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Has anyone found a way to eliminate the white mineral deposit in some rosewoods? I would rather not resort to stains, and there are sometimes WAY WAY to many (and too small) to mark them with a sharpie or pick them out with an exacto.

I am sure I am not the only person to experience this and just wondered if anyone found a magic bullet for dealing with this.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Hi Brock,

I had this happen once with Mad Rose and tried to find a good solution to the problem. Wound up spending forever picking it all out. If I ever get another set with mineral deposits, I would send it back immediately. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

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Randy Muth
RS Muth Guitars Website
RS Muth Guitars Blog
Facebook Fan Page

Sometimes, the deposits are white sap, and come out with water. The standard factory treatment for minerals that I have heard about is muriatic acid, which I would rather not handle.

sometimes you can hit it with a thin coat of MEK and they lessen, but might not totally be gone.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

It is a fact of life with wood. I have used mineral spirits , naphtha , acetone , water , sometimes it comes out , sometimes it doesn't . I use a dark filler and that covers it up
john

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Brock-

I know you don't want to use stains but this is the only page I know of that shows how they personally get rid of mineral stains in rosewood - http://www.alliedlutherie.com/makeover.htm

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John Lewis
Wannabe builder owned by 2 crazy dachshunds

Ive got a classical made with IRW opp grade B and S set and theres a fair bit of silica deposits happening. I pumice grain fill so the plan is to let bleed out of colour from the IRW to darken up the deposits. Will post up results when I get the job done.

interesting, is that just wipe it on, wipe it off?

I have to admit that after taking a look at that allied page I am not so dead set against the stain, but on most of the sets I have they are so nice to start with I hate to cover up any of their natural beauty with stain. But they sure made that low end Indian Rosewood look good.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

The examples that were white sap took some elbow grease with a wet rag. I first realized that some of these white spots are sap when I had a teak board resawn for furnature. After leaning against the wall for weeks, sap started to swell out of some of the pores.

Isn't muriatic acid just watered-down bleach?
I used to use the stuff years ago in my pool (until they came out with chlorine tabs).

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

No. Muriatic(also muratic) acid is actually hydrocloric acid. My Dad is a (retired) building contractor. When I was a kid I used muratic acid to wash brick with. It's allot stronger than bleach. A few ounces in five gallons of water would eat the mortar stains right off a brick wall. I don't know if the same strength is available today, that was 30+ years ago. I'd guess it's pretty diluted to use in a pool. I'll ask my Dad if the same stuff is still available, and try some on some scrap. I've got some Rosewood with ALLOT of mineral stains I use for neck laminations. The muriatic acid I used years ago was pretty bad stuff, requiring rubber gloves, safety glasses ect.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

You can probably get muriatic acid in a hardware store.