Pore Filling Ukulele with a Finishing CA.

[John Parchem]

I sort of was in a rush to complete a Ukulele I want to bring to a friend this weekend. It usually takes me 2 days to do a zpoxy fill, more time than I had. Ukes are often left unfilled but I did want to deliver a pore filled\shellac FP. I had seen a video on using a finishing CA “Gear Up Products Fill and Finish” and I happened to have a sample of it; I decided to give it a try on the Ukulele. The video showed it being apply FP like with a rag. I found that the rags I had started reacting quickly to the CA so I just used a gloved finger. I used a drip at a time and pushed it into the wood in small swirling motions, trying to see it pushed into the grain. Once the glue was set, 3 minutes, I scraped all of the glue off of the surface with a fresh razor blade. I did this twice, total time was about 25 minutes. When you get to the last pictures I am only about an hour and a half from sanded wood.





I did this twice the first picture is right after scraping the second is with a wash coat of super blond shellac.





Here is the Ukulele after about an hour of French polishing using the method from the online Robbie O’brien French Polish class. I have about 3
sessions.

[John Link]

That finish is gorgeous John, as is the uke seen as a total instrument.

I have a tiger by the tail in that I stripped a test bed hog plywood Harmony made in Korea in the 70s. (It is to be re-topped with an experimental ladder brace design.) The top layer of finish melted away but underneath there is a rock hard layer of some type of slightly hazy polyester that nothing touches, including a potent stripper that Ken thought would work. In the process of trying to cope with this stuff, I sanded/scraped down to bare wood in a few places.

Once the surface is completely filled, I plan to use Royal-lac (with shading) to finish it.

The question: do you feel this CA would work to "spot in" the few bare areas? I am certain it would not dissolve this polyester from hell but wonder if it can be sanded to a smooth feathered edge where it overlaps the polyester, to avoid witness lines? Or would you go with Zpoxy?

[John Parchem]

I think it work perfectly to level out a finish under the Royal Lac. CA certainly feathers well. If it was the top finish there would be a bit of a witness line But under the shellac I suspect that it would be hard to see. the The only issue I could see you running into is that the exposed wood is lighter. I read on another forum of someone using UV light to darken exposed wood in repair situations.

[John Link]

Thanks John. The exposed wood is actually darker, because the poly puts a slight haze over it.

Another question: did you use their accelerator spray with it, or "as is" out of the bottle?

[John Parchem]

I did not use it. Mainly because I ran out. In my case the very thin coat cured quickly.

[John Link]

The Gear Up "finish and fill" CA works beautifully for the touch up project. It looks like I will be using it often. Thanks for posting this tread John.

[John Parchem]

Great!, it is nice stuff. I like their accelerator as well. I have never had it boil the CA.