burn in sticks

[swarfrat]

I found a couple small dings and one large chip that likely occurred during hanging for spraying.  Just how deep  can you fill with burn in sticks?

I wiped on garnet shellac on this (rather light) mahogany bod, then sanded back. I was still planning to take the body edges back to wood just leaving the pores filled, but I'm now thinking I should do a blonde shellac on the faces as planned, and a garnet 'burst' on the edges. That'd let me fill the big chip on the edge at the end pin.

I did try steaming the dents. I think it fixed the scratch on the back but not the dents, so... I'm thinkin an edge burst that's 'wood colored' but subtle and opaque is my ticket here.

Are there any types of defects which aren't suitable for burn in sticks? About the size of a Nickle, almost as deep as a dime?  And it's on the corner. It seems to me that any of those could present issues in geometry/adhesion/future damage but I just don't know and haven't found anything on it

 

[swarfrat]

So it looks like few of these "burn in sticks" are actually shellac anymore. But the difference is important for this application. Epoxy looks like the most durable for a corner chip.

 

[swarfrat]

So I grabbed a couple sticks - make sure you get a burn in stick and not just a touch up stick. Those are just hard crayons. I got a couple colors - I was afraid everything was too dark but the 'light mahogany' actually ended up being a good match for gouges in the bamboo floors in the kitchen/entry way. So I tried it out on the house instead of the $150 guitar body. (I think we took a $250 hit selling a house before because the guy who fixed the squeaky floors used screws with visible heads.

There are burn in sticks, and 'hard fill' burn in sticks - since I knew I wanted to try the floor repair, and the guitar body was on a corner - I decided to use them for everything. Good call - that's the one you want. They still shaved down with a razor blade. I think it's gonna be a keeper fix - and I plan to sort of 'soft' burst the body on the edge with a shellac that's just a shade or two darker on the sides.

Also the iron makes a handy dandy size for steaming dents too. I just bought a wood burning kit that had adjustable temperature and a couple of fat wide burn-in-stick tips.

 

[swarfrat]

Matching color of stick to color wood would be after staining is tricky. 2nd stick still not dark enough, and I thought this was going to be super blonde mahogany.