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Hi Folks.
I am spraying nitro over my first Epoxy fill attempt. (Thanks to Hesh & all the others who offered good advice here.)
For some inexplicable reason, I decided not to fill the ebony peghead plate. Now, after spraying a sealer coat & three coats of lacquer, I'm wishing I had filled it. Pores, invisible before, are jumping out all over the peghead.
So... Can I do a light epoxy fill over the nitro, if I wait a week for it to shrink back first?
I normally wait five or more days before leveling & then proceed with the final lacquer coats.
I'm assuming that six full wet (25% thinned Mohawk classic instrument lacquer) coats will do the job, since the pores are completely filled. Any suggestions or comments will be gratefully received.

Daniel, spray a couple of more coats on it wait about 3 days or 4 days and sand back level then see what you've got. If you still have a few pore you can drop fill them, but I suspect you'll be ok.

Or stop right now and sand the head stock all the back and fill it. You don't have that much on it yet.

Pore filling on top of the finish sounds like a bad idea to me.

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Jim Watts
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Pore filling on top of the finish IS a bad idea. I ended up refinishing my head stock after thinking the same thing. Oh, I'll just sand down and use shellac to fill the pores. Errrrrr, wrong, doesn't work. I ended up clearing the head stock off with lacquer thinner and alcohol until it was bare wood and starting again. Jim's advice is good advice.

Ebony pores are usually pretty small and thus you should be just fine if you finish your spraying session. Let it cure and sand it level. I suspect (like Jim mentioned) you won't have any pores showing.

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Thanks guys. It's been a while since I used Nitro, having finished the last 8 instruments with polyurethane & polyester.
I never used to fill the neck or the headstock. I just let the lacquer do the job. Guess I got to feeling a little nervous with the whole rest of the guitar being completely free of pores.
The ebony pores are fairly small, but in contrast with the epoxy filled cocobolo & mahogany, they looked terrible.
I'll blast a few more coats on the peghead tomorrow & see how it settles.
Thanks for the good advice.
Cheers! Dan

On a few occasions I have sprayed my first few coats of Nitro only to find some pores still visible. I fill these with thin CA and let it dry over night. Then I sand back and continue right on with my finishing schedule. I have no idea if this is a good or bad idea, but it seems to work. When the finish is done you cannot tell where the CA was used.

I will put a few drops of the CA on the problem area (in this case the peg head) and spread it around with some wax paper. Once it is dry sand level and continue finishing.

I'm sure some people will look down on this idea, but it works for me.

I have learned that the best thing to do is take what ever time is needed for proper pore filling.

Josh

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Josh House

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