Sadly, after 28 years of playing my wonderful 1995, PRS, Custom 22, dark cherry 10 top, I chipped the outer bottom edge right about where your forearm passes over. Right at the edge where the clear blonde maple side wood is seen. What to do? Do I touch it up with lacquer? Polyurethane? Is there some simple way I can build up and fill in the chipped area? Perhaps build it back up coat after coat with delicate layers of some new finish? I don’t know the details of what finish was used in 1995. Was this a traditional nitrocellulose lacquer finish or was there some new polyurethane being used? So if anyone knows out there, I would really appreciate your assistance. Thank you.
Chipped finish
- Thread starter Raym
- Start date
Senor Verde
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
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- 463
It's a poly finish, but I've done what SinSir suggests and things have been fine. Is it a perfect match? No, but it can be made to look pretty good and will help keep the chip from growing. If you try it and the results are not to your liking, get it retopped or a complete refin. I'm sure you'll get several other good suggestions too.
Senor Verde
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
- Messages
- 463
Did it chip away the red color? If it did, I'd try to match that. Can you post a pic?
JasonE
New Member
You may also want to look at what they have at stewmac.com. You could contact them and see what they recommend. They have a number of touchup and drop fill options there.
I want to thank everyone for the quick responses and support. I appreciate your attention and concern. It’s good to know we have a friendly community out there of good people willing to help each other out and share their knowledge and experience. I will follow through with the advice and let you know how things turn out, I feel better now just knowing that I’m not the only owner who has experienced this distressing event. But you’ve all given me peace of mind and I’m sure I’ll be able to amend the situation. Thanks and all the best. By the way, I just watched a new YouTube video where Paul has developed some new telecaster style guitars. What’s next? Take care, Raym
ViperDoc
Plugged In.
Or you could just leave it as is. Beauty marks.
Mike Duncan
DGT Player
We need pictures!
Lewguitar
Old Know It All
Cory A.W.
Intellectual Provocateur
'95 Polyester basecoat and an acrylic topcoat. I prefer nitro, as it melts very nicely into itself for repairs.
Lewguitar
Old Know It All
I doubt most guitarists who don't really have much experience with finishing keep a can of nitro around for drop fills.
Super glue works great but practice the technique first on a 2x4 or coffee table top something...
Not your favorite guitar.
Cory A.W.
Intellectual Provocateur
Stew Mac retails $29.99 for nitro, but I wonder if you could request a laquer sample, like I do with my car when it gets scratched (dealer gives a fingernail polish sized container). My local luthier does this for me; I repaired a 513 with V12, & that was tricky AF, which is why I let it go. I do have to thank Paul for all his advice on luthiery, because I use that to build all my customs today. That is solid advice to practice on a scrap piece of wood. They have been using the superglue/razorblade method for a long time, & it's the easiest fix; just be careful when planing the glue to follow the contour of the topography of the top carve (to avoid more defects).
I believe I did a decent job of filling in the chipped edge of my ‘95 Custom 22. It took a lot of time, but I believe I was pretty successful for a first attempt . Some here have asked for photos. If I knew how to upload them from my iPhone X gallery to here, I’d be happy to provide before and after photos. Then you can judge how successful I was. Does someone out there know how to upload photos from your phone gallery to this site? If so, please let me know.
Thank you, Raym
Thank you, Raym
DISTORT6
NJ Devil
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