Pumice powder and shellac and ink
Hello everyone. My first post. I don't speak English, I'm from Argentina, South America. So the text is Google's automatic translation.
I have been learning the French polishing technique for months. Actually day by day I learn what not to do, it's almost like a battle against patience :) The project is about a very cheap Stratocaster guitar that a friend had lying around. The poor guitar has already suffered hours of sanding and errors, it is becoming finer and weighs less :)
Start by learning the process that you (mandolin makers) go through with the dyes. In my case I use alcohol-based inks. Then apply shellac with spray gun and start the french polish. The pores of the wood began to say Eyyy !!! here we are !!!! :) I used over-the-counter alcohol from the pharmacy, one day there was a terrible wind, I applied shellac outside, on very hot days and also very cold at night!!! yes, a whole chain of errors. Well I'm not giving up. Now I want to cover the pores but the question here is when? I already bought powdered pumice stone because I don't want the guitar to have any modern epoxy or wood sealants. Important question: I apply to start a layer of shellac more diluted in alcohol and then I start the process of applying stone gomez with a doll basically with alcohol, will I be able to apply the inks (alcohol based) on top of that???? someone did it?? Thank you for your time and sorry if it was long. If you want to laugh at other mistakes I have a very long list, you just have to ask :) thanks
Re: Pumice powder and shellac and ink
Alcohol must be ~95% pure to be suitable for using with shellac.
1. Time is your friend when working with shellac finishes. Let everything dry well before re-coating.
2. When using alcohol and pumice, be careful that the pad is not too wet. You might want to sand lightly with 400 or 600 first.
3. If there is much shellac on the surface, you might be better off coloring the new shellac that you are going to apply, rather than trying to apply dye to the existing surface.
You can save yourself a lot of heartache by practicing on scrap wood. Wait until you are comfortable with the techniques before you work on an instrument.
