Phil Starr Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 I've just bought a new Fender P-bass with some small but irritating lacquer chips which I'd like to repair. I'm a competent craftsman generally but have never worked on a musical instrument before. I haven't decided whether to do the repair myself or put it into a local luthier. What type of lacquer do Fender use? Where can I obtain supplies? (It's an American Deluxe with a heavily lacquered maple neck/rosewood fretboard and the chips are on the back of the neck) Any tips on how to go about this welcome. if it was antique furniture i'd be confident but a bass is more important than that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grangur Posted November 11, 2013 Share Posted November 11, 2013 If I were you, and if you want a truely invisible repair, I'd take it to a spray shop. A luthier may be great an routing the neck pocket and that sort of stuff, but each to their own. I recon most luthiers would get a pro-finisher to do it. Ask at a car spray shop. It will, of course be cheaper if you strip the body down to give to them. They may also tell you a complete respray is cheaper than a spot repair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 The Fender finishes are typically a catalysed polyurethane (or polyester for cheaper instruments). As such you can't repair them like with nitrocellulose where you just add more and the fresh solvent does the work of blending it in, because the curing is irreversible. However I had quite good success making repairs on a dinged polyurethane-coated natural ash finish Fender by just flaking away the damaged area with a razor blade and then filling with superglue, before sanding and buffing. It was near-invisible in places but on the neck there was a slight yellow tint which the glue didn't replicate, at least not consistently (some did darken up a little, I think moisture is a relevant variable here). However the feel was perfect once rubbed down, which probably mattered more for the back of the neck, and the difference was fairly subtle. Superglue is soluble with acetone, which does nothing to a catalysed poly finish so you can always try it out reversibly. Bear in mind it'll eat through nitrocellulose and acrylic happily, as well as neck binding, so worth a quick double-check! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 I should say too, although I've stripped a polyester-coated alder body successfully using gentle heat, I definitely wouldn't fancy stripping a urethane-coated maple neck - hard to do mechanically without tearing into the maple and the polys are very resistant to chemical stripping in my experience. A job for a pro I reckon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamdenRob Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 [quote name='LawrenceH' timestamp='1384216458' post='2274222'] As such you can't repair them like with nitrocellulose where you just add more and the fresh solvent does the work of blending it in... [/quote] I have some dinks in a jazz I acquired with a nitro finish, would someone who knows what they are doing be able to touch these up then? I always imagined they were there for good.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted November 12, 2013 Author Share Posted November 12, 2013 Thanks for the responses, I've been researching a little. Nitro cellulose is an easy repair it seems. If the dinks are just in the finish then you can just build it up with more nitro cellulose lacquer including the right sort of car touch up and clear nail varnish. If the wood is dented but not broken then the fibres can be steamed by applying a damp/wet cloth and then a hot iron. I wish mine was nitro now. Plenty of how to videos on youtube including one by Stuart MacDonald of StuMac. Mine is definitely Poly of some sort, acetone doesn't touch it at all. You can get the poly lacquers easily enough from car parts shops and also Axminster Power Tools which does a good mail order service. The trouble is knowing which poly finish you are dealing with, Some are two part some single part, some solvent based and some water based. I'm guessing polyester polyurethane and acrylic. The other problem is that they vary in solids content and they are shy about this too. Nitro cellulose is good because the lacquer redissolves in the solvent and then cross links with the new lacquer so it is a complete repair. I'm guessing there is no way of cross linking polyurethane with new polyurethane, polyester with polyester or acrylic/acrylic. That is assuming I can find out what finish I have, I guess an email to Fender might tell me. Having said that I've successfully drop filled dinks in furniture with poyurethane varnish, which is slightly yellow due to the alkyd resins in the varnish. Superglue is looking favourite at the moment, though my local tech tells me it is difficult to get a high gloss finish on it. In the end I think I might be happy with just a smooth join that I can't feel when playing, no-one else sees the back of the neck after all and i can get it resprayed professionally if I do get keen at a later date Any more thoughts welcome and thanks for the ideas so far Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamdenRob Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 OK so it sounds like mine might be repairable... anyone know anybody in London who could do this type of work? I'd never trust myself with it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andysg42 Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 Your in the right place camdenRob ,try the bass gallery in camden,martin is one of the best there is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamdenRob Posted November 12, 2013 Share Posted November 12, 2013 [quote name='andysg42' timestamp='1384248063' post='2274322'] Your in the right place camdenRob ,try the bass gallery in camden,martin is one of the best there is. [/quote] I didn't realize he did finish related stuff... I've used him several times for setups etc. I'll drop him a line. