Steel Guitar Buyer's Guide

Guideline #12

Inspect the Finish.

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"The quality of the finish shows the care taken by, and skill of, the builder in assembling the steel guitar."

If the steel guitar is covered with mica, make sure that the laminate does not have dropouts (small white spots where the color is missing).
Check for scratches and how well the laminate is glued to the cabinet.

Check the quality of the polishing.
Look for pits, scratches, or extrusion marks on the polished metal parts.

On lacquer-finished steel guitars, look for paint sanding scratches and "orange peel" roughness to the finish. These are signs that finishing wasn't meticulous enough, and the new appearance may not last very long.

Ideally, the instrument will have multiple coats of lacquer, which were very carefully buffed by hand on a buffing wheel to take out all the "orange peel" rippling. Lacquer gives a deep, warm, mirror-like luster for a finish that makes a quality statement.

Nitrocellulose lacquer tends to be more lasting and temperature-resistant than water-based lacquers. Lacquer is preferable to the commonly-used polyurethane because lacquer allows repairs without total refinishing. Refinishing, of course, is an extremely expensive, time-consuming process.

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