Repairing an UGLY Scratch On a Beautiful Guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter BluesMeister
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BluesMeister

BluesMeister

Occasional Poster
My fellow pluckers,
I recently bought a 1982 Ibanez AR305AV Artist.

Beautiful guitar, gorgeous Burl Mahogany finish, but it has a DEEP scratch running from the tailpiece for 3" or so. Someone must have taken a screwdriver to adjust the tailpiece and it slipped...

So how do I go about repairing this? I obviously don't want to refinish the whole top. There must be a way of filling the scratch and polishing it back to match the existing finish.

There is also a chip in the edge of the guitar that goes right down to the wood. It's where the back of the guitar meets the top edge. The finish on the back and neck is a deep, deep red. The chip is about half the size of a 5c piece.

How can I repair this chip? Colour matching isn't absolutely critical in this area, if it was black I don't think anyone would notice.

Thanks,
BluesMeister
 
When I was a guitar tech for Charvel/Jackson ,they had us learn the Dan Earlywine repair techniques.Here is his "drop-fill"method.First,color match the underlying wood as closely as you can.Get some cyanoacrylate #10 thin (superglue) from Stewart McDonald guitar supply Co.The #10 is very runny and will seep into any cracks and seal them (crack repair hint on fingerboards and acoustic bodies).Get a wooden toothpick and dip it in the bottle.Have a drop hanging from the tip and touch the area to be repaired.Repeat untill the surface is flush.After it is dry,smooth to level with acetone (fingernail polish remover has it) and a lint-free 100% cotton cloth .The finished repair is clear and hard just like your original (probably) poylethaline finish.Really,the color match is the toughest part.Repair cost,less than 20 bucks for materials plus your labor.Best of luck.
 
Thanks...

Tom & Eyeslikefire,

I appreciate your helpful advice. I'll be having a go at the repair work probably next weekend.

I've been after one of these guitars for 19 years! Once the scratch and ding is repaired it will look like new. Even Mrs BluesMeister will be impressed!

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BluesMeister
 
Bluesmeister, I have used the same repair with a slight twist to the finish, when it was dry I smoothed it with 900 grit emery paper and then I used cutting compound as you would use on a car and it worked very well, the repair I did was on a neck of a Strat. that had fallen when propped up against an amp and it had punched a small dent in itself, also in a case like that get some wooden kitchen spoons as they are made of maple and sand them fo the powder, mix it tp blend in with a maple neck, nothing to do with your current repair but useful fo next time.
 
A Fellow Sandgroper!

Hey Clive!

I smoothed it with 900 grit emery paper and then I used cutting compound as you would use on a car and it worked very well

Thanks for the tip! I had wondered if I could do this with some wet & dry to smooth out the finish. The cutting compound idea sounds good to me. Unfortunately I don't have any mahogany spoons in the cutlery drawer :-)

The scratch in the top doesn't go through the lacquer (or at least it doesn't appear to). The chip in the back/edge has exposed the mahogany, but like I said earlier, it wouldn't matter if the finish was almost black there.

I'm in Kalamunda, where are you?

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BluesMeister
 
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