Sealing and first few coats

Mighty Mite bodies come sanded and sealed with a thin oil based sealer. There is no need to do any further prep if you don’t want to, you can just start applying your finish. However, when grain filling it is a good idea to add a sealer coat to hold it in place and make sure it doesn’t mix/run with any dye/stain/colour in subsequent coats. Even though I sanded off most of the filler I applied I sealed the body again.

I’m using Flag Shellac Sanding Sealer 62 Pale, bought from Toolstation. The shellac polish I am going to be using is also made by Flag.

Two applications brushed on and levelled with 320grit, and this is the result. It actually looks great – to be honest, if the intention was to build a natural finish Tele that would show wear very easily, I could have left it like this. I want to add a bit of colour though, so after levelling and wiping over with white spirit it is straight on to applying the topcoats.