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Finish repair advice


neepheid
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Hi folks

I have a bass which took a nasty hit in transit and is looking like this:

scaled.jpg

Any tips on how to mitigate this?  I use the word "mitigate" because I'm not suggesting for one minute I've got the skills to do an invisible repair :)

What I've got so far is a) superglue down the bit of finish on the top which is threatening to come off and then b) fill void by bulding up layers of something,  But what?  Humbrol paint?  Nail varnish?  Gluboost?

Or should I remove all loose finish and then work up to a solid edge?  Leaves a lot more area to fill...

 

All ideas welcome.

Matt

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I suppose my first thought would be to take off any sharp edges, dirty up the wood a touch and treat it as 'mojo' .  Let's face it, some makers do this on purpose and then add a premium to the price! :)

 

If not, then I personally would use clear epoxy resin, such as z-poxy and mix it with some resin-tint - black and brown from, for example, a set like this:

 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RESIN-TINTING-PIGMENTS-SET-7-COLORS/184122418202?hash=item2ade8d241a:g:qg0AAOSw7ypeGKQH

Reason I would use epoxy is that nail varnish, etc, takes many many coats to build up that kind of thickness and then continue to shrink for ages after.  And the reason I would use the resin tints with epoxy rather than other stains is that they resin tints are designed to be fully compatible with epoxy resins.  Other products (enamel paint, etc) MIGHT work but some will affect the resin curing - and as you will see, you want to let the resin cure properly.

After a few trials to match the colour and get familiar with the speed it sets, etc, I would mask the area off, then apply some mixed, tinted epoxy with an old credit card or similar, removing the excess before it set.  

I would do it over a few applications to build up without too much over-fill.

Once it was totally set (at least overnight even for a '30 minute' epoxy), I would use a small sanding block, starting with around 200 grit and going up to, say 320 until it was level and starting to take away the masking tape to merge with the surrounding sound varnish.  Then I would take the masking tape off and use the wonderful micro-web sanding cloths (you can get a small mixed pack off ebay quite cheaply), again with a small sanding block, running from 1800 to 12000 grit at which stage it should be pretty shiny.  You can finish off with glossing it up with a decent auto-polish if necessary.

I did this that way:

taP1wN1l.jpg

It had a 2cm x 3cm piece of lacquer completely missing down to the wood from the headstock plate.  I think you would struggle to say where ;)

 

 

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