Acoustic Guitar Construction

Saw this in another thread

stevem wrote:Tony, you mentioned that you use epoxy for pore filling. I've seen it mentioned for sealing soundboards in Don Teeter's book and I was experimenting with some yesterday on some walnut. Would you mind explaining your process. Do you put it on raw wood or seal it first? oh yeah, my cutaway side turned out well!
Steve

Some other smarty pants suggested I do a tutorial so I thought I might just do that. However, there is an excellent tutorial here:

http://www.lenaweelutherie.info/page6/p ... age20.html

That is a great tutorial and shows the whole process. It is exactly what I do. I also use Z-Poxy.
I can answer any questions about the process and do my own tutorial, but that wont happen for a while, so this is a good quick fix.

Tony

That was a helpful link, thanks.
How do you protect your top when expoxying the sides?

Uhh...what? I have never protected the top.


A little blue tape wouldn't hurt though. The Z-Poxy wipes right off with denatured alcohol, so once I have it all applied, I will wipe the edges with some DNA on a rag. Blue tape on the edges of the top is cheap insurance but the z-poxy is easy enough to control and since you are using a small amount, it doesn't drip all over the place. I have never had a problem keeping it off the top. However, now that you mention it, I had better take precautions because you just jinxed me.

deadedith wrote:That was a helpful link, thanks.
How do you protect your top when expoxying the sides?

It sands right off. I porefill the rosette when needed and the top of the top bindings, and the zpoxy disappears as you prep for finish.

What is the single most difficult portion of the z-poxy method? Or is it easy all along the process?

I don't find it difficult at all. You should not leave much on the surface so you have little to sand before the next session. Once the pores are filled, I sand it level, the use a thinned mix of half z poxy and half DNA and wipe on in long strokes to fully coat the wood. It leaves a thin coat you can finish over and zpoxy really wets the wood like nothing else I have tried.

The most difficult part is the nagging thought in the back of my head that I should be wearing more protection when sanding the epoxy.

That and it takes some practice to leave a thin layer on without just scraping it all of. I do this (porefilling) so infrequently that usually the first coat is a practice coat cause I need my arms to remember how to spread it out.

I like using it for the short term, but if this was a career, or if I was doing more than a guitar every 9 months or so, I'd figure a way to avoid epoxy. Sure looks pretty though...