Cosmetic repair to dark line?

[Craig Bumgarner]

Anyone have an idea how to deal with a dark, straight line in maple veneer.

Not sure what happened here, but it is deep enough it won’t sand out, on the verge of going through the veneer as is. In the past, I’ve touched up with opaque tinted lacquer, but this blocks the chatoyance of the wood and is still noticeable. In darker woods, I’d consider a patch but maple, the glue lines of patch will likely show as bad as this line.

[Bob Gramann]

A proposed experiment on scrap: Using HHG to minimize any glue line, glue an irregular shaped veneer patch over a depression in the like veneer. As it’s sanded level, the edges should feather until they look like grain lines. I don’t know if the feather sanding can be done convincingly enough. I’ve gotten away with patching divots with inserts in thicker wood—never invisible but disappearing as another feature.

[Barry Daniels]

I use to touch up maple defects with white enamel paint tinted to the appropriate shade. Yes, it is still noticeable but it lessens the "sticking out like a sore thumb" effect. I think any kind of veneer patch would turn out worse. Light colored woods are just not touchupable.

[Craig Bumgarner]

Thanks for the ideas, I’ll try both. Have you seen Iris Carr’s violin repair work on Instagram? She does a feathered repair but from the inside so she can match the grain and get a pretty good idea of how it will look before gluing.

[Craig Bumgarner]

To close the loop on this, was able to make an acceptable repair. Used hot hide glue mixed with glass micro balloons, tinted with Colortone aniline dyes. Vee’d out the “crack” (or whatever it is) to get rid of as much of the the black edge as possible and filled withe the HHG filler. Left it just a tiny bit high and worked it down once set. Applied a little blond shellac and it looked pretty good. Added some faux birdseyes and it’s virtually invisible.

I also tried Bob’s suggestion on scrap with no effort to align the grain, just wanted to see how the glue lines would turn out. Pretty good actually. With sufficient attention to grain alignment it would have worked well.

Thanks again!

[Bob Gramann]

Nice repair. I never would have been able to match the color with the dyes.

[Craig Bumgarner]

Thanks, being bitdseye, a couple faux birdseye helps mask the line

[Barry Daniels]

Great job!

[Craig Bumgarner]

The hide glue and glass bubbles idea is from the aforementioned Iris Carr. She says the glass bubbles helps maintain the appearance of chatoyance in the wood and from this repair, she’s definitely on to something.

[Bryan Bear]

Very well done! what are these glass bubbles and where do they come from?

[Craig Bumgarner]

Very small glass spheres and particles. They are readily available, more commonly called glass microspheres. Used a lot in fiberglass work as a light weight, strong filler. Hard to sand especially if the resin or HHG gets fully cured so don’t overfill and scrape/sand while still green. As far as I know they only come in white which is good for our purpose as this makes a neutral base for tinting. My supply is left over from my boat building days. I see them on Amazon.

Look up Iris Carr Violin Restoration, she’s doing amazing work, much of which translates to guitar work. She uses the HHG and glass bubbles as a crack filler when necessary. She has some videos for purchase.