Guitar: Grain filling

[elhoff]

Grain filling with epoxy is proving to be more difficult than it initially looked. On the first coat I knew immediately that I had scraped off too much of the epoxy. The wood grain was still plainly obvious. Since I was a bit uncertain of the cure time of the epoxy, I decided to let it go for a second coat. Sanding the first coat revealed exactly what I expected: lots of unfilled grain pores and sanded through to bare wood in several places. trying to smooth out the low spots. The second coat looked great right after application. Looked like it was on plenty thick, was much smoother than the first coat, and appeared to completely fill the pores. Sanding today revealed that all was not as it appeared. On the good side, the second coat did in fact fill almost all of the grain pores. On the bad side, it was not as smooth as it appeared. Extensive sanding was required to smooth out the pits and grooves in the epoxy, and I ended up sanding through to the wood in several places. Both the first and second coats also suffered from a lot of dust and fibers stuck in the epoxy. Yesterday I blew off all the shelves and surfaces near where I am working and ran my shop air filter for a couple hours, hoping to have less dust in the epoxy. Tonight I started the third coat. I can't say that I am impressed with how it came out. more grooves and ridges than it should have. Not sure I will be able to sand this one smooth with breaking through, which is really the objective.

After I was done with the epoxy tonight, I finished the sanding on the neck and head. I will start the filling on the neck tomorrow and complete the third coat on the body. I am starting to fear that I won't have this finishing complete by the convention :( After the epoxy, I have 4-5 days of multiple lacquer coats (12-15 coats total), 10 days cure time, level sanding (don't sand through!), and then finally buffing.