If you wipe the epoxy on with rag or a piece of foam roller the location of pores makes no difference. Try to get the epoxy in the pores, not on the surface.
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There's another storm brewing!
- Thread starter pilotjones
- Start date
Geoff St. Germaine
Commercial User
- Aug 31, 2001
- 6,267
- 302
- Disclosures
- Owner - St. Germaine Guitars
I use a small squiguee for epoxy grain filling on large flat surfaces. It gets it in the pores and prevents much, if any, on the surface. Coating the whole surface leaves too much to sand the surface back to level.
Hi, TBers, long time no see. I'm glad my key still works in the lock. Better forget about that milk I left in the fridge though...eeeyyyuckkkkkk. 
It's back to work time for this project.
I've had a lot of frustration with the epoxy pore fill. Tried different things, had various problems, read up a lot, experimented on scrap... here's a summary:
- My hardener turned out be too old, and this was causing curing problems
- I'll be going with the "leave a little skin of epoxy on the surface" method rather than the "sand down to raw wood with epoxy-filled pores" method (largely because of the wenge -- I can get into the details if anyone's interested)
- I'm completing the pore fill by touching up the still-open pores and the bare wood areas, rather than by doing more full coatings. Here's a pic.
It's back to work time for this project.I've had a lot of frustration with the epoxy pore fill. Tried different things, had various problems, read up a lot, experimented on scrap... here's a summary:
- My hardener turned out be too old, and this was causing curing problems
- I'll be going with the "leave a little skin of epoxy on the surface" method rather than the "sand down to raw wood with epoxy-filled pores" method (largely because of the wenge -- I can get into the details if anyone's interested)
- I'm completing the pore fill by touching up the still-open pores and the bare wood areas, rather than by doing more full coatings. Here's a pic.
What difference if any do you find with the z-poxy? And, what about the wood leads you to choose one or the other?
Consider, yes, but the peruvian walnut on the body face is not that robust, so I want a hard coat. That, plus (like with the first bass) when I first applied the pore filling coat and saw it how incredible it looked wet, I just had to go with gloss. Or at least try it.
I did an oil/varnish finish on the other bass. I ended up kind of disappointed when the filled the pores of the padauk eventually sank in, which is why I'm trying the epoxy fill this time.
Exactly what I do and for the same reasons. I try and apply Zpoxy as thin as I can and as even as possible to minimize sanding. Being a resin for finish it's also a lot less hard than epoxy and easier to sand.
About the oil finish, have you tried oil+urethane+mineral spirits with sanding paper? The result is pretty good with filled pores and an almost gloss look. Of course there's no substitute for clear gloss finish. Oil is oil. And I have not tried a gloss look on padauk or wenge so I can't swear by it. But I've seen some pretty good gloss finish done that way.
Instead, I use the oil+U+MS to get an open pore finish on woods like padauk, wenge, angsana... The result is really nice. I know that's not what you're after. But since we've mentioned that, I thought I'd share my experience.
This mayones haunts my dreams. It's become a life goal to build a padauk+wenge bass and get as perfect a finish.
Hopkins
Commercial User
Ok, I guess it's pretty watery then, That would be useful for getting it far enough down in the surface-skimming pores that the sanding of the extra from the surface wouldn't open up to an air pocket, at least not as much. How much time after mixing do you have with zpoxy before it starts to gel?
I tried doing a little bit of pore filling with medium CA, and the smell was killing me. I can't imagine doing a whole surface unless I could be outdoors or something.
On my first bass with the padauk I tried the sanding in method with Waterlox, which is similar to TruOil, an oil/varnish blend. After doing that for a while i switched to pore filling with a "manufactured" sort-of similar paste that I made out of the waterlox and leftover padauk that I sanded down to dust. That gave me a level finish that I did gloss over, but a year later the pores had shrunk back to little divots.
Dang that is EXACTLY what I'd like to get out of a board of wenge. Hardy any darkening, and a perfect gloss. Beautiful.
Hopkins
Commercial User
Hey PJ, TO get that finish, I would stop the grain filling with epoxy and start spraying urethane and build it up until you get a level finish.
You have about 30 minutes of working time with zpoxy.
And I work in my garage with the door almost always open, so I never notice the CA fumes.
Why spray urethane for the pore fill - to eliminate epoxy steps?
The general impression I've been getting is that epoxy is the best pore fill for no shrinkage over time.
30 minutes sounds great.
Yeah, working least partially outdoors would seem to be necessary, short of a really good respirator plus good air exchange in the room for when the respirator comes off.
When I started testing doing CA pore fill, that's when I started getting non-full cure of the epoxy. It seemed at the time to be caused by the CA, but that turned out to be just coincidence. Unless the accelerator contributed something to it, but I pretty well proved that the problem was the epoxy hardener.
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Hopkins
Commercial User
Automotive urethane is a catalyzed finish just like epoxy, once its cured it will not shrink either. Its also much easier to sand than epoxy, and spraying it gives you more control. Sanding out epoxy runs is no fun at all, and you often wind up sanding past the run into the wood, which kind of defeats the purpose. I would guess by now, you have the deepest grain filled already.
I had a friend with an auto body shop clear spray my test piece, which is the same wenge and walnut as this bass. Not sure which clear coat he used, he has a few, none of them cheap. It didn't adhere, it peeled. Any insights?
Hopkins
Commercial User
Neither wenge or walnut are particularly oily, I can't think of any reason why it wouldn't adhere properly. Did he spray over some kind of grain filler? The only thing I can think of is that there may have been a compatibility issue with another product. Which is weird in itself as the urethane clear I use (Shopline JC60) has been compatible with everything I have used with it.
I had assumed that the coating just didn't like bare wood.
I'll have to ask him, maybe his guy did a wipedown with a solvent. I could imagine you doing that on metal, and just waiting to see no visible liquid after it evaporated off, but if you did it that way on wood there would be some soaked in that wold gradually release.
I'll have to ask him, maybe his guy did a wipedown with a solvent. I could imagine you doing that on metal, and just waiting to see no visible liquid after it evaporated off, but if you did it that way on wood there would be some soaked in that wold gradually release.
Hopkins
Commercial User
I think I have a piece of scrap wenge and a piece of scrap walnut. Next time I mix up a batch of clear I will give them a few coats to make sure its not the wood.
