Official Luthiers Forum!

Here is an intersting one.

A friend of mine who gigs for a living, had a mate of his who visited the USA, bring him back a nice new Breedlover guitar. For some reason, he takes this guitar to a well lubricated gathering of young men most of whom are also players.

The guitar goes round and the drinks go down and some guy gets carried away with his strumming, cuts his finger or opens an existing wound and pumps blood all over the Breedlover. He stops when he finally notices and cleans the mess from the finish. Problem is that there is now a good amount of blood splattered all over the label and inside the guitar.

So, how would you clean this mess up? I have told him to take some images and send an email to Breedlover and maybe they will be kind enough to send out a replacement label. But how would you clean inside?? I just don't see how without wetting things down and this could cause damage that would make him wish he had lived with the blood.

What ever, this guy is really p'ed off, so if you have any suggestions that may help, fire away. I had thought of suggesting oxalic acid in a paste form, but this would bleach out the wood and make it patchy and this would probably stand out worse than the blood.

Cheers

Kim

Hmmm, another reason for seal coating the inside back of a guitar.  Never thought of this one before. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Interesting...Kim, the name is "Breedlove", not Breedlover with an "r".
To clean blood requires proteins that will conteract the blood and loosen it. Oddly enough, and this is kind of gross, but the best proteins for cleaning a person's blood come from the saliva of the individual. Now I don't suggest trying to harvest the guy's saliva to do this, but you get the idea. Perhaps this oxalic acid in paste form mixed in water, and then using q-tips to clean the spots may work. Somebody out there must know of something that works though.
Then again, you guys could make a movie about this guitar called "The Red Guitar".

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Sorry Don, my bad.

I suggested that he should do all he can to make sure the bleeding guy becomes a famous muso, then he can hock this bloody axe on ebay for a fortune. He did not think this was a very good idea and told me so most economically with only two words and just two syllables.

Cheers

Kim

Hi Kim,

That wasn't Kevin Bloody Wilson, was it?

Hydrogen peroxide is a gentler bleach on wood, and will take out blood stains. I'd try it "full-strength" (it is sold already diluted to 3%, so 3% is what I mean in this case as full strength), just a dot on a Q-tip. Try it on a splatter of blood on the wood that is the furthest from direct sight, leave it on for a minute or two, then wipe that area with a damp Q-tip and then a dry rag. I doubt the label can be cleaned without showing signs. Maybe Colin or one of the other guys that do restoration work might know.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

[QUOTE=DennisLeahy]
That wasn't Kevin Bloody Wilson, was it?

Dennis [/QUOTE]



I'm using that one when I see him tomorrow Dennis, I have already realy worn him thin over this doing my Lennon "I got blisters on my fingers" scream, and then asking him if this dude was playing something from Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" or maybe U2's "Sunday bloody Sunday". I have no doubt he will probably become physically violent when I do the Kevin thing, but that's OK, I'll just tell him " It just ain't worth it man, can't you see there's been enough bloodshed already"

Cheers

Kim

I always thought urine was for fixing sea urchin bites. I always like to leave
a little blood on all my woodworking projects just so people know what went
into them. I would just tell people that it was the blood of Breedlove himself
and the value of the guitar should double overnight.
Just one mans opinion.

I always heard Australian saliva was poisonous! Such a high concentration of alcohol that would kill a normal human being!

I see no problem!
Blood on a guitar?
That's COOL!

Give him a few and he may get to like the idea!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

Sounds like a cheap upgrade to bloodwood to me. Actually though, if it were my guitar, I'd get a finger plane and scrape some bloody shavings and go looking for a crime scene to sprinkle then around. Paybacks are hell!    

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

I'll suggest that to him Don