Repair of a chip..

I repaired a chip on a polyurethane guitar. I matched the stain perfect and filled the gap with some minwax poly. How would I get the smooth finish to match the factory sheen?
I am thinking of spray clear poly then buffing...or will the wipe on minwax do? I suppose buffing it out is what will give me that even gloss? Any advice is appreciated.

How shiny is the guitar?

I'd leave it until the repair's hardened, then polish it out.

What should I use for the final sanding and buffing?

What should I use for the final sanding and buffing?

I emailed you a recent Stewmac Newsletter that discusses this kind of repair. Good info.

Show a close-up picture of the repair so we know what we're talking about here.

I'm very interested in this too. I have a BSB tele with a chip on one corner thats down to the wood that I want to repair.

Rocks

Here's a link to the Stewmac Newsletter:

Trade Secrets (http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ts0040_lacquerfill.hzml?jrl=286065&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ts0040&clk=141631)

Thanks 1293...thats exactly what I was looking for!

I emailed you a recent Stewmac Newsletter that discusses this kind of repair. Good info.

Wasn't that a beauty! I especially liked the blacked out name of the errant luthier.

I just wish it covered a chip on an edge rather than a flat surface. The chip I need to fix is on a rounded edge. My guess is most chips happen on an edge, not right on the top flat surface. I'll have to try the basic idea behind it but leave out the razor blade part and just try and improvise.

Rocks

Here's a link to the Stewmac Newsletter:

Trade Secrets (http://www.stewmac.com/tradesecrets/ts0040_lacquerfill.hzml?jrl=286065&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ts0040&clk=141631)

Using lacquer to repair a lacquer finish makes sense, but from what I have read poly is much harder to repair. I'm not sure you can use poly in the repair they described. One site I visited said that super glue is the best to use for poly repairs, and they refused to divulge their repair process.

I'd be interested to hear what works. My poly tele has a lot of little dings that need smoothing out.

I've done repairs similar to this with superglue on an acoustic. I would probably just leave it if it was an electric. I cleaned the wound, then drop some superglue in there and let it dry. Then I use the lightest sand paper I can find to even it out. Then I take meguiars scratch x (car scratch repair stuff) and buff it back out to a high gloss shine. I've buffed out several satin finished guitars to a gloss using meguiars scratch x as well.

using super glue to drop fill poly works great.

It can be tricky getting the super glue to be level with the original finish, especially on a curved surface. I have done this a lot on the back of guitar necks and here's the way I do it. I use super glue to make a noticeable "bump" in the finish where the chip was. Sometimes it takes multiple coats to make it happen. Then once it dries I use a razor blade to cut or "plane" off the excess, using the blade parallel with the surface (or close to parallel .. think chisel but using a razor blade). It cuts off really easily. Then if you are very careful with the application of sandpaper maybe using a hobby belt sander (sanding pen etc.) starting with about 400 or 600 grit you can fine-level the drop fill then sand it 1000 grit, 2000 grit, and buff it.

I need to try the Scratch X on my strat. I have had mucho problems buffing out sanding scratches in the original MIM Fender finish.

Here's another video of the super glue trick - I have a 3/8" ding in my candy apple red strat I wish I had the guts to do this with - it would be otherwise perfect.

Dyin to try it except scared of making it worse cuz it's located on the top face of the guitar in a very obvious place. I have the reranch candy apple red to use (I'm going to paint the headstock soon) but...

I'm thinking I will go to a luthier who hopefully can do it as perfectly as the one in this video.

http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0174.html

Has anyone paid to have this done? How much?

newbie question... how i can know wich finish is on my guitar? is a custom 62 reiss MIJ 3 tones sunburst from around 1990... thanks!


oh and superglue is cyanocrilate? i wanna warn everybody, i used cianocrylate clear glue (kola loka brand) in a black yamaha pacifica 112 and appeared chemical reaction around... a white line rounding glue drop...

another thumbs up on the super glue trick. One of the guys I work with can do wonders with it! He'll make it so the glue is elevated on the surface of the guitar, scrape with a blade, and wet sand it starting from about a 500 grit sp all the way up to 12,000 grit micro mesh. The two most problematic colors (imo) seem to be white and black. Very hard to match this up at times.

I think most MIJ guitars built in the 80's and 90's would be a poly finish.