…Sam’s Guitar is now ready for polishing

This is a custom instrument I am making for Sam Winston – you can read Part 1 here

Lantern Inlay

The main part of the lantern was made by our good friend Mike at Small Wonder – he is the UK master at this.

I thought it looked a bit sad without a flame so I added that and a couple of other details – the flame is made from Red Heathergem – the first guitar in the universe with this material.

Now the final coats of UV Gloss have been applied the guitar is ready for polishing.

Polishing

The guitar might seem shiny enough but if you look closely there are small defects in the finish. This is usually where tiny particles of dust have landed before the surface dried. Also the finish tends to pool around certian areas preventing it from lying perfectly mirror flat.

The Polishing process

After the polishing process the end result should be a perfectly mirror flat finish – of course wood is wood and it is never quite as easy as that but the procedure goes like this:

Flat Sanding

After the guitar has been sprayed with enough coats of lacquer, and this is dry, then the entire surface is sanded using 400-800g wet and dry sandpaper – a little white spirit can be used for lubrication.

Sanding Through the Grits

Once the surface is perfectly flat and all defects are removed then the surface can be polished. This entails sanding with finer and finer ‘grit’ sandpaper. Each time the surface is sanded until all the scratches are removed from the previous grit.

We go through all the grits until we reach 2000g.

Buffing

– at this point the surface has a dull sheen and can finally be polished to a high gloss on the buffing wheel.

Hand Glaze

A final Hand Glaze is applied to complete the job.

Next Job…

After polishing the neck will be glued on and a day later the guitar can be strung up – look out for another blog very soon with pictures of the completed instrument!

Contact Us with your requirements and it could be your guitar featured here on the blog!