William King's oil finish/lacquer regime

Pete Howlett

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And here's a transcript - I've edited it slightly and I am sure William wont mind me posting it here:

Watco is a Danish style oil finish containing tung oil, linseed oil and varnish resins. I think it is superior to pure tung oil, and the finishing regimen is very similiar.

Saturate the wood with the first coat, diluted to 50% if need be, let dry for 24+ hours depending on temperature, then wipe on a coat, sand while wet with a 220 grade sandpaper to cut back any raised grain and produce a wood dust/oil slurry, work slurry into the pores of the wood, wipe down with a rag, let dry 24+ hours and interate until the wood surface is smooth and lusterous. Then wipe on a couple more coats, allow to stand a few minutes then wipe off any surface oil, allow to dry 24+ hours and iterate until the wood absorbs no more oil finish. Finally, let dry for a week and then burnish with a fine cabinet maker's wax using a #0000 equivalent 3m finishing pad to bring up the natural patina of the wood. Drying times depend on ambient temperature.

Periodically, rewax as needed to protect from the environment...
 
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I don't care what they say about you Pete, you're all right!:D
I'm sure the grain filler of oil and sanding residue will shrink back in time but it's probably acceptable to most. The only thing I would add is a sealer coat between the grain filler and the lacquer such as vinyl sealer or shellac. I'd be worried about adhesion otherwise, but shoots, apparently it works for King. I'm just super cautious. I'd also buff on the wheel but whatever works.
Thanks for sharing the procedure with us.
 
His lacquer finish is scary - I am trying it at the moment and you do need a vinyl sealer. Actaully I edited the start of this thread with the correct page so we are technically having a private conversation here... This oil finish is great for most of the amateurs that lurk and post here who haven't got spray facilities. They might also try Behlen's wipe on finishes which are also suitable for instruments.

BTW - what is your prep/grain-filling regime Chuck?
 
I've been playing a bit with ca glues for grain filling. Some well known guitar builders here had had success with it. Other than that it's Crystal-Lac water based paste filler which is easy to use but continues to shrink forever. I've used linseed oil mineral based fillers but I won't live long enough to see them dry. I've tried epoxy, which I really liked because it stayed in the pores and didn't shrink, but I have had problems with adhesion even when using vinyl sealer. If I were to try it again I'd use shellac as a barrier. Anything will stick to shellac.
A lot of amateur builders and even some semi-professionals here like True-Oil. I never like it because it doesn't hold up well. I'm in the business of building ukuleles, not repairing or refinishing my old ones. Above all, I want my work to last. I just bought some post catalizing polyurethane to try, but I'll need different spray equipment to get the results I'm used to. I've tried French polish as well, I just don't care for the process especially when I'm finishing several ukuleles at a time. I really think it's time to bite the bullet and get into the UV game. That's the future. I've tried just about every kind of finish, trying to find anything easier that looks good and holds up well. I've come to realize there is no short cut to a great finishing job. It's simply a lot of work.
Buffing compounds are a topic for another time...........:shaka:
 
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Interesting that you are looking at UV - I shy away from anything that is 'plastic'/ non-organic. I think those 'modern' finishes ruin a good piece of work because they lack 'depth' and look artificial. But I know what you mean - building is the easier part with finish, the part that everyone sees, the nightmare!
 
Interesting that you are looking at UV - I shy away from anything that is 'plastic'/ non-organic. I think those 'modern' finishes ruin a good piece of work because they lack 'depth' and look artificial. But I know what you mean - building is the easier part with finish, the part that everyone sees, the nightmare!

I can't argue with that...The wife puts the finish on for me ..and She says "there's a lot of finnicky buggers out there" Typical Yorkshire Lass.:D
 
Tell that to Kanile'a. You're not going to find a better finish suited for a production setting. It's also used by some of the best custom guitar builders in the world.
BTW, I use traditional McFadden nitro cellulose guitar lacquer. Slow and painful.
 
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I must have been dreaming when I contributed to this thread... I think there are substantial problems with those UV finishes apart from the fact they look and feel wrong. Agreed Chuck: they are a must for production builders. Have you researched the Collings fix? They use UV as an intermediate process and cellulose as the final finish. Seems to me like a lot of faffing about...

I recently tried epoxy on my burry uklectics but with my method sanded back to the surface grain leaving the pores filled and it worked a treat. My mate Dave King had one of his epoxy filled guitars in for repair - 10 years old and still no sinking underneath the cellulose finish. My only reservation with this is it's introducing a synethetic plastic into the wood so I won't use it for my acoustics.

I had great success using pumice and french polish as a base coat once with cellulose over it - very traditional but then I have a ukulele with volcanic rock as the filling agent - great for playing rock uke on :D

It really is a conundrum for us builders and one there is not a good answer to. i visited today with a guy who plays out one of my ukes and in the course of a year has already started to wear through the finish on the back of the instrument... so you can't win really!

