Re: Do-It-Yourself re-lacquer


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Posted by Joe S. on August 12, 2001 at 16:32:36:

In Reply to: Do-It-Yourself re-lacquer posted by Karl on August 11, 2001 at 18:10:42:

Shine it up the very best that you can, and (like Chuck said) remove ALL of the polishing residue. Since you will scratch and smear it back up some with your cleaning solvent and rags, you might go over it one last time with a couple of blue GLO-CLOTHs (very good but cheap metal polishing cloth).

If you try to lacquer it yourself, all of Chuck's advice is good. The problems are

- dust
- runs
- sugar (overspray)
- blushing (air humidity getting caught in the lacquer and turning everything "white"

and all of these problems can be B-I-G problems on big instruments.

You might consider obtaining some of the Nikolas #2105 lacquer, thinner, and drying retarder (one gallon of each - retarder assists with preventing both overspray and blushing) and taking the shined up tuba (avoid smudges and finger prints!) and 3 cans of stuff to a very experienced spraying person (auto body repair guy, etc.) just to do the spraying. As long as you agree to "take whatever happens", he might not charge you very much, if he's extra-extra generous.

There is an aerosol stripper (extra tall can - says Airplane Stripper or some such on the can) available at AutoZone that is a darn-good and convenient home-use lacquer stripper. It will NOT work on King tubas with original lacquer.

Obviously, your polishing job (as completely visable under a good clear lacquer job) will not be professional in appearance and will have a lot of streaks, etc. as opposed to a factory "mirror" finish.


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