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Another thing, I´ve been preparing for the french polishing by watching the Roland Louis Fernandez DVD and I bought some supplies from LMI: shellac, pumice, felt block, rottenstone (all part of the french polishing materials at LMI), yet in the DVD he didn´t use either the felt block or rottenstone, so what are they for?
The felt block is a sanding block, you can use wood covered with cork or rubber or foam or just about anything had for a sanding block. The felt blocks allow you to bend them to conform to curves like the waist of the guitar.
Rottenstone is a powdered earth which is used as final polishing abrasive. There are other sanding and polishing products, but I've used rotten stone.
I have a bottle of Clear Plastic Cleaner which I might use for final polish, a plastic cleaner was used in the DVD. I´m also considering to check out the Robert O´brian online course, witch has a chapter on finishing with french polishing. A bit expensive though, about 40 usd, but might be worth it.
Get some dark tone water based wood filler and a some small jars of water based colored dye like tan, dark brown and black. Mix the filler to the ligher color of the wood and apply. Once it's sanded smooth you can touch it up with colored felt tip pens to match the grain then seal it. Don't forget to mask off the purfling. Once it's done and finished you'll never see it.
I dont know if its possible to get waterbased woodfiller in Sweden. Here in Spain its impossible and in Denmark I cant remember having seen it. Could the same job be done with what we call plastisk trä... ( thinner based woodfiller It actually means plastic wood) ?
I often use John's recipe for ding repair, works great on rose wood guitars especially because the dark wood can very successfully color blend. Many old guitars have painted in fills as part of a restoration job.
Before there was water based wood filler there was gesso, which is what was used before. You can make a small amount by mixing powered chalk with hide glue until it makes a paste. You can tint it to a base color with water based permanent ink. Then use small brushes or markers to paint layers of grain in.
The wood based filler I find is called Zar, it's for house painting, it works just fine in most cases in place of gesso.
If you put spoon full of calcium carbonate, or powdered chalk, into a small glass jar on a water bath like your glue pot, then add a few drops of hot hide glue astir it up you'll make a paste. Apply it hot with a palette knife and let it dry over night. It may shrink so it might take two applications.
go easy with the rottenstone. It easily takes away to much shellack
I don't even use it any more. I used to use it on violin varnishes in the traditional manner. Rotten stone is really not good for French polish in my experience. I think supply houses just need to sell stuff.
Traditionally rottenstone was used to smooth violin varnish finishes. In the pre-industrial days before our modern sand papers violin makers and instrument makers used shark skin, pumice, diatomaceous earth and rottenstone and then finer earth based jewlers polishes to smooth finishes.
Each of those materials has different "grit"- usually a violin would be rubbed out with Pumice, diatomaceous earth, and rottenstone on a cloth with oil as a lubricant. As the material breaks down through rubbing it becomes finer and polishes out finer as it wears. Once the instrument is down to rottenstone the cloth and rottenstone break down through rubbing and it becomes a fine slurry of cloth impregnated with fine grit rottenstone. This was usually a final polish for oil varnish.
Today rottenstone still works, but modern products like 'micro mesh' and other woven micro abrasives are much better. Even regular wet a dry sandpapers in the 2000, 2500 and 3000 grit range work better for final sanding over rottenstone.
If you want to read more about it check out books like Ralph Mayers' Artists Handbook or The Materials of the Artist and Their Use in Painting by Max Doerner. Or the books offered by the color company Kremer Pigments.
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