So I got hold of a sample of the porefiller and sealer. The rep actually suggested that the sealer is useable as a topcoat. First impression are favourable.
I did a quick and dirty test panel today, maybe 1.5-2hr labour start to finish. The porefill is the same consistency of the epoxy normally used, and workability was about the same. I did have some small issue with texturing from the credit card I used to spread it but it sanded out fine. I wasn’t exactly trying hard, just a quick and dirty test.
The sealer is good for brushing right out of the jug, great self levelling properties, and not so thin that it runs. It did look a little weird going on like it had little pinholes or grainy nits, but again, it sanded out fine. I think that light sanding between coats would help.
I think it’s probably a pretty hard finish, as sanding and buffing was a bit of a chore. But maybe that’s a good thing. I would feel pretty comfortable power sanding this rather than hand sanding.
I had no issues with it kicking off under my shop flouros, but I turned all the closest ones off and drew the blind. However, one minute in the sun and it was fully cured and sanding to powder. I think the 70$ cure light would be a good investment if adopting this as a finish solution.
It is quite expensive at around 120USD for a quart, but, so does the equivalent amount of West epoxy more or less. With the porefill, same as epoxy, basically none of it goes to waste, so I would expect to get at least 20-25 jobs out of it, maybe more. I think the time saved outweighs the cost significantly.
With the sealer/topcoat, it might add up as with spraying much of it gets wasted, but as I’m brushing that’s also a non issue for me. This stuff brushed on very nicely, especially in comparison to RoyalLac, lol. Hooboy.
It does smell, but that disappeared swiftly as soon as it cured.
I could easily see being able to go from raw wood to buffed out guitar in a day.
I’ve yet to torture test it, but I will soon. I’ll chuck the test piece into the freezer and do some cross hatching tests for adhesion.
Of course, the only thing that actually matters is how it affects the tone of the guitar, but I won’t be able to test that out for a while.
As you’ll see in the pics I hit it a little hard with the buffer, as you can see the pores have sunk. TBH that’s what I personally like to see, but it may upset a purist.
Over the next little while I’ll try to do a few more panels to test on spruce, and to see about burn through repair ability. And I’ll try buffing out the porefill, cause, hey, what if it could be a one layer solution? Dare to dream…
This was 1 coat of sealer, 4 porefill and a 50/50 washcoat, and 4 sealer topcoats. Film coat around 2.5-3 thou with no burn throughs. Could have been sanded better as you can see, but this was just a quick and dirty experiment to just have a gander. TBH, it seems quite promising, but again it all comes down to what it does to the sound…one day!
