good ol' shellac

The final sanding always is a fun part. Well, at least I am loving it. I don't mind sanding by hand for  three hours until all the sanding marks disappear within the fine grit of the 320 and 600 sandpaper. I almost forget that I'm doing a real no-brainer and enjoy removing all the dirt and the scratches, revealing the beauty of the instrument. And the wood!
At some point of my apprenticeship I realized that I don't sand any more. That was a surprise to myself because my master, when asked about what a luthier is doing, always said: "well, about 80 per cent is sanding..." But I don't sand. And that might be the reason why I'm not bored to death being a luthier and spending all my time sanding. I don't sand. I use sandpaper for all kinds of jobs. I remove scratches. And pencil lines and other scribbling. I remove bumps and dips. I equal glue joints. And level surfaces. Wood and lacquer. I create surfaces and shapes. I round edges. I unlock the true beauty of the material wood.

 After the sanding is done it's time for the finish. I start by filling the pores. The method I use for this is the traditional method with pumice stone and shellac. The pumice is sanding the wood and the white powder takes on the color the wood or slightly darker which creates a very natural looking filler.

 

I thought long about the proper finish for my new guitar. The pore filling can be a sealer for any kind of lacquer. Any type of lacquer will stick perfectly on the shellac.
High End classical guitars are commonly finished with french polish, a method to apply the shellac, completely or at least on the top. For steel string guitars it is different. Maybe this is due to the fact that steel string guitars are mostly produced in factories and the finishing needs to be done fast and easy. From the advent of sprayed finishes in the 1920's and 30's they soon became the preferred finish for the bigger manufactures because they were a lot less labor intensive.
But shellac and the method of french polishing still is the preferred finish for classical guitars today.   

There are some luthiers like Ed Claxton, David Wren or Michael Kennedy of Indian Hill Guitars who reintroduced the french polish for steel string guitars. It's funny that although we have a variety of synthetic lacquers today we are partly going back to the natural product shellac.

Comparing the plus side and the minus side one must say that shellac is THE finish for tone and natural beauty. But a guitar finished with a french polish needs to be taken care of. And it is not suitable for a playing style that uses a lot of percussion on the guitar body.