Refinishing small dings and mars

My '66 Starfire III is cherry red and has a few dings and mars. Nothing large. For example, there are a few belt mars on the back. Additionally, the sand paper on the bottom of the bridge and movement of the same has worn through the finish.

What is the type of finish on the guitar and are there any suggestions for repairing the dings and mars?

Thank you, in advance.

Roger,

I have read that for small dings, nail polish works extremely well.
Since there's a zillion different shades of nail polish (might find something that you like, personally !), you should be able to find a pretty near-perfect colour match.

Just apply layer on layer until the ding is filled, and then sand with finest grade wet and dry.

I have NOT done this personally; perhaps someone out there has.
I do remember somebody "knowledgable" giving this advise, but blowed if I can remember where !

Oh, and I do remember him advising that there is no chemical-compatability problem.

Great reminder, Coastie! You reminded me also of a tip I learned long ago when I was on the road: clear nail polish is almost as good as superglue.

Our keyboard player had half of the "ivory" top of a key snap off one time. A member of the troup who had been a radio repairman canvassed the female members of the "cast" for some clear nail polish and had it fixed in a jiffy, good as new! Last I heard, it was still holding.

I would caution you to be EXTREMELY careful if you are going to attempt to do this. the reason that nailpolish "works" with lacquer is that the acetone in the nailpolish is a solvent of lacquer. You need to be careful because acetone will melt right through your finish. There is a chance that by putting the acetone based nailpolish on your guitar that you might affect the lacquer surrounding it.
It's a risk, do what'cha gotta do.

I'm with jazzman on that. If it's a small enough spot, super glue is the wonder elixer. Works especially well for corners/edges.

dings

Thanks to all. I was hoping to find out what kind of material the finish was too! I love this forum and the people in it.

If it's a '66 it should still be lacquer. I don't think anybody was doing much polyurethane in '66. It's probably and acrylic lacquer because when the auto industry went to acrylic based lacquer in the early 60's I think that most manufacturers switched to it as well because of it's added duribility.
anway, while its a bit more money than super glue. If you really want to try and touch it up yourself, try to track down a small container of lacquer for touch ups. You could probably use "padding lacquer" but I'm not sure if you can get it in small containers.
Super glue does the trick, but again with a lacquer I don't know if I'd put super glue near it. I normally use super glue for small touch ups on polyurethane and polyester finishes, but I only like to use lacquer when it's lacquer.

Just bought a D55 sunburst with a ding in the darkest part of the top. Being a '66 I would think that yours has the same nitrocellulose lacquer finish my D55 has.

In my search for a truly high quality repair, I've run both the nail polish and Superglue techniques by a few guys I've spoken with about doing the repair. All strongly cautioned against using either, especially if you intend to touch up a colored or stained portion of the guitar. As Jazzman stated, your finish had solvent in it which evaporated when applied leaving the lacquer finish. They do this several times when they apply the finish. You run the risk of melting the lacquer, and if it's a guitar you're proud of, I'd let a pro do it.

I've sent pictures to a couple of repair guys and they tell me they can do a virtually flawless repair for around $50-60. A small price to pay for piece of mind in my view.

West

jazzman said:

I would caution you to be EXTREMELY careful if you are going to attempt to do this. the reason that nailpolish "works" with lacquer is that the acetone in the nailpolish is a solvent of lacquer. You need to be careful because acetone will melt right through your finish. There is a chance that by putting the acetone based nailpolish on your guitar that you might affect the lacquer surrounding it.
It's a risk, do what'cha gotta do.

Click to expand...

Yikes! I didn't mean to suggest that the nailpolish should be used for this specific repair - just that it is a handy substitute in emergencies for some repairs. It was kind of a sidebar comment.

Thanks for stepping in before it got messed up! Sorry for the confusion. If I was giving advice on luthier type repairs I'd prob'ly suggest a hotglue gun. Or a staple gun. Or yell, "Help, Geezerman! Help!"

It's true, superglue will react with your lacquer. The stuff you find in most stores has more solvent additives to slow down set-up time. Too many people getting stuck when they first came out with it.

Fortunately, you should be able to find faster setting stuff which will lessen the possible reaction time. The stuff from Stewmac works well with the accelerator spray. But again, I would stick with corner repairs.

No worries about the error. As you said I just wanted to jump in before someone took that sidebar comment and put acetone on their lacquer finish...<shudder> then we'd have one freaked out guild lover!
I agree that while one might think that the money isn't worth it just for a few little spots, it really is. To take the time to match the color in any particular area takes time, then it take a lot of time to build up the area with lacquer, and then it takes time to let all the solvent flash off so that when you level and buff the finish it doesn't continue to shrink further leaving the repair to stick out like a sore thumb.
As I said, if your guitar has a poly finish, you can drop a bit of super glue on there to seal it back up, even the nail polish won't hurt a poly finish since it's a conversion finish. But if you have a lacquer finish, let a qualified luthier deal with it, otherwise you might end up with a bigger problem than what you started with.