---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment Hi Greg - When you say the wood seems to end up darker than you would like when you try to even out the color are you referring to evening out the color from one piece to the next (i.e. - making the legs the same color as the fallboard), or evening out some color 'blotchiness' you may encounter on an individual piece? If you are referring to blotchiness, I would say you are inflicting this on yourself in the stripping process by being more aggressive in some areas than in others in either scrubbing or sanding. In my experience, if you just let the stripper remove the finish to the point where a putty knife will easily scrape it off, that avoids pitfall # 1 - scrubbing real hard in stubborn places to remove finish still adhering. Then if you lightly scrub/rinse WITH THE SAME EVEN PRESSURE THRUOUT using either a water/alcohol, lacquer thinner, or TSP rinse (or combination of all 3)with #1 steel wool or maroon scotchbrite pad, you should have all pieces stripped clean, free of any blotchiness. I am not a big fan of inflicting further aggression on the wood after achieving this state other than a light sanding with 150 - 220. My personal opinion is that bleaching robs the wood - especially mahogany - of some depth that is not retrievable. Just my opinion, FWIW. Nor have I found it necessary or desirable to go after the old filler with scrub brushes, but to each his own. As far as keeping the color as light as possible, I will generally pick the darkest piece of the lot, and only dye as necessary to get the rest of the pieces to that shade. I would consider this then to be the lightest this wood wants to be. I prefer to take what the wood is giving me and work with it, rather than to impose a completely different color regimen that is much lighter in tone and requires bleaching to get there. Seems to me this is like "askin' for a fight".... ;-) I will say that of the three common liquids I use for cleaning after stripping - alcohol, lacquer thinner, TSP - the TSP removes the most color. FWIW. Mark Potter Greg Newell <gnewell@ameritech.net> wrote: list, I wonder if you all (as many opinions as I can get) would enlighten me on what you do in the stripping process. I'm specifically interested in everything that comes before repairs and coloring etc. Perhaps more to the point is whether or not you are seeking to make the wood as bare as possible i.e. devoid of any color, or are you simply removing topcoat, then repairing, even out color and re-topcoat? It seems that my attempts seem to bring the finished product darker than I would like by attempting to make everything the same color. I have only removed finish in the past but am contemplating bleaching. Is this necessary in order to get the lighter colors I'm after? Would you be kind enough to describe exactly the steps and materials and tools you use in the stripping process? Thanks in advance. Greg Newell Greg's piano Forté mailto:gnewell@ameritech.net _______________________________________________ pianotech list info: https://www.moypiano.com/resources/#archives ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/cc/f3/bc/dd/attachment.htm ---------------------- multipart/alternative attachment--
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