Hiding repairs

[TEETERFAN]

Here’s how I touched up a little hole in my mahogany neck. My blank had a hole about 2mm in diameter. I first glued in a plug of mahogany made with the appropriate grain orientation. Of course, after staining, the repair was pretty visible. Here’s how I helped to hide it.

After sealing the neck with shellac and pore filling with shellac/pumice I level things out with 600 wet/dry and a drop or two of walnut oil. I wiped with naphtha and allowed things to dry.
To hide the defect, I painted “grain” with a bit of tinted white artist’s acrylic gesso. I mixed up a little watercolor paint to match the main color and added this to the white gesso, which whitens it and adds opacity. I used a tiny 000 artist’s sable brush to add teeny tiny strokes of paint. I lightened and darkened the color to give it a natural variety. I finally mixed a darker color to match the stained pores.
Using acrylic gesso diluted with water dries quickly and additional paint will not dissolve things underneath.
This needs a topcoat, which will be provided by my final nitro finish. To prevent the acrylic gesso from crawling from the solvents in the lacquer, I will mist on several thin layers of the lacquer with an airbrush to build a protective layer.

This technique helps to hide things but the painted grain doesn’t reflect light the same way the wood does. When viewed at certain angles it is a little more visible, so add just enough touchup paint to do the job. It is also more visible on lighter woods like spruce.

[jread]

Wow. Nice one. Thanks for sharing

[Diane Kauffmds]

Very nice!

[tippie53]

well done