http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=20059&cat=1,190,43040I get mine from Lee Valley. I have the 4F because I didn't know better when buying it all those years ago, however, I'm pretty sure that for pore filling, you could use the 2F and get good results.
Now Pumice filling will work under Shellac, Varnishes and Nitro. I don't know about the newer finishes like Cat Poly and such.
My process is very simple. What you'll need:
- Pumice. 4F.
- 100 Dewaxed shellac. I try to use the palest available, which is the Blonde.
- Some Denatured Alcohol. (Methyl Hydrate in hardware stores) I use a fine tipped squeeze bottle.
-A muneca : A pad made for French polishing - a small, folded/bunched up piece of wool in a 4"X4" (the size doesn't really matter that much) piece of cotton. I like to use ancient cotton t-shirts that have been washed a zillion times, preferably white, but you can get away with other colors too, as long as it's old and doesn't bleed color. Always test on scrap firtst! I simply cut a piece, about 2"X2" of wool off some old (clean) socks. I roll it up and fold it on itself, so that have a U shaped wool ball. Then I just wrap the cotton around this core and tourniquet the ball inside the cotton so that it's nice and tight. Voila!
You'll notice that after a while, you'll cut through the cotton with the Pumice, which is derived from stone, in fact. You can simply release the tourniquet and place the 'ball' in another area and start anew. I find that with a 4"X4" square, I can usually use the same cotton cover for 5-6 rounds until I need a new one.
Process:
Spray of wipe a good wash coat of 100% dewaxed shellac. If you're spraying, one coat should suffice. If you're wipping, go around 2-3 times.
I usually don't wait too long to get going. Shellac is dry to the touch within minutes, depending on how you applied it, and you're just going to use it as a binder for your pore filling 'slurry' anyhow.
Now I like to use a piece of white paper to sprinkle some Pumice on. I've sacrificed a salt shaker to this purpose. Spread it out on the paper by shaking the paper side to side. Think rolling foothills instead of high-peaked mountains. It's easier to pick up the pumice this way.
Wet your muneca with the DA. 10 drops? Now you want to 'pinch' off some of that pumice. Now a part of the learning curve is figuring out how much you can take at once and get away with. Also, when your muneca is virgin, you'll have a hard time seeing just how much you're taking, but by the second time you load with pumice, you'll have a nice stain on your pad and the pumice will be easy to see. Just remember this. There's a reason they sell it by the pound. Don't be shy in picking it up. Think about 50% coverage of your pad surface. Also, if you take too much, you can just load up the pad with DA only and move the dried pumice slurry around the guitar's surface.
Now once you've loaded the pad with pumice, drop another 2-3 drops of DA on there to wet the pumice. Never apply dry pumice to the guitar! I like to spread the wet pumice evenly over the surface of the pad. If you've done French Polish before, or shined boots, the rest is fairly easy. Apply in circular motions. You can also practice changing directions without lifting the pad off the surface. Say you're going clock-wise, make a figure 8 and change directions to counter-clock...
Seperate the guitar in to quadrans and start working the pumice slurry into the pores. As soon as you touch the surface, you'll notice that you're building up this kind of slurry. You can also hear the sanding action at work. What you're actually doing is creating an amalgam of pumice, shellac and wood.
If you're really meticulous and patient, you can almost do the guitar completely in one pass. I did a Wenge baritone in 2. Wenge has the mother of all pores. Craters more aptly describes them.
Now you'll notice that this slurry can dry up on the surface. Just wet the pad with DA only and you'll 'melt' the slurry and it will move. After I'm done I like to wet a cotton rag with DA (no wool pad) and I wipe the guitar vigorously agross the grain. This will help clean up residual dried slurry. If that doesn't do it (and I do this step anyway) I very lighty sand the guitar with 320 grit (small cork lined block). Now you don't want to sand too hard and expose new pores. This sanding step is just to clean up whatever the DA rag left behind.
Good luck!
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