clear coating over signature

[Alexander Allgood]

Hi guys, a customer brought me an autographed ibanez satriani guitar wanting me to clear coat over it. Should i just use a polyurethane? anyone know about how the adhesion is to the ibanez finishes?

[Greg Mirken]

I would guess that adhesion would be poor, and you have the possibility of the finish solvent blurring the signature. You might suggest clear laminating plastic that is used for clear pickguards.

[William F.Eden]

My exp. with that kind of guitar was very unplesant.I had one in here for a repair and the masking tape just happend to touch the name and that witch it touched came off with the tape. So be very carefull.Good luck BILL.'''''''''''''''''

[Charlie Hoffman]

I have never come up with a good solution for this.  I know of no finish that will work well over a poly finish and any finish with solvent will almost surely make the autograph run - they are almost always done with a sharpie.

[Chris Rochow]

The best way I've found, and safest is to use a VERY LIGHT ( like a "dusting" ) mist spray of clear lacquer. The after that dies 100%, do it again....dry...again, etc. Never ruined one yet.

[Pierre-Antoine Roiron]

Franck Ford made an article about that kind of work : I use his method with good results : sand and scrap around the signature, then on a poly finish, I usually spray very light, almost dry coat of nitro. Nitro on sanded poly get quite a good grip and does not leave obvious witness lines.

[Alexander Allgood]

Thanks guys, any idea where i can find franks article on this?

[Grahame Myers]

Here you go: http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Finish/CelebSig/c...

Never tried it myself, for the lack of a customer that wanted it done, but Frank Ford is the man: If he says it works, it works!

 

Grahame

[STGuitarworks]

While I worked at the Godin guitar co.s head office my coworker Pat brought me a Satriani signed js100. Silver marker. I covered the signature with thin cyano, applied a little at a time with the dull side of an exacto blade, covering only the silver marker.

 

The end result after drying, sanding, wet-sanding and buffing was a raised finish on top of the signature. It looked fairly good.

 

Cheers

 

Sean

[Alexander Allgood]

This is exactly that. Js with silver marker. I think your idea may be less time consuming, and therefore more profitable.

[Greg Mirken]

I'm curious how much time you had in that project?

[Frank Ford]

Here's that article:

 

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Finish/CelebSig/c...

 

The job took a LONG time.  This was the only one I did that way.  I've shot lacquer over signatures on lacquered instruments, but on poly, I would expect to have no decent adhesion unless I did it by scuffing and using shellac as a bonding/sealing agent.  

 

On this kind of job, I can only charge by the hour, so it's unlikely I'll do very many. 

[STGuitarworks]

I recall spending half a workday with that cyano solution... it was alright timewise but I do recall that the marker reacted to it and became darker in some parts.... I'll attemp to get a photo.