How To Repair Guitar Finish Chip
Your audio-visual guitar's finish can have all kinds of issues, as you play it over the years. Use and abuse of the instrument likewise as the weather conditions ruin acoustic guitar finish. Unfortunately, unless you are going to keep your favorite Martin or Taylor in a vault, you will probably scratch or paring your guitar at some point. In this article, I'll explain a few different guitar finish problems also as a few means to repair small finish blemishes.
Warning: Earlier we go on to learn nearly finish repairs, I urge you to call up twice before experimenting with your guitar's terminate. Finish can be a tricky thing. In most cases, if you lot are not experienced, y'all volition probably brand the finish problem either worse or more noticeable. Practise not practice on your prized guitar. Get experience on a $10 yard sale guitar. Then work on your real guitar.
As well, if you take a vintage guitar, I would propose that you not tamper with the end at all. A vintage guitar's value will subtract drastically once it has been refinished. Trust me; in almost all cases, the vintage guitar will be worth more fifty-fifty with scratches and dents then with a new coat of finish. That being said, let's repair your finish.
What tin happen to Acoustic Guitar Finish?
Contents
- 1 What can happen to Audio-visual Guitar Finish?
- ane.1 Lacquer Cracks
- i.1.ane How to Repair Lacquer Cracks
- 1.1.ii How to Prevent Lacquer Cracks
- 1.2 Scratches in your Guitar'due south Finish
- 1.3 Bubbled Guitar Finish
- one.4 De-laminated Guitar Finish
- 1.five Yellowing Guitar Finish
- 1.half-dozen Drop Filling Acoustic Guitar Dents or Chips
- ane.6.one Color the fleck
- 1.six.ii Apply the Stop
- one.6.3 Scrape off the End
- 1.6.4 Sand the Excess Polish
- ane.six.five Vitrify and Polish
- i.7 Related articles:
- ane.1 Lacquer Cracks
Lacquer Cracks
Lacquer cracks are by and large caused by desperate changes in temperature or humidity. The lacquer is fastened to the outside of the wood. While the wood can expand and contract with differing amounts of humidity in the air, the lacquer, for all practical purposes, cannot. This is the major reason behind lacquer cracks–the wood moves while the lacquer remains still. Almost lacquer cracks start out pocket-sized and internal, oftentimes called crazing or checking. These cracks look similar hairline cracks, merely cannot be felt when you run your finger across the pinnacle of the finish. The reason why the cracks experience smooth on the exterior of the guitar is because the lacquer is not bad from the inside out. Information technology'due south peachy where it joins the wood. Some of these cracks will never materialize into an external cleft, where equally, others volition. Information technology just depends on how well you lot have care of your guitar.
Many vintage instruments have this sort of corking, due to their age. If your vintage guitar has cease problems, remember twice before you take it refinished. Refinishing a vintage guitar volition subtract its value.
How to Repair Lacquer Cracks
You might remember that these small-scale cracks would exist easy to get rid of. Couldn't you just sand them down and vitrify the guitar out over again? Unfortunately, the answer to that is no. Think, these cracks are caused by the guitar wood itself and cleft from the within out. You can't simply sand a little into the clear coat to get rid of them. Some of these small hairline cracks exist all the way down to the guitar wood itself. Yous would have to completely sand downwardly the unabridged guitar to remove these cracks. Not only is this not worth the endeavor, it might exist impossible if your guitar has any stain or burst on information technology.
Guitar lacquer is applied to the guitar afterwards the colour is sprayed or rubbed on. It would be near impossible to sand through the clear coat and exit the color completely intact. You will inevitably sand through some of the colour and leave your end with an uneven burst. This is a beginner error. Just don't try it.
How to Prevent Lacquer Cracks
Since severe atmospheric condition is what causes most lacquer cracks, preventing them is pretty easy. All you have to do is make sure your guitar'south surroundings right. Don't let your guitar be exposed to desperate temperature and humidity changes. Don't leave your guitar in a hot car in the summer or a cold car in the wintertime. And ever, Ever make sure to let your guitar acclimate itself to the conditions before you accept it out and play information technology. When you play a winter gig and your guitar has to sit out in the cold motorcar for a few hours, make sure to bring it inside a few hours before y'all open the case. This will give your Taylor or Martin a chance to thaw and acclimate itself to the new surround before going through the stress of being played. If you can manage all of that, you should have a difficult time getting lacquer cracks.
