Well, the Tru-Oil coats are finally finished on the PRS. It is always a relief, I can tell you, to get to the end of the 15-20 coats required to build up a decent shine. I never feel like it is going to end, but the final few thinned coats went on pretty quickly (with wet sanding in between) and here I am. With just the thinned Tru-Oil, the shine you can produce is actually pretty good..
But to really dial in the shine you need to polish. This time around I'm taking the advice of Jarrod from the Pitbull Guitars Forum and trying Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and Meguiar's Scratch2.0 to do the polishing. In the past I have used Stewmac Colortone Compounds with good results. However it's pretty expensive by volume if you include the postage. Anyway, Jarrod (and also Sully from Sully's Guitars) uses Meguiar's compounds for acrylic clear coats, but they should be OK for Tru-Oil right? They're just an abrasives right?? Well only one way to find out..!
And so I got rubbing. After applying the Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, there was really nice shine developing. The surface definitely feels smoother, and it doesn't seem to have affected the Tru-Oil in any detrimental way that I can see.
Despite my arm feeling like lead, I immediately went on to the Meguiar's Scratch2.0. A thousand small circles later and the top was finished. It's only a subtle improvement from the Ultimate Compound to the Scratch2.0 but I *think* there's a difference. There better be given how much my arm aches ;). What do you think?
Anyway, now i need to polish the sides and back and this baby will be ready to assemble. First job will be to glue the neck and then we can get on to the electronics. Fun fun!!
But to really dial in the shine you need to polish. This time around I'm taking the advice of Jarrod from the Pitbull Guitars Forum and trying Meguiar's Ultimate Compound and Meguiar's Scratch2.0 to do the polishing. In the past I have used Stewmac Colortone Compounds with good results. However it's pretty expensive by volume if you include the postage. Anyway, Jarrod (and also Sully from Sully's Guitars) uses Meguiar's compounds for acrylic clear coats, but they should be OK for Tru-Oil right? They're just an abrasives right?? Well only one way to find out..!
And so I got rubbing. After applying the Meguiar's Ultimate Compound, there was really nice shine developing. The surface definitely feels smoother, and it doesn't seem to have affected the Tru-Oil in any detrimental way that I can see.
Despite my arm feeling like lead, I immediately went on to the Meguiar's Scratch2.0. A thousand small circles later and the top was finished. It's only a subtle improvement from the Ultimate Compound to the Scratch2.0 but I *think* there's a difference. There better be given how much my arm aches ;). What do you think?
Anyway, now i need to polish the sides and back and this baby will be ready to assemble. First job will be to glue the neck and then we can get on to the electronics. Fun fun!!
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