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 [quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1384246544' post='2274302'] Mine is definitely Poly of some sort, acetone doesn't touch it at all. You can get the poly lacquers easily enough from car parts shops and also Axminster Power Tools which does a good mail order service. The trouble is knowing which poly finish you are dealing with, Some are two part some single part, some solvent based and some water based. I'm guessing polyester polyurethane and acrylic. The other problem is that they vary in solids content and they are shy about this too. Nitro cellulose is good because the lacquer redissolves in the solvent and then cross links with the new lacquer so it is a complete repair. I'm guessing there is no way of cross linking polyurethane with new polyurethane, polyester with polyester or acrylic/acrylic. That is assuming I can find out what finish I have, I guess an email to Fender might tell me. Having said that I've successfully drop filled dinks in furniture with poyurethane varnish, which is slightly yellow due to the alkyd resins in the varnish. [/quote] Acrylic redissolves like nitro (at least, the rattlecan stuff does) - Fender stuff is definitely a 2-part catalysed finish that you can't redissolve, very nasty to spray but tougher than the poly you can buy in consumer cans or 1-part varnishes (or any other finish for that matter barring probably epoxy) The superglue on mine glossed up fine with wet'n-dry up to 1500 followed by rubbing compound, though I imagine the drop-filling with varnish would work at least as well, especially if you want a bit of yellow tint. If it were me I'd just go with whatever I had a pot of to hand! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted November 13, 2013 Author Share Posted November 13, 2013 Thanks Lawrence, I've pretty much decided to take your advice and I've started a test with one of the smaller dinks using my daughter's nail varnish. I think I might try superglue as well. Can't believe i'm experimenting on a £1000 bass! I'll let you all know how it comes out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DolganoFF Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 Take a look at this video from Stewmac, in it Dan Erlewine shows how to repare a chip in the finish, seems like it is what you'se searching for, Phil! [url="http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0174.html"]http://www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0174.html[/url] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted November 13, 2013 Share Posted November 13, 2013 [quote name='Phil Starr' timestamp='1384328395' post='2275202'] Thanks Lawrence, I've pretty much decided to take your advice and I've started a test with one of the smaller dinks using my daughter's nail varnish. I think I might try superglue as well. Can't believe i'm experimenting on a £1000 bass! [/quote] Haha I only did it myself because I knew I could reverse it if it all went belly-up! Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 (edited) OK, not happy with the results yet but here's my take. The nail varnish I've reservations about, it takes ages to go hard and as you have to build it up in layers it is going to take days. Because my bass has a poly finish I think cellulose isn't a good match so I don't think I'd use it again, however I can remove it any time with some nail varnish remover so it is a temporary fix and it does fill the hole. I'm going to leave it in one dink and see how it finishes up once I have finished filling and sanding. The superglue is much quicker, easier to apply and it sets hard rapidly so you can build up several layers in an afternoon. It also cuts back easily using a scraper ready for final sanding. I'm using a Stanley blade with sellotape over each end as a 2 thou spacer and to protect the good areas of lacquer then 400/600/1000 grade wet and dry followed by T-cut to bring the final polish back. The superglue is clearer than the original lacquer which is slightly yellowed as Lawrence has said, so the patch is visible though it feels great already without the final polish. I've a couple of dinks left so i might try some polyurethane varnish to see if I can get a better colour match. In my case the wood has discoloured because the dinks are quite old. If you have to do this repair do it quickly before sticky fingers meet unprotected wood! This isn't going to be an invisible repair but it does already look much better and it has improved the feel so that it plays without me feeling any dinks. Edited November 14, 2013 by Phil Starr Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted November 14, 2013 Author Share Posted November 14, 2013 The stew mac video was really helpful [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVScFJoe24"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVScFJoe24[/url] . In the end I did the lot with superglue, actually it polishes to a higher shine than the lacquer. The patches show but only because they are not yellowed and because the wood was stained. I could have sanded out the stains before I filled but since I am only interested in playability not cosmetics I decided to leave as much wood and lacquer untouched as possible. I had six cigarette butt sized dings (god knows how he did that) and it took me about two hours to do the lot once I had the technique worked out. You can see all the dings though they are a lot less obvious, you can't feel them at all even when you know they are there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LawrenceH Posted November 14, 2013 Share Posted November 14, 2013 Glad to hear it has worked out ok, sounds like your experience has been similar to mine. For the stains I'm not sure, but something like xylene might clean them up a lot without having to take any material away- bit late now though sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Starr Posted November 15, 2013 Author Share Posted November 15, 2013 I had a good look, some of the stains had soaked deep into the wood and I know from experience the only way to get them out is to sand them out and I didn't want to go that deep, the others had crept under the lacquer and again I did not really want to enlarge the chip to get them out. the neck was sufficiently marked that the only alternatives were to strip it right back or to patch up and make do. It now feels and plays perfectly and the stains can't get any worse whilst not looking too bad. I just love the sound it makes, gig tomorrow night. I can't wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest gazzatriumph Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Couldn't you take the bass back as you bought it new? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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