How Do You Blend In Refinishes?

[Bmth Builder]

Hey,

Say if you were to fill a chip with some lacquer, you have to sand it flush with the rest of the finish but to do so you would have to use a heavy grit which would scratch the surrounding buffed finish.

To smooth out these new scratches you have to sand a bit wider with a finer grit, so does it just go on like that, wider and wider until you get to a grit fine enough that it all blends in?

Cheers

[kpcrash]

Depending on the age of the finish, you may be able to save a little work by thinning the lacquer to flow more easily into the chip - tend to hide witness lines a little better IMO

[WezV]

tbh i think you want to keep your touch up work as localised as possible, other wise you end up with a lot more work - especially if you end up sanding through!!

start by scraping the drop fill down to almost level, rather than sanding. A razor blade scraper with a bit of masking tape on the edges allows you to control where you are removing stuff a lot more accurately than a piece of sandpaper will

strip sanding will also let you focus the repair on the required area

http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0040.html

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Finish/RazorScrape/razorscrape1.html

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Technique/Finish/Lacquer/DropFill/dropfill.html

before a rebuff of the whole area

[Musiclogic]

with drop filling or burn in sticks, it is very easy to control the flow of material into the nick. by no overfilling, and making sure the nick was prepped before filling(which good repairmen and refinishers will always do), you have very little clean up and sanding. never use sandpaper to work down an overfill. Always scrape the area and make sure the surrounding area is masked off(As said above) always use a stick or thin block to touch up level, and always wet to minimize material removal. 1000 grit or 1200 grit should be the coarsest you use to flatted/blend a repair, and work to 2000 or 2500 before buffing. This is how I approach it.