GardMan
Enlightened Member
Darryl Hattenhauer said:
No need... Nitrocellulose is explosive enough. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose#Uses
We use nitrocellulose membranes in the lab... I can vouch that they are quite flammable.
Nitrocellulose vs. Other Finishes
- Thread starter cjd-player
- Start date
No need... Nitrocellulose is explosive enough. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrocellulose#Uses
We use nitrocellulose membranes in the lab... I can vouch that they are quite flammable.
FNG
Enlightened Member
Good thread. 8) 8)
... but the use of Nitrosamine should be avoided.Chazmo said:
adorshki
Reverential Member
We've ripped this to shreds before.......... :lol:
Besides the ease of repair, nitro dries out and becomes more brittle as it ages. This means the top resonance is better on an aged nitro top, all other things being "as equal as they can be". Poly DOESN'T dry out with age and there's a school of thought that believes poly is inherently a less resonant material and will never equal nitro in tone development.
Can human ears hear the difference?
I don't know.
Personally I wanna go with the material that offers potential to improve instead of being locked in at "This is as good as it's ever gonna get", 'cause I'm a BIG believer in tone developing with age. All I'd have to do is play my D25 for you.
Admittedly finish isn't the only factor in tone, but I don't want to lessen the potentials for improvement.
Besides the ease of repair, nitro dries out and becomes more brittle as it ages. This means the top resonance is better on an aged nitro top, all other things being "as equal as they can be". Poly DOESN'T dry out with age and there's a school of thought that believes poly is inherently a less resonant material and will never equal nitro in tone development.
Can human ears hear the difference?
I don't know.
Personally I wanna go with the material that offers potential to improve instead of being locked in at "This is as good as it's ever gonna get", 'cause I'm a BIG believer in tone developing with age. All I'd have to do is play my D25 for you.
Admittedly finish isn't the only factor in tone, but I don't want to lessen the potentials for improvement.
West R Lee
Venerated Member
On my next guitar I'm going with polynitrollose celluneurothane.
West
West
Walter Broes
Enlightened Member
I like nitro finishes, and my reasons for it are very simple : it looks and feels nicer, a nitro finished guitar is a lot easier to repair if damaged, and the main reason a lot of the guitar industry went to poly finishes is because it's cheaper to produce.
I don't really know if nitro sounds better, and there's a lot of debate about that, but I've never, ever heard anyone say that poly finishes sound better, so in my mind they're just a cheaper alternative.
All the nitro finished guitars I own have checked finishes, which leads to something most people call "patina" and "character", all the poly finished guitars I have and have owned developed stress cracks at some point, which usually translates into "ugly and damaged looking". :lol:
I don't really know if nitro sounds better, and there's a lot of debate about that, but I've never, ever heard anyone say that poly finishes sound better, so in my mind they're just a cheaper alternative.
All the nitro finished guitars I own have checked finishes, which leads to something most people call "patina" and "character", all the poly finished guitars I have and have owned developed stress cracks at some point, which usually translates into "ugly and damaged looking". :lol:
cjd-player
Senior Member
Did they use that in Westerly, Jim ???West R Lee said:
adorshki
Reverential Member
Did they use that in Westerly, Jim ???[/quote:2158lapn]cjd-player said:
And there's a reason dragsters use nitro too. :lol:
FNG
Enlightened Member
Did they use that in Westerly, Jim ???[/quote:32thmzlm]cjd-player said:
No, but they smoked a lot of it. :lol:
cjd-player
Senior Member
We're not really talking about polyurethane "poly". We're talking about UV-cured Polyester "poly", which is actually applied thinner than nitrocellulous lacquer and the cured finish is harder than nitrocellulous lacquer.curt said:
Walter, most of the top guitar builders in world, such as James Olson, have switched to UV-cured polyester finishes. I don't think it can be argued that they switched because it is a cheaper finish.Walter Broes said:
Polyurethane finishes on guitars out of China, yes, but not UV-cured polyester.
Walter Broes
Enlightened Member
Well, without really being very passionate about the whole debate (some of my cheap throwaround solidbodies have thick, plastic finishes, and I don't mind a bit), in a lot of places, it's become almost impossible to finish anything in the same nitrocellulose finish guitars were traditionally finished in, for various reasons.cjd-player said:
It's become close to impossible to get the old style stuff, because it's so flammable, and outlawed in a lot of places because it's environmentally unfriendly, and a lot of what is advertised as nitro lacquer is so heavy on the plasticizers it's almost a polyester lacquer.
Also, in a lot of places, you need such a complicated filtering system that even if a builder wants to put in the work, time and expense of applying a nitro finish, he'd have to invest in a very expensive air-filtering system, which is just not do-able for small builders.
I don't really have a dog in this fight, it's just what some builders told me, and some comments I've read by smaller guitar builders in various places.
West R Lee
Venerated Member
Impossible to reach a conclusion or maintain a stance in this one as none of us are chemists who have or could ever sonically test the two finishes in a straight up, objective comparison.