The guitar to the right is an extreme example of what can happen to your guitar if yous leave information technology in a icy auto and play it as shortly as you bring information technology inside. It can start with a finish fissure or completely crack the guitar top. Keep your guitar away from extreme conditions changes.
Check out my acoustic guitar maintenance commodity for more info nearly proper humidity and temperature levels.
Scratches in your Guitar's Stop
Information technology is incommunicable to prevent your guitar from getting scratched upward, so why even try? I'm just kidding. No one really wants their prized guitar to go all scratched upward. Dissimilar lacquer cracks, finish scratches are caused by rubbing something on the outside of the guitar. These scratches usually merely exist in the articulate glaze of the guitar. Although there is no real way to preclude getting scratches on your guitar other than never playing it exterior of your living room, there are some means of removing them.
Shallow scratches can be removed or buffed out of the cease in your guitar if you know how to do it. Deep scratches on the other manus, cannot be removed and will cause a bigger problem if you they to buff them out. Shallow scratches can be wet sanded, buffed, and polished once again. These scratches look like small hairline scratches on the exterior stop of your guitar.
To prepare your guitar scratches, yous can moisture down a piece of 1,000-grit sandpaper with h2o and lather suds and lightly sand down the area with the scratch. Go on in heed, you simply want to sand down a little of the topcoat of lacquer–nothing more. I usually start at 1,000-grit and piece of work my way up to 12,000-grit sandpaper. Then have a buffing cycle or rag and work in some buffing compound. Afterwards the surface area has been buffed, you tin polish information technology to a high smoothen. Keep in mind, if you are using a buffing bicycle, you really but take to sand upwardly to 2,000-grit. There is no need to become past that.
Once your guitar is polished, you lot shouldn't be able to encounter any hairline scratches.
Deep scratches are scratches that you can feel with your fingertips or fingernail. These kinds of scratches are well-nigh impossible to sand out. They are likewise deep in the finish. If you become after a deep scratch with sandpaper, yous will probably sand through the topcoat and into the color coats or raw wood like nosotros talked almost earlier. In this example, the guitar may need to be refinished to hide your sand through. Deep scratches are better left solitary or brought to a professional. Practice not try to make full these scratches with extra lacquer or other filler. Trust me. Information technology will probably look worse than if you would have just left information technology solitary.
Bubbled Guitar End
I just call this bubbled guitar finish. The finish doesn't actually pop out like a bubble. It only looks like at that place is a bubble in the finish itself. This unremarkably happens because the wood or materials under the finish shifted after the finish hardened. This commonly happens on the side of the unbound fretboards with finished necks. The shrinking of the guitar neck and fretboard try to pull the lacquer in equally the wood shrinks. The frets, all the same, don't shrink and cause the finish to crack or bubble and even crack. Unremarkably bubbling is an early on sign that a finish fissure is coming before long. The easiest mode to forbid these issues is the same as lacquer cracks. Accept intendance of your guitar and effort to go along the weather conditions consistent.
De-laminated Guitar Stop
This is not a very common result, just information technology does happen. Since the lacquer is sprayed on top of a clear coat or sealer glaze, the lacquer is non actually attached to the wood of the guitar–the sealer coat is. This end trouble is most likely caused by a poor cease chore. The topcoat is probably non sticking to the sealer coat. To set up this problem, you will need to strip the finish off the guitar and refinish it again. If y'all simply spray more than lacquer on pinnacle of the de-laminated finish, you will terminate upwardly having the same problem afterward. The problem is in the base of operations coat–not the topcoat.
Yellowing Guitar Finish
Some guitar finishes like Nitrocellulous lacquer naturally yellow over time. This is a completely natural and completely unpreventable process. I talk more about this in my guitar stop article. Check it out.
Drop Filling Acoustic Guitar Dents or Chips
Unlike acoustic guitar scratches, guitar dents and fries are small in area and don't sweep across the guitar body. In other words, you can easily fill them and non worry too much about ending up with inconsistent finishes across your guitar. Apparently, the guitar to the right is an extreme example with multiple fries in a row, but it is a skillful instance. Here's how to drop fill your acoustic guitar dents and chips.
