SFIV1967
Venerated Member
That's the best still picture from that video:The bridge is close to mustache but not exactly, a cross between, also.
Ralf
That's the best still picture from that video:The bridge is close to mustache but not exactly, a cross between, also.
That is not exactely what the folks saidSome folks say that light wood areas [...] will darken in time to match the surrounding wood...
That is not exactely what the folks said
My advice was to take all the old color off, only when the top is bare and bright again all over and then gets repainted, the color will equally darken everywhere (within a few years).
Every sort of blending between old and new bears the risk of a consequent mismatch once the blended part ages.
This is unavoidable when doing spot repair on a vintage guitar that must be preserved as original as possible.
kostask's guitar is far away from that.
This is what I always did when making repairs to old wood. As @spoox says, the aniline or water based dyes are good to bring the new wood super close to the color of the old wood before applying final stain, finish, or colored finish. And I believe I said as much near the beginning of this thread. However, to truly do this in that fashion, you have to remove the old finish on the top. That's going to require a stripper because you cannot sand a guitar top that much. So it would require removing all the finish, lightly sanding the top, using the water based stains/dyes to compensate for the new/old pieces, then a spit coat, then finish. It's terribly tricky and painstaking and in this case the decision was made to just avoid all that work. This current way of dealing with the issue is certainly doable and avoids a lot of pitfalls associated with the other method.Whether or not the luthier winds up doing a sunburst finish on the guitar, the new pieces can be matched closer in color to the rest of the top by using
water base aniline dye. Often on antique furniture I've had to stain new wood to match the existing color for repairs. On oak table tops for example, new pieces spliced in are quite obvious--even after the whole thing had been sanded down. The aniline dye would get the new wood to match the base color, then I could stain the whole top with oil based stain and finish it with lacquer. I used the same method on vintage coin-op items a friend used to bring me--no one
could tell which were original or replaced wood pieces. Being water based, the stain does raise the grain a little, so it requires some light sanding afterwards.