Foam polishing pad for guitar finishing
V-3414
Dan Erlewine shows how he uses foam pads for a finish repair.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Dan Erlewine - Stewart-MacDonald]
Dan Erlewine: A good friend of mine built this guitar. It's his first attempt at guitar making, and he did a darn good job. But the neck angle was a little bit off and he asked me to remove it and reset it. Now, I'm going to buff the new lacquer into the old using Finesse Polishing Pads and ColorTone Polishing Compounds.
How to use foam pads for finish repair
I'll often use the foam pads instead of my buffing arbor for little jobs like this, especially if I don't want to remove parts that are in the way or might be grabbed by the larger buffing wheels. I'm using two compounds, medium and fine, and two pads. You don't want to mix compounds on the foam pads. I started out with medium and now I'll switch to fine.
The pad gets into tight corners easily, like along the edge of the fret board on the point at the end of the fret board here. Here's the fresh pad with some swirl remover on it for that final perfect look.
A lot of times when you would spray and buff out onto a guitar, you'd unsolder the pickups and remove them. And that's another reason with this guitar, I couldn't go to a big buffer. Because the wiring is so complex, I don't think I could ever get it to work again.
You can also use these pads in a drill press. I've got a new pad here with the coarse compound on it. So Finesse polishing pads are an easy, inexpensive way to get a really good-looking buff, especially in a tight situation like this.
