There's a hole in my nitro, dear Liza, dear Liza!

[Jennings]

Hi folks,

As you can see from the pic, I have a square-ish 'hole' in the nitro of my 2001 Gibbo SG 61 RI.  It was there when i got the guitar a month or two back, and appearently came from where the previous owner had stuck a pick holder.  Yeah, I know...why didn't he just put it on the scratchplate?!  Still, it's done now!  The sticky backing reacted with the nitro, and the rest is history.  He's cleaned it up (which has smoothed the edges of the nitro down to the hole, and left a slightly bumpy finish around it...whatever he used must have melted the nirto a bit), but it's left the square where it's down to bare wood.

I know the consensus would be to either leave it as-is, or take it to a professional repair place.  And I might do one of these yet.  But I wondered two things:

1) How would you repair this in theory if you were to do it?
2) How would you colour-match the finish?!

[simonallaway]

I'd take it to a professional if it's down to the wood. It could be that the colour of the finish is entirely dependent on stained wood (i.e. not clear nitro cellulose with stain, on top of sealed wood). Add to that the possibility the previous owner sanded some of that wood away, and you suddenly need an artist experienced in colour matching.

But if he didn't take away any wood, and only sanded clear coat away, you might get away with your own coat of clear lacquer. it's not a big area so it'd be easy to do.

[FYL]

As the wood is stained, you may try a quick fix using only acetone and nitro lacquer. Dan Erlewine explains how in one of Stewmac's Trade Secrets: http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ts0040_lacquerfill.hzml

[G._Hoffman]

Color matching is a fools errand.  It never looks right, unless you have a brand new finish (less than 2-3 months!), and have access to the same batch of color.  You can get things close, you can make things look better, but you can't make things look right.  The yellowing of the lacquer is impossible to match - and I don't can what Dan says, shellac does do it! 

blending in new lacquer is pretty easy.  You just need to spray a bit of finish on there with an air brush, and then spray a very light amount of butyl cellosolve (not acetone - it would probably work alright, but it wouldn't work right).  Butyl cellosolve is used as a lacquer reducer.  The big problem is the required equipment, and the fact that I've never seen Butyl Cellosolve sold in containers smaller than a full gallon, which you don't need or want around your house - its nasty stuff.

So my advice: leave it alone, or take it to a professional and plan on spending an awful lot of money for what you are getting.


Gabriel

[Jennings]

Thanks for the replies folks...that link to Dan's tips for dinks and so on is very interesting stuff.  I've done something similar (but far more basic and amateur-ish) in the past on a less visible dink on a Tokai.  I used some clear nail polish for that one, and less time buffing it to perfection as it was less visible!  Haha!!!

Looks like the patch on my SG hasn't been sanded past the top layer of the wood...I think from the slight dulling/blemishing of the surface around the patch, and the sloped sides of the hole in the lacquer, that the guy's just rubbed it vigerourly with a liquid abrasive.  Maybe something like T-cut etc, but something that's also slightly melted the nitro too...so maybe alcohol based?

I think the nitro's got a red tint to it too...the fairly bright one that Gibson used as standard on all SGs etc until about 2003 it seems...sound like I'm wasting my time trying to do the colour matching and work myself though if I have to buy in bulk with the chemicals and accept i can't get the colour spot on. 

Think if this was a scratch, or a 'line' shaped area, I'd be tempted to have a little go myself with a bit of clear nitro, acetone and some red pigment or another to just touch it up.  But as it's a bit wider my tinkering would probably still be noticable I guess...which sort of goes against the point of doing it.

OK...what I've done is emailed the pic above to a local repair guy.  He's yet to reply, but I've asked for a ball park quote based on that.  In the meantime I'm looking to see whether I can get hold of some bare minimum solvents and paint...maybe old smaple size pots?...and have a play on some test wood just oin case I decide to risk a little go in the future myself.  I'm not really wanting to spend the earth on repairing it considering the guitar's got a naturally worn appearance anyway (a bit VOS-like if you will) so I reckon its value's probably not more than a grand (UK pounds...I'm in the UK).

[HotBluePlates]

I'm certainly no finishing expert, but if it were my instrument I'd probably just apply some clear nitro to the area and accept a less-than-perfect fix. New lacquer will melt into the old lacquer and fill the hole.

It looks like the hole you've got my be too big for the trick I normally use, which is to spray some lacquer into a glass jar, then use a toothpick to pick up and put down a drop of lacquer at a time to fill the hole. That would probably take forever in your situation.

[G._Hoffman]

I'm certainly no finishing expert, but if it were my instrument I'd probably just apply some clear nitro to the area and accept a less-than-perfect fix. New lacquer will melt into the old lacquer and fill the hole.

It doesn't really.  Just spraying lacquer over old lacquer always leaves a very noticeable witness line.  You need to use a solvent that will soften the surrounding lacquer to make things look right. 

But - particularly if the guitar is already kind of worn looking - I would leave it be.  Touch up is always very expensive for something which is really just a cosmetic improvement.


Gabriel