I will say this, and it's just personal opinion. If I were a major guitar manufacturer, or a little guy for that matter, I doubt I would say....."Hey, we'd like to use nitrocellulose lacquer, but it takes too long, costs too much money and puts us at odds with the EPA, so we give you a UV polyeurathane finish. It just easier!" So they say it's harder (no doubt) and equal to or better than nitro. I still haven't figured out exactly why one would need a UV finish on a guitar? I've never had one lay out in the sun, and none of mine are parked next to a window. :?
I do buy Carl's logic that wood doesn't need to breathe, but feel that it is entirely possible that nitro might allow wood to expand and contract better than plastic, and if that's "breathing", or just expanding and contracting....well . We have a sizable contingent here who honestly believe that a played guitar sounds better via that logic, and I just don't know, so I certainly can't disagree. And if vibration and expansion and contraction are what make the top go round (and sound better over time), I'm all for it.
I suppose I still find myself in the pro-lacquer camp.
West
I will say this, and it's just personal opinion. If I were a major guitar manufacturer, or a little guy for that matter, I doubt I would say....."Hey, we'd like to use nitrocellulose lacquer, but it takes too long, costs too much money and puts us at odds with the EPA, so we give you a UV polyeurathane finish. It just easier!" So they say it's harder (no doubt) and equal to or better than nitro. I still haven't figured out exactly why one would need a UV finish on a guitar? I've never had one lay out in the sun, and none of mine are parked next to a window. :?
I do buy Carl's logic that wood doesn't need to breathe, but feel that it is entirely possible that nitro might allow wood to expand and contract better than plastic, and if that's "breathing", or just expanding and contracting....well . We have a sizable contingent here who honestly believe that a played guitar sounds better via that logic, and I just don't know, so I certainly can't disagree. And if vibration and expansion and contraction are what make the top go round (and sound better over time), I'm all for it.
I suppose I still find myself in the pro-lacquer camp.
West
hideglue
Senior Member
West R Lee said:
I''ll use Walter's great quote, "I don't have a dog in this fight..."
You don't need a UV finish, West. But among other things, it removes a major speed bump from the production line.
The stuff cures in a fraction of the time that traditional finish does. Time is money. Guild (Westerly) set-up for that reason, but never followed through.
Darryl Hattenhauer
Venerated Member
That's what I'd like to know. I think musicians like Walter can hear differences that I can't simply because they've spend so much time listening for differences in sound. As an analogy, I can detect differences in language that others think are just arbitrary. Or an other analogy: pro baseball players can tell the slightest difference in the way the ball feels, and they sand down the handles on their bats to the most miniscule precision.
adorshki
Reverential Member
What UV means is that it cures by exposure to UV light.hideglue said:
As for UV light's BETTER known characteristic: I LOVE what it did to the top of my (nitro finished) D25: it's a gorgeous honey-amber color now.
The D40 (Corona, never did figure out if it's poly or not) is downright white by comparison.
Darryl Hattenhauer
Venerated Member
HG,
As far as sound goes, poly vs nitro wouldn't matter nearly as much on a solidbody right?
dh
As far as sound goes, poly vs nitro wouldn't matter nearly as much on a solidbody right?
dh
adorshki
Reverential Member
Ok that's it. I'm gonna submit it to Mythbusters. THEY'LL know what to do! :lol:Darryl Hattenhauer said:
curt
Member
I can hear a difference between the dry winter and humid summer.
curt
Member
Yes nitrocellulose lacquer.capnjuan said:
I like it because it's proven, dries hard, transmits sound and you can't match the feel or look.
Walter Broes
Enlightened Member
The whole issue is clouded now that the whole nitro/poly thing has become a marketing issue more than anything else, like a lot of other guitar attributes.Darryl Hattenhauer said:
The flametop Les Paul aficionados will tell you that the origin of the maple top will make a real difference in sound, people argue that brazilian rosewood sounds better than indian for the fingerboard of a solidbody, that an artificially degaussed alnico pickup magnet "will capture that vintage tone better", that lighter Kluson tuners make a guitar sound better than heavier Grovers, or vice versa, etc...
Some of the far-fetched theories might have some truth to them (and being a true guitar geek, I subscribe to some of them), some are probably complete marketing blabla, but like a lot of things, taste and preferences have a lot to do with all those things too.
To me, the great "absurdifier" of the whole thing, that I tend to repeat to myself when I get too anal about gear details, are old Danelectro guitars. They make a beautiful noise, to my ears anyway, and have some things going for them from the "vintage/corksniffer/boutique" angle, like Brazilian rosewood fingerboards and big Alnico magnet pickups that are wound kind of sloppy, but then the neck the fingerboard is attached to is poplar, and the body is made of a pine scrap core, with a masonite top and back....topped off with a brazilian rosewood bridge saddle!! :lol: Try and make sense of thàt!!! :lol: