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I am about to embark on finishing my first guitar. I bought the StewMac finishing kit. Their Colortone filler is a waterbased product. Their web sit has a mess of reviews, most very negative. Does anyone have experience with this product?

Thanks,

Kent

Kent, you might do a search on the old forum. I have no experience so won't make a comment......but best I remember most folks don't like the water based fillers.

I did three applications on padauk, and still left massive voids. I personnally like epoxy. Had a disaster first time I used it, but learned how to mix it right, and have loved it ever since. I just had this sitting around and was out of the epoxy, so I tried it. Won't do that again.

kredwards wrote:I am about to embark on finishing my first guitar. I bought the StewMac finishing kit. Their Colortone filler is a waterbased product. Their web sit has a mess of reviews, most very negative. Does anyone have experience with this product?

Thanks,

Kent

Kent, I used SM Colortone paste on my first several with both nitro and SM waterbased, and I would call it adequate. Do at least two, better three, applications on rosewood - one will not completely fill the pores. It will darken the pores slightly - don't know if you are going to do any other staining (like a mahogany neck). Experiment on scrap.

Other options for pore filling inclue CA and epoxy, so for my last one which had some very highly figured (and I might add, expensive) koa I took a fairly large scrap of koa, masked it into three sections and applied SM paste, CA and Zpoxy. Leveled and shot a dozen coats of KTM-9 and by far the best was the Zpoxy, it really pops the grain but adds a very slight amber cast to it, the CA was next (and basically neutral color) and the SM is the dullest and adds a very slight brownish tint. (one of these days I'll buff that scrap and post a picture)

The SM was the easiest to apply, the CA next and the Zpoxy a real b***h to get into the pores, scraped and leveled. However, I am so impressed with the results that I'll probably use it on everything in the future and my half can of SM will probable never be used.

My $0.02, opinions will vary.

I have been playing with the ColorTone and Z-poxy an scrap. The ColorTone seems to fill well if you ignore the directions, brush it on fairly heavy and let it dry. A couple of coats with sanding in between fills all the pores. When I followed the directions, it took at least 6 coats to approach this level.

As far as the Z-poxy is concerned, I got good results with 2 coats applying with a squeegie used for auto body putty. These coats were as thin as I could get. Sanding was just as easy as with the ColorTone.

I think I will go with 3 coats of the Z-poxy.

Kent