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I'm just about ready to pore fill my curly koa guitar. I need help in color selection because I seem to get it wrong.
I want to use either timbermate or epoxy. There is a sapwood stripe down the back so I guess I thought I would use epoxy there. If I try the timbermate on the rest do I try & go with a lighter color or darker. of course I'll start with a sample.

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Mike McNerney

Mike, if it helps this in lacquer over zpoxy on flamed koa, no color added

It looks lovely, did you have to do 3 coats. I did on my first walnut & had to wait overnight each time. I was going to use 5 minute epoxy if I go that route

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Mike McNerney

don't use real epoxy
I use aqua coat
also pore o paq natural

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I think planning on using 5-minute epoxy as a pore filler is a disaster in waiting. For one, it sets way too fast. It's too thick, too much opportunity for excessive build-up. And adhesives are meant to glue things together, the surface is often sticky and 'oily'. Finishing resins exist for a reason (many reasons, I think).

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Peter Havriluk

Zpoxy has become my standard pore filler unless I purposely want the look of paste filler. I apply two coats with some sort of squeegie like a plastic credit card, sand back just to wood after each. I then apply one coat highly thinned with DA, its really DA with a little Zpoxy in it which is my "grain enhancement" coat. I don't sand it, go directly to lacquer.

I did a bunch of samples of different pore fillers on scraps of different woods - flamed maple, flamed koa and coco. I tried paste filler from StewMac, CA, Zpoxy and some generic hardware store epoxy. The CA fume would have killed me, the Zpoxy was by far the best in both appearance and filling the pores. Obviously you should never take my (or any one else's) word without doing a whole lot of testing on your particular wood.

Edit to add - one way to think of the finishing resin is if you wipe your bare wood with DA or naphtha that is how it will look. It does have a very slight amber tint and it will bring out any figure, flame, quilt or chayotiance.

darker on the pore fill