General Finishes Waterbase Topcoat - SM is pushing this - anyone tried it?

[Randy Roberts]

Chuck,
Gorgeous guitar, and I would be thrilled with a finish that ended up looking like yours.
For what it’s worth, my impressions of EV:
First a bunch of caveats. This is my first use of it, and it’s satin not gloss. I brushed it (first time I’ve brushed a finish but I couldn't get 2 different guns to work and gave up ), this isn’t on an instrument but furniture and flat surfaces at that. This project has required finishing the majority of surfaces prior to glue up, so it’s been pretty much the ideal as all has been flat surfaces laying horizontally while being finished.

Ok, it brushes on wonderfully if you don’t go back over a previous area to “touch it up” and you keep a wet edge going into the unfinished area.
The drying and sanding knock my socks off. I’ve sanded well over the equivalent of two 4x8 sheets of plywood veneer with one disk of 400 grit and not a single corn of finish gumming up the paper.
I put one coat (on cherry), sanded , 3 really heavy coats, lightly sanded and a final coat. The wood comes through far far better than any satin finish I’ve ever seen (I’ve always hated satin finish because it just always seems to put a blurry fog over the wood instead of enhancing it’s beauty to my eyes). If this is what satin looks like, I can’t wait to get my hands on some gloss.
I don’t see any bluing that seems to be driving Chuck crazy, but then I have some color vision problems with red and green so maybe that’s why I don’t see a bluish to it?
I’ve only used it on bare wood. I really want Chuck’s impression of adhering well to shellac to hold true, as I would sure rather seal well with shellac first than to essentially soak a guitar in the white in water and then hope it all holds up. And to seal resinous wood so it doesn’t affect the cure of the EV.
I’d like to sand past 220 which is their recommended stopping point, and have it still adhere well.
I’d like to see if it adheres ok to wood pore filled with CA or Z-poxy and then sanded back to wood.
(I’d like you guys to do all this testing, as I appear to have been comitted by a higher power to these furniture projects with no light at the end of the tunnel)

I really want to thank you guys for introducing us to this stuff, and for the time you’ve spent in your tests.

As to the industry adhesion test...any idea what kind of tape should be used? duct tape, masking tape, scotch tape?? The adhesive I would think would be a big factor in whether it pulls the finish off or not.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Yea - what kind of tape?

Are you blue-ish?

[Chuck Tweedy]

I did the tape test.
Started with clear packing tape - nothing - came off very clean.
Next, 3M masking tape - the wide stuff - nothing
So I put down some Gorilla tape - last night - let it sit all night - ripped it off this morning - see picture.

Oh - by the way, this was on the oil-shellac-EV section of my test board - What I assumed to be worst case

[Randy Roberts]

I think the tape left a little bit of a blue haze there, but I could be wrong <g>

[Chuck Tweedy]

with fronds like these, who needs anemones?

[Greg Martin]

General finishes,in general are top quality waterborne finishes,,but I don't like it for guitars.why? Because of sanding burn thru s. Water based finishes do not melt in with previous layers like nitro, so if you burn thru sanding and just respray that small area you will get a whitish witness line. Lot of chances this could happen even for a very experienced sprayer. now flat toppers may not have such an issue. But even on a strat you can burn thru an edge. It's not fun to have to sand and respray the whole side just for one small burn thru. Also if you burn thru when buffing you're in for heart ache.
It's a great cabinet and furniture coating and there exterior poly is the best.i do use General finishes a lot.
I know all this because I used to sell general finishes,and have done a few solid body guitars with it.

[Chuck Tweedy]

Greg, this was covered in the 7 pages of this thread, but...
If you get all your coats on quickly - within a couple days - you will _not_ get witness lines. I know, because I got witness lines when I waited too long between coats and the burn in was not great. On coats that went on quickly I got NO witness lines at all.
So lesson there - get it all done QUICKLY.
AND
If you get a thick enough film, you will never burn through this stuff. I sanded and buffed my ass of on this stuff, and expected to burn through, but never did. Not even close.

General makes many products - Have you ever used Enduro-Var - specifically? I think it is tougher than the others.

[Craig Bumgarner]

Little update: I used sprayed EV Satin for my latest and am pleased with the results. Personally, my preferred aesthetic is high gloss, but the customer wanted something flatter.

I sealed the walnut neck and the spruce top with Seal Lac and the back and sides with EV Gloss (no particular reason I used gloss here, it just happened). Lightly sanded and sprayed the b/s w/ EV Satin with Transtint for color. Sanded lightly w/ 600, gave the top two coats of EV Satin and everything else three coats, sanding with 600 between each coat. I used 2000 grit paper 12 hours later to knock off the little bits of dust and pollen that crept in.

