Touching up the finish

[DarkPenguin]

So,

My first build has taught me great lessons on how careful I should be while putting the guitar together.  This is a good thing.  Now I need to learn how to fix those lessons.

Mostly it is just scratches in the clear coat.  What is the best way to deal with this?

 

[bagman67]

How to approach this depends on the nature of the clearcoat you dinged.  You can mend lacquer pretty easily (of course, you're probably looking at disassembling the guitar to do it), but a polyester or polyurethane clearcoat is another story.  They are hard and clear as water, but once you do eff 'em up, you're really up against it. 


If it's a hard poly finish, you could possibly drop-fill and buff out (here's the Erlewine method via Stewmac), but maybe you can just accept the dings under the philosophy that this is just the very first step on the road to the massive mojo that will one day inhabit your new axe.

 

[DarkPenguin]

How to approach this depends on the nature of the clearcoat you dinged.  You can mend lacquer pretty easily (of course, you're probably looking at disassembling the guitar to do it), but a polyester or polyurethane clearcoat is another story.  They are hard and clear as water, but once you do eff 'em up, you're really up against it. 


If it's a hard poly finish, you could possibly drop-fill and buff out (here's the Erlewine method via Stewmac), but maybe you can just accept the dings under the philosophy that this is just the very first step on the road to the massive mojo that will one day inhabit your new axe.

I'm not sure what warmoth uses for their clearcoat but I'm thinking that mojo thing is the way to go.  It is irritating that I just build it and it is already marked, however.  My 1994 (93?  I don't remember when I bought it.) am std strat doesn't have half the marks this one does.  (Ignoring the neck that pretzeled and had to be repolaced.)  Looking at it I have a hard time noticing them when it isn't on the work bench.  Yeah, definitely going with the mojo thing.

It would be a lot easier to work on this thing if I didn't have a cat.  At least two of the dings have occurred while trying to prevent that glorified rodent from setting herself aflame on the soldering iron.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Cagey]

Warmoth clear coats with polyurethane, so repairs are difficult. Even with the drop/fill method, the chances of it looking worse when you're done than it does before you start are pretty good. I'd let it go.

 

[stubhead]

Has anyone ever relic'd a guitar by chewing on it? New Years always make me feel adventurous. :hello2:

 

[bagman67]

NO teeth marks, but my wee barbarian Ollie did go after my green mahogany Telecaster one fine day with a wooden square-headed mallet.  What with that little episode, plus the murderous attack of my own fingernails on the lacquer clearcoats, I'll have the bright green equivalent of Rory Gallagher's Strat in no time.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Has anyone ever relic'd a guitar by chewing on it? New Years always make me feel adventurous. :hello2:

Well - Bare Knuckle makes a pickup which looks like the evil one himself has chewed on it.  :evil4:

 

[Nightclub Dwight]

NO teeth marks, but my wee barbarian Ollie did go after my green mahogany Telecaster one fine day with a wooden square-headed mallet.  What with that little episode, plus the murderous attack of my own fingernails on the lacquer clearcoats, I'll have the bright green equivalent of Rory Gallagher's Strat in no time.

When I was three or four years old I woke up before my parents one day and decided to do some "practicing" on the grand piano.  The lip on the front of the ivory keys hurt my little hands so I took a D cell battery and proceeded to bang the lip off of every single ivory key.  Of course this left a jagged edge that was worse.

I was young enough that I didn't really get into trouble, even though I'm sure my parents were sick about it.  No problem, my mod didn't affect the playability.  My brother and I used that piano for our piano lessons until we were old enough to ditch piano for guitar.

Sorry for the hijack, back to the normal thread.