. I moisten the lambswool with a little water and it seems to help. I also use the buffers on an old variable speed hand drill so I can hold the guitar with one hand and buff with the other. If I made more than one or two guitars a year I would probably look like a professional tennis player with a huge right forearm. As it is I just suffer cramps and soreness for a day or so.

Does anyone have information on the ideal rpm for a 12 inch wheel buffing out nitro lacquer, and is it any different for water based lacquer?

George, As to the question of buffer speed, it depends greatly on the compounds you are using. Generally the more waxy compounds like a slower speed as they tend to glaze up on the wheel if they get too hot. also what you should concern yourself with is SFPM, not RMP, so don't fall into the rpm trap. If you are using Menzerna compounds (from Stew-Mac) give them a call, or better yet call Jescar (the US distributor for Menzerna). They can give you the answers you need. Sorry, I don't have the # handy, but if you e-mail me off-forum I'll be happy to get it for you. BTW, you'll find that water based finishes do buff out differently from Nitrocellulose. My experience with them is limited, but I've had better results with compounds designed for plastic polshing as opposed to lacquer polishing comounds. Check with your local plastics supplier for those (ie: Tapp Plastics)

Just FYI: Behlens is the consumer brand name used by Mohawk Finishes. A lot of the same products are sold under the two different brand names. Mohawk is generally marketed to professional finishers and refinishers. Mohawk also owns the Star brand name which used to be one of their competitors.

I use the Stew Mac buffing pads, arbor and compound. You can't imagine how good this type of set up works until you use it. Before I got the arbor, I used to chuck the same buffing pads in my radial arm drill press by using a cut off bolt and some plumbing pipes I cut down to use as sleeves. It worked great. The only drawback was having to change the pads when going from grit to grit.

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