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There are many types of finishes available for guitars.
When choosing a finish you should first ask what you want the finish to do
and then base your decision on one that gives you the most amount of pros
with the least amount of cons. Remember there is no perfect finish.
In this video I will highlight the UV cured finish.
I am in the Bamburg Guitars workshop in Salida, Colorado with Jeff Bamburg.
Jeff uses a UV cured polyester finish on his guitars with excellent results.
What is a UV cured finish? The UV stands for Ultra violet light.
A special wand using this technology is waved over the finish
allowing it to cure instantly.
This allows you to finish a guitar in a day
instead of weeks like with traditional lacquer.
The finish is a very high solids content
which means it cures without having to allow for the evaporation of its VOC’s
or Volatile Organic Compounds.
This means it is better for the environment and for the person applying the finish.
This finish expands and contracts with the wood
and when applied properly will have little impact on the tonality of the instrument.
UV cured finishes are very durable,
highly scratch resistant and darn near bullet proof.
There are some drawbacks though. Besides the learning curve with this type of finish,
It also has some pretty nasty stuff in it that could make your babies be born naked
so please use precautions when working with it.
The equipment is also a bit pricey so if you are not building guitars for a living
and are not in a hurry then perhaps this type of finish
is best left to the professionals like Jeff.
The pore filling process is a breeze.
You apply and spread a gel like material
and then wave the magic UV wand and it is instantly dry to the touch.
This allows you to sand it and get right back to business.
There are a variety of steps and products involved with this type of finish.
However, after spraying each coat of finish
you wave the UV light over the finish and it instantly dries.
As you can tell the end result is nothing short of stunning.
Early I said this type of finish is darn near bullet proof.
Well, Jeff and I did some testing to really find out if it is.
After some time at the range we came to the conclusion that it is not bullet proof.
However, we are still testing to see if it is microwaveable and dishwasher safe.