Is this water damage?
 

Hi, I have tacoma satin ekk9 that I am trying to polish. I ran into an issue where a small blotch on the wood looks like it has been exposed while wet sanding with soap. Is this water damage? Can anyone with experience know how to fix this? Pictures included.

That looks like the sealer under the topcoat coming thorough. You have sanded or buffed through the topcoat.

Only fix is refinish at least the sides.....

It might be bare wood, your having sanded through the thickness of the finish.

A good example of why not to indiscriminantly "polish" satin finishes. Depending upon the type and thickness of finish, you might get away with it: other times not.

Because of the glare, it's hard to tell exactly what's going on here but the white cloudy area following the grain in the upper section of the photo looks like trapped moisture to me.

If it's lacquer, lightly rubbing the area with lac. thinner will likely eliminate it but then you'll need to refinish.

Thanks for your suggestions. Here are more pictures. Note, the part looks very pale compared to the rest of the finish near the strap button.
https://imgur.com/a/KmQNwXt

That's appears to be a combination of bare wood and undercoat/sealer. The lighter parts are bare wood.

Was it still wet in the photos? The bare areas look gray compared to the rest. If dry, areas might have changed color due to oxidation of the wood or soap contamination.

I think I might have sanded too much of the coat. After wet sanding it, I simply wiped it down with a dry cloth. Funny thing is if I put polish on top of the spot, the coloring looks better on these pictures. The guitar is dry in those photos. It goes back to the original texture if I wipe down the polish. What type of product should I use if I wanted to match the rest of the gloss?


Description for tacoma, What finish compounds do you use on Tacoma guitars?
Tacoma gloss models, use lacquer based UV polyester applied to the thickness of about
three layers of standard paper. It is then sanded flat and buffed to a gloss. On Tacoma
satin models, they use an acid catalyzed 15% sheen conversion varnish.