Mahogany and Nitrocellulose Laquer

[Scott Rathburn]

Hello everyone. This is my first post on the finishing forum and third or forth overall. I'm refinishing a piano and I've sprayed about 6 coats of laquer. The problem is that the pores don't seem to filling in. I now know that I should have filled them first, but too late for that. What should I do now?

[Jamie Buxton]

Sand away! The lacquer is in the pores, but the lacquer layer there is no thicker than elsewhere, so you still see the pores as indentations in the surface. When you sand, you gind the finish surface down until the indentations disappear. Effectively, you will be using the lacquer as the pore filler. You might find you need to apply more lacquer to build up the thickness, and you'll probably want to spray a finish coat or two after the sanding.