Dude, that's brutal lmao. I had a similar gut punch moment when I learned I'd been using wet cleaner on my phone screen for years and it was actually stripping the oleophobic coating. Sometimes you just don't know what you don't know.

Patricia's method of just letting it run for hours is exactly what I did with my old Technics SL-1200. After about 40 hours of continuous play, the soundstage really widened and everything felt more natural. I think @patricia42 is totally right about that bass filling out once everything settles in.

@jana179 yeah exactly, way too much effort for something simple lol.

Has your buddy ever tried the pre-mix stuff here? My friend Mike used it to fix a hole in his garage and it cracked in two days flat, he was so annoyed he switched to hot mud and never looked back. Something about our dry air just seems to suck all the moisture out of that bucket mud way too fast.

Have you looked into how he handled the grain direction on those curved panels? I've seen where people cut their panels out of a single wide board, but the grain runs straight while the door curves, and it can look a little odd... I wonder if he was doing bent lamination or just routing them out of thick stock... I'd be worried about the strength if you go too thin on a curved door...