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I love using light colored woods with dark. And I like epoxy pore fill. But what I don't like is how the first epoxy coat can cause dark wood oils to bleed into light. Seriously, someone has figured this out. I want a non-coloring solution. Does it exist? Some kind of sealer?

I use a wash coat of shellac before using Zpoxy.

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Mike - if you are using Enduro-Var and want to avoid shellac, I wonder if you can use thinned epoxy as a sealer. You'd thin the epoxy -- 50% epoxy and 50% DNA. Then use a small artist paint brush to apply it to the bindings or similar areas you want to seal and protect.


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DNA may make the bleeding worse...
Have you thought of trying some test panels of troublesome wood combinations with a coat of EV before the Z-epoxy Mike?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Back in the day on the OLF there was a very active member Michael Dale Payne. Mike was a highly contributing member and we used to rely on him for sage advice about such things as french polished shellac. Mike is also the very generous sort who created the guitar plans for the OLF and as I understand it made them available to all of us out of generosity!

Mike used to say on this forum that shellac sticks to epoxy fine but epoxy does not adhere well and stay that way... to shellac.... Forum members had experienced issues with attempting to apply epoxy over shellac but never with shellac over cured epoxy. With this said epoxy was our first coat of anything if there was going to be epoxy in the mix.

Some of the other long standing members may recall this.

Anyway it's a difficult thing to test since it deals with the long run and time but for my generation of OLFers we avoided applying epoxy over shellac and believed that we had some good reasons why.

I use one of the vinyl sealers (not sanding sealer) -- Behlens etc. I always thought helping prevent oil/resin bleed and discoloration was a major function of the sealer coats.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

You might try wiping on a thin coat of epoxy with a rag and letting it partially dry before using the same epoxy as a pore filler. If the rag starts to pick up any color refold it and use a clean section. A thin coat is less likely to pull color and allow it to bleed on to adjacent woods.

Ken, do you have success with epoxy over vinyl? Spray or wipe?

I have had mixed results with wash coats of epoxy. DNA lifts the oils. Just like epoxy will. Wish there was some kind of sealer based on mineral spirits. Appreciate all of your responses.

One thing that occurred to me was a water based sealer. As with any of this, it the issue of epoxy over it.

Isolante?

I use Danish oil as my base coat and have never noticed any bleeding. It takes three or so days to dry before I can use urethane. All my finishes are wiped-on with a rag. My urethane is diluted one urethane to two mineral spirits. It might be worth a test but then your standards may be higher than mine.

Bob

So, I read up on Isolante. Specifically IS203. Doesn't look like this stuff is sold to consumers. Can't find anything (yet). Are there other products more readily available?

Yes I have -- but that does not necessarily mean its a good idea, I just sent out an inquiry to Pacer Technologies we'll see what they say about it.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

EV claims it can be used as a pore filler. Perhaps on troubling woods you can skip the epoxy and do the whole thing in EV. Not the most economical approach, I know.

I knew WB Endro Varnish was self sealing -- But can you direct us to the documetation part about pore filling, that sounds interesting -- thanks

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I have read that too. Even tried it. My results indicate you should take that with a grain of salt. It will look pore filled for a while. Then shrink in. Clearly, there is some level of application where you will reach 100% stable pore fill. But how long will this take? How many coats? Long time, lots of coats. If someone has solved this economically, I'm interested to hear about it.

I ran into this problem very recently...I had a particularly oily rosewood back and side set, with European Maple binding, with no purfling between the two. What worked best for me was this procedure.

1.) Mask off binding.
2.) Wipe vigorously with denatured alcohol and/or lacquer thinner...just wipe it a lot with whatever you find is lifting the oils out.
3.) Unmask and sand off anything that bled under the tape.
4.) Gently apply a coat of epoxy, stretching it as thin and far as possible and not over the binding. (or just dont wipe from rosewood to the binding)
5.) After its cured, scuff sand or a coarse scrubby.
6.) Pore fill as you normally would.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

Interesting. I was considering trying just an EV Flat finish on a Bocote parlor I have going. The pores seem small, I don't know if that is true all up but for this B&S set I got from LMI it is. I'll post some pics of how it turns out.

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When we have a wood like cocobolo that will bleed adjacent to light purfling lines and binding, we mask the wood that bleeds and seal the bindings/purflings first with epoxy. Once the epoxy cures, we lightly Scotchbrite the bindings, etc. and apply a coat to the entire guitar. The cocobolo or whatever may bleed into the epoxy, but will not soak into the already-sealed purflings or binding, so will not stain. When it is the bindings that will bleed, we seal these first, then work the body.

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What is interesting to me is that I appear to have learned a new word: "Isolante". And it appears to represent a class of products designed specifically for the problem concerning me. What also is interesting is that one cannot easily search for such products. Or find them with prices if you do stumble across them.