My guitar finished by Bill in Akron Ohio with 'conform' lacquer is still as good as the day it was done. I pase filled the back, sides and neck and he just did the rest - straight from the gun noiseless satin finish.
 
I had great success using pumice and french polish as a base coat...

Our experience with pumice (in shellac) was not so happy. We must have done something wrong because there were clouds in it afterwards. We used alcohol to brush them out as well as we could, but it broke the finish in places. :(

I wish one of you guys had been around. Anyway, we gave up on pumice and just use extra coats of shellac, fine sanding between coats, or Clou grain filler if the pores are really deep.
 
Shellac/French polish is to my mind not a good enough finish for themodern ukulele player. However, if you grain fill using the shellac method it should provide an excellent base onwhich to spray lacquer.
 
Shellac/French polish is to my mind not a good enough finish for themodern ukulele player. However, if you grain fill using the shellac method it should provide an excellent base onwhich to spray lacquer.

:agree: That's what we do now. Alas, you learn the hard way more often than not.
 
just a note

Just a few quick comments are in order here as my name is in play on this thread ...

Yup, finishing is hard, harder than the woodworking IMO. I don't pretend to be an expert on finishing - i publish my notes for general interest and reserve the right to change my mind, learn and develop my craft as i practice, just like the rest of you. To get the whole picture on my views on something it's usually not adequate to rely on an old entry in my journal without checking to see if a more recent entry addresses a similiar issue.

I haven't had issues with lamination failure of lacquer finishes over a Waterlox based grain filler regimen, but i make sure the Waterlox is nice a dry and i finish sand after grain filling. Sometimes i even use a shellac wash between the two. Having said that, i'm sure if you swing one of my tenors at a telephone pole, some finish is going to get damaged !

These days i mostly just use LMI's glass bead/acrylic based system, which is ok if you seal with shellac first, unless i am doing an oil finish in which case i follow the oil/sanding filler regimen. I'm not the perfectionist that many of you seem to be when it comes to finishes - and of the time budget i can afford to allocate to each instrument i'd prefer to spend it on making it sound better with top tuning than scrub away at endless coats of lacquer with 4000 grit micromesh pads ;-) I used to be more that way, but after seeing how lots of players treat their instruments, i don't obsess about it too much now.

Just a note on the current state of my oil finishing regimen - i now use Waterlox traditional instead of Watco because it dries more quickly. It used to take Watco a loooooooong time to dry unless I worked in a really warm room. I've read but can not personally verify that Waterlox has a higher percentage of the good stuff - tung oil - than other similiar oil based sealers/finishes. It definitely has more driers, and i think the visual effect on koa is a little better than Watco also.

If someone knows about a good grain filler that is easy and safe to use in a one man artisanal style workshop that doesn't shrink, ever, at all, even the least bit, dries fast, is easy to color and apply, easy to sand, is compatable with lacquer and shellac finishes and doesn't involve obnoxious chemicals, i'd love to know about it.

I looked at the UV filler products McFadden (are they still in business ?) offered and thought they might work well with a lacquer finishing regimen. Then i looked at the cost of the UV equipment, protective gear, etc and the impact adopting the technology would have on the way i work and decided to give it a pass. If i had a factory that had to meet production quotas to stay and business and produced dozens or hundreds of instruments a month, i'd probably revisit the issue.
 
At last - thank you for posting William. Stick with us - we could do with sharing your huge fount of knowledge and also some images of your excellent work. :)
 
i now use Waterlox traditional instead of Watco because it dries more quickly. It used to take Watco a loooooooong time to dry unless I worked in a really warm room. I've read but can not personally verify that Waterlox has a higher percentage of the good stuff - tung oil - than other similiar oil based sealers/finishes. It definitely has more driers, and i think the visual effect on koa is a little better than Watco also.

Watco was purchased by Rust-Oleum a few years back. When the company switched hands they changed the formula. Now instead of using tung oil, they use soybean oil and added cobalt driers (since soybean oil doesn't dry).

I'm also a big fan of Waterlox (red can), mainly because of the high percentage of tung oil and phenolic resins in the can.

One major problem with Waterlox is that it gels quickly once it is open. I've tried many methods to prevent this and found that if I decant the liquid from a freshly open can into smaller glass jars, filling them up to the brim, I no longer have the problem. I use baby food jars.
 
G'day to you Mr. Howlett. Hope all is well in Caerdydd.

Ron, yes that's definitely an issue with Waterlox. It's not inexpensive and it will gel in the can if there is any oxygen available. I have had sunlight set the stuff off, even when broken down into smaller bottles.
 
I have had sunlight set the stuff off, even when broken down into smaller bottles.

I never had that happen to me. Thanks for the heads up.

Makes me glad that I store my finishes in a fire proof cabinet.
 
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