Color the chip
Some acoustic guitars take a color stain or colour flare-up effectually them. Some dents and chips take the color with when they are ripped out of the guitar. Before y'all put any terminate on the guitar, y'all will want to make sure the colour looks right. I like to put a pocket-size amount of acetone in a plastic cup and drop a few drops of color stain in information technology. This should mix upwards nicely.
Now you tin can dip a toothpick in the color mix and utilise it to the scrap in the guitar. The color mix should disperse over the dent. All you need is a couple drops of the color mixture. You can dab upward the backlog with a paper towel and let it dry.
Utilise the Cease
Once the color stain is dried, you can put some cease on it. You can use near annihilation from polyurethane, lacquer, epoxy, or super glue. All of these volition work, only some take longer to dry and harden. Poly and lacquer could take as much as a day to dry. Epoxy and super mucilage dry much faster. I normally use super glue because information technology's the easiest and fastest to use.
Drib a few drops of your cease on the colored bit. Make certain to get enough on there, so the drops of finish are higher than the erstwhile guitar terminate. You lot basically want a bubble of super glue or other stop on top of the scrap. Now only allow that dry. You might accept to practice this a couple times to let the glue or finish build upward. Make certain you do non apply an accelerator to speed up the drying process for epoxy or super gum. Accelerators cause a chemic reaction that releases heat. You could bubble or ruin the surrounding finish this mode.
Scrape off the Cease
At present that you lot have a large chimera of hardened finish on your guitar, you lot'll need to scrape it off. The easiest manner to do this is with a razor bract. This technique was popularized by Frank Ford. Have a razor blade and scrape it confronting a slice of metal until you get a overnice sharp burr on 1 side of it. Then tape off the outer edges of the razor with regular, clear scotch record, and so the only part of the bract showing is a middle portion a little bigger than the size of your flake.
The next function is really cool. Place the razor flat against the guitar and run the united nations-taped blade confronting the bubble of end. The burr on the razor blade volition pare off the excess finish on the fleck and the tape will protect the body from the residuum of the razor bract. Lightly scrape the finish off until no more than will come off with the razor. Notice the tape on the razor prevents it from scraping the spot apartment confronting the rest of the guitar end. You'll need to hitting the remainder of this spot with sandpaper.
Sand the Backlog Smoothen
Sanding a small spot similar this tin be actually catchy. Yous don't want to go at it will a sanding block right abroad because you don't desire to sand down all the surrounding areas with class sandpaper. You should strip sand the chipped spot.
Strip sanding is pretty easy. Cut a piece of sandpaper into a vi inch by .25 inch piece. And then place the sandpaper on the chipped surface area and press down with your index finger. Now pull the sandpaper with your gild mitt. This way the only part of the guitar that gets sanded is the flake and the chipped surface area.
When you strip sand the chip, you will desire to sand in all different directions. Don't continue sanding in the same direction. You'll scratch marks in the end that won't buff out completely. Keep changing sanding directions. I like to start strip sanding with 400-grit sandpaper and work my way upwardly to 1,000-grit.
After I accept the chip strip sanded to 1,000-grit, I break out a sanding cake and wet sand the spot with 2,000-grit sandpaper. If you utilise an bodily sanding block, make sure to fully attach the sandpaper. I commonly utilize a 1 square inch slice or prophylactic or difficult foam that I double stick sandpaper to. Don't fold the sandpaper over the edges of your block. Y'all will go sand marks from the outside edges of the sandpaper. I similar to employ the sandpaper that has a sticky backing. That way I don't have to carp with using double stick tape.
Wet sand the area with 2,000-grit sandpaper in a circular motion. Brand sure to get the surrounding areas too–not just the chip. You want to work everything in. I usually wet sand all the way up to 12,000-grit sandpaper. Again, you don't take to sand this high up if yous are using a buffing cycle. 2,000-grit sandpaper would be sufficient.
Buff and Polish
Now all y'all have to do is take a rag with some buffing chemical compound and vitrify the department. Yous can besides use a buffing wheel. After everything is buffed out, catch a piddling cleaner and clean the rest of the guitar.
Your audio-visual guitar should exist looking not bad now! The cracks are buffed and the chips are filled. I hope this article helped you fix your guitar finish and get your guitar looking awesome. Now it'southward time to play it. But be careful not to become another scratch or dent.
Related manufactures:
- Repair Acoustic Guitar Body Binding
Source: https://www.guitarrepairbench.com/acoustic-guitar-repairs/finish-repair/
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