Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all, new to this list, old to guitars, new to luthier work, however, fairly experienced with fine furniture making.

I have an archtop guitar I would like to refinish the top.  It has surface cracks due to a shipping mistake (cold warehouse).  Here is a pic of the guitar and the cracks:








Before I get started I have a couple of questions:

1.  can I simply refish the top and then belnd the sides (with a careful masking job)?

2.  how can I determine the type of finish?

3.  the type of finish is "vintage blonde", so has some colouring - how best to match?

thanks for the help.
Don

Don,

To test finish composition I would pick an inconspicuous part of the guitar, maybe under the tailpiece and put a dab a acetone onto the finish with a small brush. If you get a reaction (softening, melting in, etc) good, wipe the excess acetone off and set her aside.

This means that the finish is nitrocellulose lacquer and the finish checks you have can be repaired by melting new lacquer into the checks, let it cure, sand and buff it out.

If you get no reaction, it means that the finish is acrylic or some precatalized-something or other. These finished tend to be very durable, but much harder to get a good repair as you can not melt new finish into the existing finish.

Stripping and refinishing can be tough job, hopefully you wind up with a lacquer finish and can have the checks repaired.

Who is the maker? Someone may know what finish you have.


Louis

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- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

I know this - this is a Hopkins archtop. Don, I would definitely contact Peter Hopkins before doing anything!

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Dave
Milton, ON

Welcome Don! Man, that's a nice archtop! I can understand your disappointment with the finish checking, and your desire to make it flawless. I have to say, though, that "character" marks like this are not really a bad thing, if they don't affect the structure or playability of the instrument. Refinishing is something people are often eager to do, but it's something that rarely needs to be done. I strongly agree with Dave S. Contact the builder before doing anything to this beauty!

That's a beautiful guitar. I would think long and hard before I refinished it.

I won't mince words here. That is a nice guitar, the damage is trivial, and despite your furniture experience, you are about 99.9% likely to leave it worse than you found it; there is a good chance that you will seriously mess the guitar up so that it will never recover. Leave it alone.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I'm new to this forum, but I'd like to add my experience - a few years ago I refinished my first acoustic guitar (it was 10 years old at the time) because I was unhappy with the pore filling job I did, and I felt the soundboard finish was too thin. I have good spraying equipment now and much more experience with lacquer and I wanted to do a better job.

The result: the guitar looks just beautiful and it never sounded the same since. 

If I had it to do again I'd leave it alone and look at the awful pores, the dinged, checked top, and enjoy the wonderful sound it had. 

Listen to Howard, I wish he had told me the same before I refinished mine.

Howard's advice is right on. If anything ask the builder to take care of it.

At some point finish cracks are like old friends. For example, my 1960 ES175D:

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck