Your acoustic guitar’s finish can have all kinds of problems, as you play it over the years. Use and abuse of the instrument as well 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 dent your guitar at some point. In this article, I’ll explain a few different guitar finish problems as well as a few ways to repair small finish blemishes.
Warning: Before we go on to learn about finish repairs, I urge you to think twice before experimenting with your guitar’s finish. Finish can be a tricky thing. In most cases, if you are not experienced, you will probably make the finish problem either worse or more noticeable. Do not practice on your prized guitar. Get experience on a $10 yard sale guitar. Then work on your real guitar.
Also, if you have a vintage guitar, I would suggest that you not tamper with the finish at all. A vintage guitar’s value will decrease drastically once it has been refinished. Trust me; in almost all cases, the vintage guitar will be worth more even with scratches and dents then with a new coat of finish. That being said, let’s repair your finish.
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Lacquer cracks are generally caused by drastic changes in temperature or humidity. The lacquer is attached 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. Most lacquer cracks start out small and internal, often called crazing or checking. These cracks look like hairline cracks, but cannot be felt when you run your finger across the top of the finish. The reason why the cracks feel smooth on the outside of the guitar is because the lacquer is cracking from the inside out. It’s cracking where it joins the wood. Some of these cracks will never materialize into an external crack, where as, others will. It just depends on how well you take care of your guitar.
Many vintage instruments have this sort of cracking, due to their age. If your vintage guitar has finish problems, think twice before you have it refinished. Refinishing a vintage guitar will decrease its value.
You might think that these small cracks would be easy to get rid of. Couldn’t you just sand them down and buff the guitar out again? Unfortunately, the answer to that is no. Remember, these cracks are caused by the guitar wood itself and crack from the inside 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. You would have to completely sand down the entire guitar to remove these cracks. Not only is this not worth the effort, it might be impossible if your guitar has any stain or burst on it.
Step Simple Guide To Repairing Acoustic Guitar Bridges
Guitar lacquer is applied to the guitar after the color is sprayed or rubbed on. It would be nearly impossible to sand through the clear coat and leave the color completely intact. You will inevitably sand through some of the color and leave your finish with an uneven burst. This is a beginner mistake. Just don’t try it.
Since severe weather is what causes most lacquer cracks, preventing them is pretty easy. All you have to do is make sure your guitar’s environment right. Don’t let your guitar be exposed to drastic temperature and humidity changes. Don’t leave your guitar in a hot car in the summer or a cold car in the winter. And always, ALWAYS make sure to let your guitar acclimate itself to the conditions before you take it out and play it. When you play a winter gig and your guitar has to sit out in the cold car for a few hours, make sure to bring it inside a few hours before you open the case. This will give your Taylor or Martin a chance to thaw and acclimate itself to the new environment 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 you leave it in a icy car and play it as soon as you bring it inside. It can start with a finish crack or completely crack the guitar top. Keep your guitar away from extreme weather changes.
Acoustic Guitar Debelly
It is impossible to prevent your guitar from getting scratched up, so why even try? I’m just kidding. No one really wants their prized guitar to get all scratched up. Unlike lacquer cracks, finish scratches are caused by rubbing something on the outside of the guitar. These scratches usually only exist in the clear coat of the guitar. Although there is no real way to prevent getting scratches on your guitar other than never playing it outside of your living room, there are some ways of removing them.
Shallow scratches can be removed or buffed out of the finish in your guitar if you know how to do it. Deep scratches on the other hand, 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 again. These scratches look like small hairline scratches on the outside finish of your guitar.
To fix your guitar scratches, you can wet down a piece of 1, 000-grit sandpaper with water and soap suds and lightly sand down the area with the scratch. Keep in mind, you only want to sand down a little of the topcoat of lacquer–nothing more. I usually start at 1, 000-grit and work my way up to 12, 000-grit sandpaper. Then take a buffing wheel or rag and work in some buffing compound. After the area has been buffed, you can polish it to a high shine. Keep in mind, if you are using a buffing wheel, you really only have to sand up to 2, 000-grit. There is no need to go past that.
How Do You Guys Finish Guitars?
Deep scratches are scratches that you can feel with your fingertips or fingernail. These kinds of scratches are near impossible to sand out. They are too deep in the finish. If you go after a deep scratch with sandpaper, you will probably sand through the topcoat and into the color coats or raw wood like we talked about earlier. In this case, the guitar may need to be refinished to hide your sand through. Deep scratches are better left alone or brought to a professional. Do not try to fill these scratches with extra lacquer or other filler. Trust me. It will probably look worse than if you would have just left it alone.
I just call this bubbled guitar finish. The finish doesn’t actually pop out like a bubble. It just looks like there is a bubble in the finish itself. This usually 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 as the wood shrinks. The frets, however, don’t shrink and cause the finish to crack or bubble and even crack. Usually bubbling is an early sign that a finish crack is coming soon. The easiest way to prevent these issues is the same as lacquer cracks. Take care of your guitar and try to keep the weather conditions consistent.
This is not a very common event, but it does happen. Since the lacquer is sprayed on top of a clear coat or sealer coat, the lacquer is not actually attached to the wood of the guitar–the sealer coat is. This finish problem is most likely caused by a poor finish job. The topcoat is probably not sticking to the sealer coat. To fix this problem, you will need to strip the finish off the guitar and refinish it again. If you just spray more lacquer on top of the de-laminated finish, you will end up having the same problem later on. The problem is in the base coat–not the topcoat.
The Finish Is Pulling Away From The Top Under The Bridge Of My Westerly D 1212.
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 finish article. Check it out.
Unlike acoustic guitar scratches, guitar dents and chips are small in area and don’t sweep across the guitar body. In other words, you can easily fill them and not worry too much about ending up with inconsistent finishes across your guitar. Obviously, the guitar to the right is an extreme example with multiple chips in a row, but it is a good example. Here’s how to drop fill your acoustic guitar dents and chips.
Some acoustic guitars have
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