Aqua Coat Clear Lacquer in Satin Finish - Premium Water-Based for Wood & Plastic - Self-Cross-Linking, Fast-Drying, Non-Yellowing, Eco-Friendly - Quart

Normally, I use oil based poly for most everything or a nitrocellulose based spray lacquer for musical instruments, but I wanted to try something different, and stumbled across the Aqua Coat clear lacquer. Having used their grain filler on a number of projects, I decided to give this a try on a maple/purlpeheart chess board and was very impressed. It went on very easily and dried quickly, allowing for multiple coats in a day. I found it applied and looked better than the water based acrylics, such as Minwax Polycrylic. Is it as nice as a nitro based lacquer? No, but it is darned good and much easier to apply, without all of the VOC odors. I think I'd stick to the nitro lacquer for a guitar, especially an acoustic.

I'm grateful for the folks at Aquacoat. I love the videos they have to introduce their product. I will give you some background. This video is for artists who are interested in using Aquacoat to cover their artwork.Aquacoat is a great product. I have tested a few marine varnishes for my artwork I bought the Satin. There is a low if any smell and it's dries satin with a touch of gloss. It's quick drying and a Quality product. I use gloves and a sponge to apply about 3 coats for coverage. I may do a video on my YouTube to show it dry. My picture is of it wet and just applied. I rated it 5 stars.

Not to elaborate much, it is a great product. Dries nicely. Dries faster than other brands of waterborne finishes. Sands easily and is ready to sand at quicker intervals than other finishes I have tried. Take note, this is a "lacquer" finish, not a polyurethane finish. If you want a waterborne polyurethane. this company also sells a product called Aquathane. Great product! I now use this lacquer product for guitar finishes.

I am not a fan of lacquer by any means but this stuff is awesome - it's water based so easy to clean up and waaaaay less stinky! I like that it's watery because this giant bottle will last for a long time. It dries pretty quickly and it seems to cover very well.

The only benefit is low odor. 3 or more times the work to get somewhat close to traditional lacquer.

Durable, very easy to apply, dries fast, beautiful finish.

Low, low odor. No thinning required. 3 coats with sanding in between coats. Powders nicely.during sanding. Lacquers levels out nicely.

I’m not a huge fan of oil based paints and such. Cleanup is a hassle and drying time is much longer. Figured I’d give this a try and I’m glad I did. This was used on a slab table I’m making. Easy to sand in between coats, easy cleanup, goes down nice and flat every time.. works really well. I chose to spray mine with a HVLP sprayer. Didn’t have to thin it out or anything.