Official Luthiers Forum!

Calling all you FP experts.

I'm continuing my love hate relationship with FP - I love it but sometimes the process seems to hate me - and would like to nail down in particular how to repair nail scratches that are in the finish but not in the wood. I would love it if you could describe in detail your process for me.

I've used the process described in the Miburn tutorial under FAQ's (Milburn go to the FAQ's page scroll down to see the one on scratch repait) using pumice but my biggest problems are building back the shellac layers in a way that blends inro the surrounding areas and bringing back the shine rather than dull areas showing through. Could be I just need to persevere more but would be interested to hear if you do things differently.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dave,

The good news is no matter what you do to FP, there's usually a pretty straight forward fix. I had to repair a nail scratch on my guitar and this is what I did. The nail mark actually went into the wood, but did not break any of the wood fibers. I used sandpaper to strip that area down to the wood again, then I steamed out the nail scratch. After that, I worked that area only building the finish back up and blending it with the surrounding area. It looks great and you would never know what happened. I think the key for your finish scratch will be to level the surrounding area until you cannot see the scratch (if it is only in the finish), then build it back up a little at a time until it blends with the other area.

Good luck!

John

Dave, thanks for asking the question, and John, thanks for your input. I'm interested in this as well and hope others may chime in with their methods as well.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

When you say nail scratches do you mean fingernail scartches or a building nail scratched the guitar?

If fingernail scratches I would take a very lightly loaded muneca and load moderately with alcohol and sprit or spritz depending on your terminology till the scraches are leveled out then re-body that area and polish out

Micheal,

Finger nail dings and scratches is what I meant. Haven't come across the other sort as yet

So you don't use any pumice?

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

No the shellac is unlimited re-meltable and the pumice is no needed for playing scratches. It may make the task quicker but runs the risk of getting pumice trapped in the shellac that will leave little white flecks in not careful.

Michael/John

Thanks.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Here is another techinique for leveling finishes and it works quite well on French polish as well. If the scratch or defect is fairly deep, apply a few coats of finish, in this case shellac and then level with CA glue. Scrape and sand until level and then continue finishing as normal. You may still be able to see the defect on the wood under the finish, depending on how deep or severe it was, but at least your finish will be level.