removing finish from bridge area

I know some of you use a hot knife or chisel and Chuck M. uses a router to remove the lacquer at the bridge location, but I have a beginners question - I need to remove all the finish down to bare wood right? Including the epoxy fill? Does the epoxy "soak" into the wood or just "sit" on the surface? Thanks for your help.

Tom

yes, down to bare wood for most glues. The epoxy pore fill doesn't soak in very far. I tape the area of the bridge with blue or green painters tape, draw out the bridge footprint and score inside that line about 1/16th of an inch with a scalpel. I remove the finish with a very small chisel.

It's use is to fill the pores so in most cases it's only left in the pores prior to applying the top coats. When you scrape whatever finish was applied back down to the wood, any epoxy left in the pores won't affect the glue joint of bridge to top.

Thanks guys! And thank you Allen for the cool YouTube videos on epoxy filling!