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A few questions:
1. How long do you allow each side to dry or cure before applying additional coats of Z-poxy, overnight or a few hours?

2. When applying Z-poxy to the sides (rim), do you allow one side to dry before applying Z-poxy to the other side, or do you apply Z-poxy to both sides of the rim during the same session?

3. Does the first coat of Z-poxy serve as a spit or seal coat If french polish is to go on top? I know there are adhesion issues with Z-poxy adhering to shellac but not the other way around.

4. When sanding the epoxy level, what is the max grit sandpaper to use If one intends to french polish?

Thanks for your help.

ron

I have only done a couple of z-poxy fills, but I let each coat dry overnight before sanding. I sand between coats with 320. I fill the entire body in one session as well as the entire neck in one session. Can't really help you with the shellac stuff. Good luck.

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Hi Chris,
Thanks for answering Ques.#1 and 4.
I looked all over today for some decent 320 grit but couldn't find any, but got luck and found some 3M free-cut gold (180 & 220 grit) at Sears of all places.

I found the answer to question #3 over at the Acoustic Guitar Forum. It seems that The Z-poxy should be applied over bare wood, so I guess that the Z-poxy will serve as a seal coat.

Ron

Hi Todd,
Do I have to thin the seal coat of Z-poxy, or can I just apply a 1:1 ratio of Z-poxy that you used in the video as the seal coat?

Are you referring to wet & dry sandpaper? If so, I have that. Of course the 180 & 220 free- cut that I brought was for sanding bare wood before the pore filling process, not for sanding between the Z-poxy coats. Thanks for making the video, It's very helpful.

Ron

I sand between coats at 150 .. gives better bite to the second coat, and doesnt take as long to sand flat either .... do the whole guitar at once (not the top though, unless its koa or hawg)

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Thanks Todd,
I'll just follow the the video.

Tony and Filippo, I appreciate your help.

Ron

Hey Todd,

How definite is the rule...no Z-poxy over shellac? I've done this several times with no apparent issue but I think that may be due to other aspects of the process.

I like to seal pores with something prior to filling them with Z-poxy. Using shellac, I only have to wait an hour to pore fill instead of half a day or more. Plus, once having a guitar finished sanded, I like to seal it right away...for handling purposes.

I'd use your technique for pore filling but there aren't very many flat surfaces on my electrics so I had to come up a technique that employed soft, flexible pads. I do a 50/50 washcoat of Zinser/DA to coat the inside of the pores. Then I use some fume silica in Z-poxy and wipe on / wipe off with a cotton ball / cotton fabric applicatior. After that cures I sand down to the wood and then apply a 50/50 washcoat of Z-poxy and DA.

Reading through that you can see that the only place I have epoxy over shellac is inside the pores. Do you think that sounds like trouble?

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