Howdy all, I'm an amateur just starting out on my guitarmaking journey and I was hoping for some advice and insight into a problem I've encountered.
This is a problem I've encountered on my third build, an ambrosia maple/engelmann slope-shouldered dreadnought w/ ebony binding.
I had lacquered the body with a brush-on nitro lacquer (minwax) and was wet sanding to level it out. Things seemed to be going well and I had progressed to 1200 grit wet and dry paper when I began to notice some strange discolouration appearing in the rosette and purfling (see pic below). Both made use of the same bwb fiber purfling. I have used this same purfling before with no problems although my previous attempts at finishing were varnishes that did not require wet sanding.
At first I assumed I had sanded through, however lightly scraping above the discolouration revealed that there was still lacquer between me and the purf. Recoating with lacquer and levelling again didn't improve things at all. It looks to me like something, perhaps the water I'm using for wet sanding, has somehow wicked under the finish (perhaps though a tiny sandthrough?) and damaged the black fiber in the purfling. That's just my uneducated guess though.
At this point I plan to solve the issue by re-topping the guitar as this problem is both in the rosette and at several places in the soundboard purfling. Is that the best way forward?
In the meantime I really want to understand what went wrong so I can avoid the problem in future - it is quite a frustrating mistake to make so close to the finish line.
Any ideas on what caused this problem and how I can go about preventing it in future?
This forum is a superb resource for beginners like me and although I haven't posted much I'd like to thank all the contributors for the great information I've already picked up just lurking around and reading threads.
Josh
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