chip in fretboard finish

[hose-902----]

Hi everyone. My Squier CV 50's Tele has some sort of chip on the edge of the fretboard. the picture doesn't do it justice- it's more than a dent, it looks to be a chip. My question is, what can I do to smooth it out, or prevent it from worsening? I don't mind a bit of character, but it's on the 3rd fret and my thumb is there all the time. I don't want it to get any larger.

 

[RodeoTex]

Clear fingernail polish - maybe in thin layers- will arrest the fall.
Maybe sand it in later.

 

[Boreas]

^^^^
This - or you can drop-fill "wipe-on" gloss poly.

 

[Freeman Keller]

It looks like someone has already worked on it. If it is catalyzed poly (which is probably is) you can drop fill with CA, level and polish. If its lacquer you can drop fill with lacquer, level and polish. A product called GluBoost is designed for that kind of repair and does an excellent job but its basically just medium CA which you can buy at a hardware store.

 

[stratisfied]

I agree with Freeman. It's a chip that someone has already attempted to remedy. A CA (Crazy Glue) drop fill is the best way to repair. I woud recommend wiping the area with lacquer thinner just in case shellac was used for the partial touch up. It will need to be removed. If bare wood is showing after the material is removed, a quick dab with a stain pen is all that is need before you do the drop fill. You will have to either do it as 2 separate fills ... one for the top with the edge masked with cello tape, and one for the side with the fretboard face masked with cello tape.

The alternative is tape only the edge and leave a bump-out for the crazy glue to flow down the side filling the chip.

Here is where it gets complicated. The CA is harder than the poly finish and is usually bladed off with a razor blade that has the ends taped to lift it off the surface and protect the existing finish. That limits the direction from which you can scrape to parallel to the frets which will take you forever. You will have to very careful to fill the chip with multiple shallow fills keeping the spill-over and the resulting scraping/sanding to a minimum.

If you have a steady hand and can scrape the CA freehand you can get it done a lot quicker.

An alternative is to use Mohawk's UltraFlo Clear Lacquer for the fill. Because it contains more solvents than solids, you will make more fills but will not need to worry about overfilling. You just decant from the spray can and apply with a fine brush like you're doing a drop fill. The material is softer than the surrounding polyurethane making scraping/sanding/buffing much easier than with CA. It does an acceptable job of melting into both polyurethane and lacquer and the results with polyurethane are very close to what you would achieve with a good CA drop fill.

 

[Peegoo]

Good advice above.

The only thing I can add is this: never apply CA directly from the bottle. Place a drop on a hard plastic surface, dip the tip of a pointy toothpick in, and use that as the applicator. Getting too little CA into a repair is far better than too much. You can always add more later.

Work slowly and carefully. Use bright light and magnification.

 

[schmee]

It's a ding somebody made. It wont get larger from just playing. They already put something on it, almost looks like shellac color.

You can drop fill with a toothpick and poly or CA etc. But it does take quite a while/many attempts to get it flush. Let it dry between attempts. Too thick poly may stay gummy.

More concerning:: Those frets look terrible and need a good polish, they are galled and rough. (see the fret above your circle, under the A string)