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Anybody know how classical makers of old kept their perflings unstained when filling with pumice and oil?
I am planning a light coat of walnut oil on my Walnut back and sides to get a wet /dark look and to help with clearing the pumice when I pore fill . When I’m grinding away, filling pores, how can I keep from pulling color from the sides and binding onto my nice wbw perfling? Usually I would seal everything with a few coats of pure shellac first but this will block the oil from hitting the wood
I don’t mind the color change from the oil on the white, but the stain from the side and binding wood dissolved by the alcohol I think would be nasty. No? sorry for this obviously old issue. I can't seem to come up with a method/sequence.

I can't say that I've ever pore filled with oil and Pumice, although I have filled with the more usual Shellac, Alcohol and pumice. I have also used the drying oil and sandpaper method. Neither present a problem if the inlay has been sealed well. With the oil/sand method you create a slurry and push that slurry into the pores near the purfling - never sand directly over the purfling, just near to it.
Whatever method you decide to use make sure you test first. If you have off cuts from your Back/Sides it is both quick and simple to inlay a few contrasting purfling lines and experiment with your method. That should tell you if you will experience staining problems on your actual Guitar.

I haven't used the oil/pumice method either but have used the alcohol/shellac/pumice method.
The latter method is used with very little shellac and mostly alcohol. Several makers that I know and respect use this and claim to get good results with it. My problem with pumice is that I don't like working with it, the gritty feel is not a satisfying experience for me.
The major problem as I see it is that the bleeding effect of all that alcohol is the very thing I'm trying to avoid. Though others have told me that they've gotten good results with this, I'm not convinced they are getting the contrast and brightness that I'm after vis a vis the inlay work against the dark rosewood. Also since pumice is very abrasive, I would be concerned about whatever was used to seal the surface and that it would be worn through thus exposing the wood and purflings to the bleed effect of the alcohol. I'm using a lot of Indian rosewood these days and this stuff can bleed like crazy when exposed to alcohol.
For these reasons I'm using the LMI Micro Bead filler as prep for my French polish. The micro bead is a paste with filler (the micro beads) and pigment in an arylic water soluable base. Ater sanding to 100 I apply using a credit card and then once dry sand it off with 120. The Micro Bead sands off CLEAN leaving the inlay work nice and bright. I then apply an egg wash to seal against the bleed (not to fill) and once dry apply the shellac "spit" coat.

Maple against Indian rosewood:

David, What color micro bead paste are you using?

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The dark brown stuff.

Maybe it’s impossible but I’m trying to stay away from synthetic (?) products. That’s why I wondered about how it used to be done. Maybe it wasn’t. Just a personal goal to make instruments that can be tossed into the composted pile at the end of their ,hopefully long ,life. Looking for Ideas, not opening the “environmental wacko” can-o-worms. Maybe I have to give up on the wet look. Trying to change the aesthetic of filled pores seems like quite a current to swim against if these instruments are to be sold.
Anybody pull off selling open pored classical?
What about scraping back after filling? Would the color bleed be to deep?

Depends on what your light colored lines are. I used Ash on my most recent, and I won't do that again. Too much fiber variant, and it picks up stuff that you can't get out by scraping or sanding. Maple is much easier to work with, and does not stain nearly as easily. When it does, it usually scrapes clean with a light scraping.

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I recently did a shellac (mostly alcohol and David said) and pumice pore fill on indian rosewood with curly maple binding. Having sealed the maple first with shellac and a little carefulness, it wasn't too hard to keep the maple pretty clean.

I agree about avoiding synthetics as much as possible.
Walter

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Walter, I was wondering if I could just be careful. Unfortunately, I need to pore fill a coco binding on the other side of the perf too. That would make for some very tight circles!
The white lines are from LMI, Holly, I think. They seem pore free.
As always, filling those stink’n pores is the root of my finishing problems.
Walnut’s pores are almost black so I could use some colored stuff, but nothing will stick to the oil except shellac. Right?
Seems long winded but what about oil, coat of shellac, some pigmented filler, then back to FP top coats? The first coat of shellac would separate the filler from the oil so it would stick. Does this sound like trouble?
I like the idea of filling w/egg whites, but my testing of it on Walnut looked dry and greenish.

I'm certainly for non-synthetic stuff as well David as indicated by my use of shellac, egg whites, fish glue etc.
But first and foremost this stuff has to produce the results that I want and that people are willing to pay for.
As for selling an "open-pored" classical, I think that would be very difficult....whether we like it or not, players are used to smooth flat shiny finishes.

As it is, I'm not pore filling the necks on my guitars (instead relying on the FP to do that to a certain extent).
I'm going for a very thin finish overall and that which shows the wood texture underneath as any good FP will, but by no means raw or "open-pored".

Thanks for your thoughts David L,
I was involved in the heroics that put the mirror surface on Collings instruments for a while so I am familiar with that end of the spectrum. But, I recently had a classical in my shop from a fairly well known maker who gets quite high prices for his guitars and, though only a few years old, it looked as though no special effort was made in the French polishing process to fill the pores. I’m sure the finish was flatter when it went out the door but It got me wondering.
Most older instruments show some degree of sinking and on a vintage instrument this can add to its appeal.
Pre-darkening of tops is an example of things coming full circle. It seems ironic that people are turned off by a new blond top, but are turned off by what could be seen as the natural aging of the finish texture.
Perhaps I’m thinking of bending the currant esthetic not trying to creat a totally new one.
I don’t whant to build my instruments a certain way out of laziness but most other aspects of building have something to do with function. Flat finish surfaces seem like pure asthetics.
To me, playability/fretwork and tone are were it makes sense to strive for perfection. The closer I get to perfecting those two, the more I expect as a luthier to be able to steer the esthetic in a direction I want to go. Wondering what the market will tolerate. But probably just howling at the moon.
Any thoughts on the oil/shellac/waterbased filler/French polish idea?