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So a question for all you French polishers out there. I have been seeing alot of repaired Gibson headstocks come across my bench and I've been considering how I'd go about fixing one in the finish department. The gluing and splinting is a different thing what I'd like to do is refinish or add finish over the repaired area to cover the break lines.

I don't have space for a spray booth or even a stable area to do spraying ( teeny tiny shop). So French Polish seems like my best option.

Has anyone done this? Is it even a good idea? I don't want to experiment on a repair without some idea of how to do it well.

Hope that makes sense

I've found those Stew Mac Color Tone lacquer rattle spray cans to be very suitable for touch ups. I just go outside in my garage on a nice day to do it.

Per my experience, French polish is very thin and will not "cover" any imperfection, so not the best choice to hide a break line.
You will have to level with something else (CA glue, etc.) then may be FP over to give a uniform shine.

Not the best idea. There will be witness lines at the end of the repair where the shellac ends. For Gibsons lacquer is the way to go, it will make a seamless repair.

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Brian

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Thanks for the advice guys

We tend to repair the neck, then drop fill, level, color-match, and then apply top coat. All the drop fill and color matching is done with brush and airbrush, so no need for dedicated spray gear, and - other than needing more coats to build the finish - spray can lacquer will apply, level, and sand out well.

The one caution here is that lacquer will shrink more over the repair than elsewhere, so give it some time to fully dry before scraping and sanding. All of this can be done with a quart of lacquer, some Transtint dyes, a few brushes, an airbrush (to handle opaques and bursts), and a couple cans of spray lacquer.

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