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Hi all,

The guitar I'm building has EIR sides and back and lutz top. The bindings are ebony with a white wood veneer line running next to the EIR sides.
Herringbone purfling. I'm afraid of color bleeding into the white veneer line, so I plan to use egg whites for a sizing on the bindings. Thinking that a shellac
sealer would be more apt to bleed color into the veneer. Next I'll seal the soundboard and rosette with egg whites. After that, I will continue pore filling using
the egg white sanding slurry method. After all is filled and sanded back to wood, I want to continue on with a french polish finish. I've spent quite
a bit of time in the archives, and I think this will work. What do you think?

Thanks.

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Horton, MI

It sounds reasonable to me. I know there was a recent thread on pore filling with egg whites using the slurry method. I don't know that it is necessary to go through the slurry process. Maybe Shawn will chime in here, but I know he has used only egg white, as a filler, successfully. Like epoxy, it may take more than one coat, but, my understanding is that it makes a fine filler, as well as a sealer and sizing agent for tops.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks Waddy,

I think I've read most of Shawns' posts on the subject.
But I just want to make sure there are no kinks in my logic.

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Horton, MI

I just finished an EIR OM using the egg white pore filler. The color didn't seem to leach out anywhere near the amount that a more volatile solvent causes it to. There was a little color that seemed to sit on the surface of my bindings, and even a little on the Engelman top, but it very easily sanded back to the original color when I was leveling the fill after it dried.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
Facebook
Cairns, Australia

Thanks Allen,

I've been debating on whether to use shellac F.P. or Tru-oil for this. I'm thinking that the tru-oil would work
just as well over the eggs as the shellac.

Any other "egg men" (or ladies) out there?

Goo Goo gajoob!

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Horton, MI

Next question.....battery or free range egg whites?

I didn't know batteries had eggs!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I used this on my first build and then french polished over the egg. As long as when you are done with the filling you have a dead smooth finish, it will come out beautiful! I thought mine was flat but took it to my local luthier and he showed me what smooth really is now the back looks so much nicer I have to do the front to match!

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here

A caveat then..... I used the egg white method as a pore filler on mahogany, briging up a slurry, and then sanding down smooth afterwards when it was dry. Now, my problem may have been that I left some hardened egg white on the surface on the sides and didn't sand it down enough, (I certainly didn't notice it at the time), but after French polishing, there were some pale blotchy patches.

Rod

Thanks for the warning Rod. I don't want that to happen.

So you think the answer is to make very sure you sand down to bare wood?

I'm still not decided yet, but I may just do a pumice fill with shellac.

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Horton, MI

If I did it again.... and I might, because it was so easy and effective to pore fill that way, then I would sand back right down to the wood, just leaving the pores filled. (And repeat if there are pores still showing). Its kind of seductive in a way, because sanding the egg white gives what looks like a really excellent satin sheen finish, almost good looking enough to leave!

Rod