Free guitar building course · Part 6
Painting and
finishing,
properly.
Two and a half hours on the stage everyone underestimates. Prep, colour, clear, then the levelling and buffing that separates a decent finish from a professional one.
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Chapter markers coming — paste the timestamps from the video description into the chapters field in videos.py and they become clickable here.
What this covers
- Surface prep and grain filling, where the final result is actually decided
- Sealers, and why the wrong one causes problems weeks later
- Colour coats, bursts and fades
- Clear coats, build thickness and flash times
- Levelling, cutting and buffing to a gloss
- Getting a good result in a garage rather than a spray booth
The finish is made in the prep
Nothing in a finish hides a flaw underneath it — gloss magnifies everything. Every scratch, every unfilled pore and every glue witness line will still be there under the clear, only shinier. Time spent before the first coat pays back several times over.
Patience during cure, not just between coats. Levelling and buffing a finish that has not fully cured leaves sink-back — the surface looks flat, then the grain telegraphs through weeks later. The waiting is part of the job.
Written companion in progress.
Watch the builds on YouTube
Full build videos, start to finish, including the parts that went wrong.
Build series · New video most months