'filling in' worn top plate

[Steve Hinde]

I'm looking for a little advice here. Not mandolin related, but it could be. I have a customer with several areas on his guitar top that are almost worn through from playing. A little aggressively. What is the best method of repair or filling or what? He wants to preserve the sound and prevent wearing a hole through the top. We started with several coats of varnish to seal and 'build up' a bit. Now we need to fill a lot in 2 spots. I will apply lacquer over the fill and buff out after this is done.

Steve

[sunburst]

I'd probably try shellac. I've done that on some similar places with passable results, and put clear, stick-on pick guards over the area.

[Rick Turner]

Yeah, I do the shellac build thing sometimes, but it takes forever to really dry and harden up.
There is the kind of radical approach...superglue, done without benefit of kicker. No, it's not really reversable, but then again, that damage isn't reversable either. You can certainly get a superglue build nice and level, and then you can French polish over that. It actually comes out looking pretty good, and it will certainly hold up to abuse.


Of course another solution is to graft in some spruce or whatever the top wood is and try to hide the glue line some how.

[Paul Hostetter]

I don't think there's a great solution for this. Shellac is relatively soft and brittle and can't take the wear that caused the problem in the first place, much less move when the wood needs to move. I have usually filled really gouged out areas and covered them with functional pickguards. As an experiment many years ago on a very worn tamburitza, I filled the heavily ribbed top with CA and that has held up amazingly well. It became instant pickguard, but making it blend is pretty much impossible.

Inlaid pickguards, like what you see on older bowlbacks and Orvillian Gibsons is another idea. And finally, as Rick also suggested, inlay spruce to match, and try and make it disappear. But if this is an area that will continue to get hammered, consider filling by any means possible and then installing a pickguard to take the wear and cover up the yuck.

[Rick Turner]

If you can get the color close to right with shellac, then you can do the superglue build on top of that, and while it won't disappear, it will hold up really well, as Paul indicates. # #There comes a time when you just have to admit that some levels of restoration are nigh on impossible to do without whatever you did showing. # #I look at it this way...if it's that beat up, then it's no longer a museum piece of perfection, and the idea is to keep the instrument playable by any means neccessary. #Cosmetics come in second to playability and tone (which they should anyway). # So do the best you can do, and what's left is an instrument that stays in the music game a lot longer than it would have otherwise. #

BTW, Trigger should have gotten the superglue treatment many years ago...

This does not mean that Paul (taking the liberty to speak for him) or I are not very sensitive to reversable restoration techniques and materials, but when there's the kind of damage to the top that we're talking about here, and the instruments in question are not so valuable that some of the obsessive-compulsive tricks used in the violin world would be economically feasible, then it may be time to reach for the old superglue and flood the darned thing. #

I think Andy Statman could use a good dose of superglue! # And if he doesn't, he won't have that mandolin too much longer...He's Nelsonizing it pretty well.

[Paul Hostetter]

The clock is ticking.

[Steve Hinde]

Thanks! That's about what I expected, but I wanted a second opinion or 3. This is a 60s' D-28 Brazilian that's been played pretty hard, and will continue to be played hard. The worn spots are in front and behind the pick guard, below the bridge. He doesn't want to change the pick guard, but doesn't mind the color variations from the fill. The bare wood didn't match either. I'll go ahead with medium super glue, then shellac again to seal the glue, followed by a couple coats of lacquer. Any concerns about the thick super glue 'breaking up' from the vibrations? That is my biggest concern. But, I guess it can be filled again if need be. Thanks again.

Steve

[Paul Hostetter]

I'm sure the thick CA is going to do a lot better than shellac. I'd do an underlay of thin CA and then build with thick. No accelerator, build it up slowly, and let it kick slowly. If you're able to get a reasonably level surface with a somewhat acceptable look, by all means put clear pickguard material over it before letting this guy have at it again. They're infinitely easier to re-do than the surface restoration itself. Lester Flatt wasn't so proud.

[Rick Turner]

The only modifier I'd add to what Paul said would be to try to use some orange shellac to get the color close before laying in the superglue. And don't worry about the superglue crazing. It hasn't on anything I've done this to yet, and I started doing this kind of rebuild of the wood about seventeen years ago. The ones I did back then are holding up just fine. One was a particularly great sounding '56 J-200, and after I finished that one, the owner decided not to sell it. Too much guitar to say good bye to... Funny thing is that I first worked on that instrument in 1964 when it was all of eight years old!

[epicentre]

Paul:
If you would be so kind:

CA = Superglue?

This allows the top to vibrate as before?

Why am I going to feel stupid about asking this?

Thanks

Epi.

[Rick Turner]

CA = CyanoAcrylate = Superglue

If one is so worried about the top vibrating as before, then perhaps one should not abrade half the top away! And in my experience there hasn't been any particular loss of tone doing this. And the next step is a new top anyway...

[Paul Hostetter]

I avoid the term superglue because it implies a brand of cheap stuff like you find at the Safeway store. Cyanoacrylate comes in better grades, and those are what I use.

I have seen bad ribbing filled with lacquer and shellac and sanding sealer and none of it holds up. Filling any lost wood, including fingerboard ebony, with synthetic substances is a somewhat desperate measure and usually has a visual price to pay, if not a practical one. But as Rick says, if the next stop is a whole new top anyway, an effective if draconian solution is called for.

[Mike Crocker]

I'm pretty bush league compared to Rick and Paul (whose advice is always great!), but I agree with the CA solution. Clean wood works best, tint as your eye dictates, and coat a few times. I prefer the look of no pickguard, but all my personal instruments have clear ones.

CA might (might!) just be the single biggest advancement in luthiery for a century. I have one walnut backed zouk that had some nasty and deep re-saw marks on the inside which the builder and I fixed with coats of CA in the hopes of preventing splits. So far so good.

Peace, Mooh.

[oldwave maker]

Wire brush in drill press will complete the 1 hour nelsonizing, just empty the shopvac on the brushed top and shake off the big chunks, no need to add additional finish. Wouldnt add the handforged rusty horseshoe nails to the bridge on an older martin tho, it might lower resale value! Will be filling the holes on the Dick Cheney silvertone restoration project guitar with #2 buckshot even tho Dick used #7.....

[Antlurz]

I'm thinkin' that hole isn't from honest wear, but from the hammer bouncing off when that nail bent over.

Just goes to show you can't believe what you see in this age of consoomerism.



Ron