Post Class 3: And now we wait...

Spraying Nitrocellulose Lacquer takes time.
You are supposed to spray anywhere from 8 to 12 coats of the nitro for a guitar body (according to Dan Erlewine - and who am I to argue?). These coats should be light, sprayed from a distance of 10 to 12 inched from the body, and only about 2 or 3 a day. For example: Spray one light coat at noon, wait an hour, spray another light coat at 1:00, wait an hour, finally spray a final coat for the day at 2:00. Let it dry overnight and then lightly sand (scuff sand) with 400 or 600 grit sandpaper. Your goal with the sanding is to gradually level the surface - so you don't want to remove too much finish.

Then repeat the next day...

For three or four days...

Then you wait.

And wait.

And wait some more.

Supposedly the nitro won't completely harden for 2 to 4 weeks after the final coat.
Once you have finished waiting - then you start sanding for real. You start with 600 or 800 grit sandpaper and work your way up to 1500 to 2000 grit sand paper. The idea is that you are not so much trying to remove the lacquer as flatten it in preparation for polishing it. Once you have finished sanding you polish with 2 or 3 different grits of guitar polish and then 'swirl and haze' remover.
This is when you really get your karate kid on (wax on, wax off).

This is what you are supposed to do. Here is what I did:

I started out spraying this guitar, the lapsteel, and a bass neck my friend asked me to help him with all at the same time. I did not spray light coats. I was a bit more heavy handed than that. I sprayed heavy coats (and got away with it for the most part). The problem with heavy coats is that you only have to mess up once to really make your life more difficult.
At one point or another I over-sprayed the bass neck, the acoustic (neck and body) and the lapsteel. Over-sprayed = getting a run. So at various points I had to sand down a drip/drop of dried Nitro from one of these guys. I am aware of my mistake - I take full responsibility. I just hate spraying and anything I can do to speed up the process - the better.
Of course sanding out imperfections takes longer than spraying another light coat - so who's fooling who?

In the end I used 4 cans of Nitro to spray a bass neck, a lapsteel, and the acoustic. That's about right when you consider I didn't use a sanding sealer for any of them - just more coats of nitro. I would guess that I did 6 or 7 heavy coats on the lapsteel and the acoustic. The Bass neck probably got 4 or 5 (enough to duplicate the previous finish on it).

And now I wait...

For two weeks…

…sigh…