EV directly over wood looks troublesome to me. On my test samples of spruce, it is clear by the way the pieces warped that the spruce absorbed a lot of moisture. In spite of this, I applied EV directly to bare wood on the back and sides. It work okay, but it did raise the fish glue I used in the bindings and swelled the bindings some. I would not apply to bare wood again. As mentioned earlier, I did cross hatch testing of test panels of EV over shellac and Seal Lac, not even a hint of an adhesion problem.

If EV holds good to shellac, then this means shellac (or Seal Lac) can be used as a tie coat between epoxy used for grain fill and EV top coats. I've used shellac and Seal Lac over epoxy for a number of years without problems.

Another thing noted is drop fills with CA & accelerator work great. The EV is tough enough that the CA fill can be worked down without going through the EV. Covers with EV well too.

Anyhow, I'm liking it.

I have to work out some spraying issue. Like why the gun keeps clogging up with EV, had to stop and run water through the gun every 30-40 seconds. This did not seem to affect the final outcome, but distracting. I'm using a Ingersol Rand gravity fed touchup gun with a .8mm tip and 20 psi air. I went to 40 psi and it seems to have been better, but I was almost done at that point. The best results seem to be when I can get a good flow onto the work, but I'm having trouble delivering enough EV to the surface, especially when the tip starts to clog. I tried my gun with a bigger tip (1.5mm?) , but this just resulted in more orange peel. Thinning about 20% with water also seemed to help. Any thoughts on this appreciated.

[Craig Bumgarner]

I have to work out some spraying issue. Like why the gun keeps clogging up with EV, had to stop and run water through the gun every 30-40 seconds.

I was talking with my painter friend at work and he thinks my "clogging" every 20-30 seconds problem is that the vent in the cup cap is clogged. That sounds very plausible, will check.

[David King]

Did you strain the material through cheesecloth on it's way into the gun?

[Chuck Tweedy]

Yea - filter the finish - I found several blobs in mine.
Also, General recommends a 1mm tip - that is what I used and it worked fine for me.

[Randy Roberts]

I have minimal experience spraying. Had only a .39 tip, which allowed no finish at all out, just air. The other try was a 1.5 mm tip and it just spit occasional boogers out . Threw both guns away and grabbed a brush.

The finish does seem pretty viscous unthinned, even when brushed.

This is more and more encouraging to here the early reports of adhesion to shellac. Just so many problems that would solve.

[Jon Perry]

My experience with General products has been nothing but fantastic. I've tried many of the water based products out there, EM-6000, KTM, Brite-tone, Deft.... List goes on. Never completely happy with any of them.

The sanding sealer they sell works great, builds fast and sands like a dream.

I am using the High Performance line for my clear coat. I have found it builds nicely and dries quite fast. Sometimes a bit too,fast but adding the extender fixes this. One of the nicest finishes I have buffed. After the final coat I wet sand with 1000 grit then hit the wheel. Never felt like it wanted to burn through.

I did find the cure time is a bit longer than some of the other finishes I have used, just need to give it a bit more time.

Here's some pics of a guitar I recently finished with General.

[Barry Daniels]

That's a great looking guitar there Jon. Welcome to the MIMF.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Very nice guitar Chuck!!
I've been using various waterborne finishes for a number of years, and am now going to give General a try.

[Eric Knapp]

Wow, what a thread. You could publish it as a how-to book. It's probably more valuable than a book on the subject. I think I found the right bunch of folks to learn from. Sweet.

-Eric

[David King]

Erik,
Wait 6 months and the latest "new" waterborne will come out and change everything once again.

[Eric Knapp]

Erik,
Wait 6 months and the latest "new" waterborne will come out and change everything once again.

Wise advice from a sage, duly noted. My day job is all about computers. We have the same experience.

-Eric

[Brian Evans]

I can't easily buy General finishes around here, but anything by Minwax is very available. I did some reading and the Minwax Ultimate Floor finish seems to be the equivalent of the General Enduro-var, but dries clear, not amber. I ordered some from my local store, and I will give it a few test runs. It is not cheap at $90 a gallon, but Enduro-var is a 250 mile drive and twice the price from Lee Valley.

Brian

[Chuck Tweedy]

Brian, it appears to be a similar type of finish, but only trying it out testing it will assure you it will work for your requirement (assuming it is an instrument).
Minwax is a reliable brand, so likely it is a good product - for floors

Let us know how it works out!!