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So I'm going to try finishing my guitar with that spendy Rock Hard shellac at LMI. I'm thinking I will do the pore filling with LMI's water-based pore filler.

Questions:

(1) Will it work?

(2) Will I be taken from my home on the next full moon and hung from a Sitka spruce tree for bucking tradition?


Aside: I ate a donut filled with nasty-tasting custard. That was poor filling.

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Mmmm....wood.

I think you should check your blood level first.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

I dunno, but I just got a jar of that filler to try the same thing with regular shellac, due to the grand failure of my attempt at pumice filling the last one. I slopped some on a scrap a little while ago, so tonight I'll scrape it to the filled pores and give it a quick polish. Hopefully 5 month old shellac won't spoil the experiment. But I highly doubt there would be any problem using it with French polishing. The filler should be pretty well sealed and protected once the wash coat goes on, and I doubt applying the wash coat would dissolve and carry away a significant amount of the filler. As Padma always says, there's nothing special about pore fillers. If it stays in there and doesn't shrink, use it.

I, too, have been experimenting with the LMI microbead pore filler. I used scrap pieces of various woods, followed by various finishes (shellac, oil varnish, water based). I haven't used it on a guitar yet, but it seems to have worked well on my test samples. It can take 2 or 3 applications to fully fill all of the pores, but what doesn't. I would recommend sealing the wood with shellac before applying the stuff, and work on a small section at a time.

There are numerous reports of that hard shellac checking badly. After they revised the formula, it took a few months longer to check badly.

The only water based filler I trust is spackle.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Spackle or Drywall Mud?

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I appreciate this intel, Howard. Indeed when I phoned LMI this morning the sales guy strongly suggested brushing on KTM-9 rather than using the U-Beaut hardened shellac. Perhaps he's heard some of the same tales of woe.



Spackle fills a hole in the market to be sure.

But seriously, folks...I really don't want to deal with gnarly chemicals if I can avoid it. I don't want to spring for spray equipment, either. That's how I got the shellac/French polishing idea in my head in the first place. Now I find myself at KTM-9.

Well, obviously I'll have to take the plunge at some point.

KT

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Mmmm....wood.

Hi James

I haven't heard a ton of great reviews of the micro-bead filler ... but personally I've had great success with it under (French Polished) shellac. After spit-coating with shellac, I rub the first coat on with a coarse cloth to push it into the pores, and rub it right back off immediately. Then for the second coat, I use a plastic spatula to put it on, and leave a film of it on the surface. The next day I sand it clean with 220 and start my first session. It fills the pores well, and more importantly, doesn't seem to shrink. I've used conventional paste fillers, pumice and epoxy, and for me, this is the best solution to date. Each to his own though. As I always say ... there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Cheers!

David Wren http://www.wrenguitarworks.com