French Polishing the 1959 Les Paul

Hello Toby and Family! After 3 or 4 sessions of French Polishing the guitar is starting to look pretty nice. Each session lasts about 2-3 hours. The process involves shellac, alcohol, a little bit of olive oil and a LOT of rubbing in little circles.

The surface is a little bumpy at the moment. After a day or so I am going to layer the guitar in a thin coat of olive oil and wet sand with 600 or 800 grit sandpaper until the sheen you see here turns to a uniform matt finish. This will smooth everything and ready the guitar for the final sessions of French Polishing. Once they are done, the guitar will sit for 7 days until the finish hardens. At that point, it gets buffed with fine abrassive creams to a high gloss.

After that it's time to weld in the electronics, attach the Bigsby tailpiece and other hardware, and string her up.

Background music is Catrien Maxwell's cover of Robin Thicke's "The Stupid Things" played on Weeping Zee WZ-A-006 (Maple OMG model). See www.youtube.com/catrienmaxwell.

And yes. It is Jam-uary!

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Weeping Zee Guitars
• weepingzeeguitars
• weeping zee
• michael vitale
• mike vitale
• les paul
• making a les paul
• making an electric guitar
• luthiery
• catrien maxwell

[JoeSzilagy]

Speaking of "stupid things", my living room is connected to my kitchen, and over the years, I've let my Les Paul sit in it's stand not realising that the grease, etc. (floating about in the air when cooking), gradually accumulated in layers on the body. I've tried mild detergents with soft cloths to get it off, but doesn't help much. I've heard the only way to get it off is with Naptha. Is the lighter fluid stuff the only way to go?

[WeepingZeeGuitars]

@JoeSzilagy I always keep a can of naptha around. It wont harm the finish and is a great cleaner for fingerboard and finishes. Should work OK if the oil and grease is just sitting on top of the finish. Wear gloves and use in a ventilated area or outdoors if you can; its like handling gasoline. OK for a little while, but prolonged exposure is not recommended. And no smoking!

[13isaacz1]

Great guitar I wish you had gone with a sunburst though :) Anyway Ive been experimenting with french polishing but the finish keeps drying "swirly" and dries kinda grey like super glue, I havent grain filled but Im going for a faded Studio look. Do you have any advice? Also do you do the sides and back at the same time as the top (so one coat on the top, let it dry then one coat on the back and then so on?) -Thanks ;)

[WeepingZeeGuitars]

@13isaacz1 Happy New Year! If it is going on dry and swirly, my first thought is that you might not be using any oil, or maybe not enough? Read through the Millburn Guitars tutorial (link is on some of the videos in this series) and see if you are doing anything wrong. You should not be having that difficuly. Since the finish dries almost instantly, I just do the whole guirar in one session. Back, sides and front. No need to wait.

[JgHaverty]

I french polished a parker nitefly M body a while back, and my hands STILL hurt from it :p. Looks great man. Good work.

[WeepingZeeGuitars]

@JgHaverty Yeah, it gets me in the shoulder. I'm getting old... Thanks for the comment!

[JoeSzilagy]

@WeepingZeeGuitars (continued from previous message) My question is this, will the 'French Polishing' technique make the finish fairly durable? Even if it's not 'baked on' nitro cellulose, I'd be happy if it was at least reasonably tough to scratch. Also, you do fantastic work! Thank you!

[JoeSzilagy]

@WeepingZeeGuitars Thank you! Luckily I quit smoking 20+ years ago! By the way, I want to re-do my Stratocaster sometime. I once followed instructions from Dan Erlwine's famous book, and I bought the recommended 'hardware store' cans of laquer, and actually took my time and did a pretty good job changing the body color to gold. Unfortunately, once dry, it didn't take much effort to scrape off the laquer with my thumbnail!! I later heard the big companies 'bake' on the laquer at 300+ degrees.

[WeepingZeeGuitars]

@alvin10388 Thanks. Yes, that should work just fine. The stain will be dry when you apply the first shellac wash coats and there should not be any running. To be positive, stain a piece of scrap wood and try that first to make sure that there is no running and to make sure the color you wind up with is OK.

[alvin10388]

sir you are an exellent craftman even if you use water based wood stain does french polish still works well?