A note about nitrocellulose

So avid readers may already have noticed a casual mention here and there to the wonderful stuff that is nitrocellulose lacquer. You must be asking yourself 'how can the same thing that makes gunpowder be so important to the overall tone of a freakin' guitar!' Well I'll tell you...

As important as the pickups and the choice of woods are in making a guitar sound good the wood needs to resonate when the strings are played and it's the different characteristics of different woods produce a myriad of wonderful tones. The majority of guitar makers now choose to lacquer their guitars using polyurethane and if you look at the figures it makes sense... It's cheaper, it takes much less time to apply, its tougher than an old dog with no face and its easier to apply. Great stuff except that you effectively seal the guitar in an airtight casing that inhibits the natural vibrations of the wood! Sure applying nitrocellulose is expensive, time consuming (applying several coats of this stuff takes weeks) and fiddly but if you're buying (or indeed making) a guitar that's made of endangered tone woods such as mahogany or swamp ash then surely you not only want it to resonate naturally but also allow it to age and breathe properly?

Another property of nitrocellulose lacquer is that it's porous and this is what allows the wood breathe and age as it should. You may have heard the term 'opening up' used when talking about guitars, particularly when referring to Spruce tops on acoustic guitars however all woods will in fact open up as they age. It's been claimed by some science types that if wood resonates a particular way regularly then it will 'learn' the best way to resonate which will in time give a guitar a louder and fuller sound. This is perhaps why some of the old Fenders, Gibsons, Martins etc sound superb, all of these companies used (and still use) nitrocellulose lacquer and as it thins over time these guitars are effectively resonating closer to their maximum potential. Also how good is the word 'resonance' say it out loud, brilliant, eh?

If you'd like to find out more about Nitrocellulose then you could check out this Wikipedia entry but it mostly talks about gunpowder (which is also great as explosions are cool in a non war context) and you should also read the Gibson blurb which you can find in the finishes section for every guitar because they admirably still use it on every guitar that leaves their factory.