Service manual

Sinclair Community College | ETD 110 Guitar Service Manual
39
Finish Repair:
Over the years, your guitars finish can experience many different
problems. This is mainly due to the use and abuse on your guitar.
You can re-finish your guitar but it tends to be a hard thing to, so you
want to be careful.
Drastic changes in temperature will usually be the
cause of cracks in the lacquer. When
the temperature is changing, the wood
will want to expand and contract. The
lacquer will want to stay stiff, so when
the wood is changing shape, the
lacquer will crack. Lacquer cracks
from the inside, so they will feel smooth
if you run your finger across them if
they haven’t cracked all the way
through.
Guitar scratches are very common and hard
to avoid. These scratches can be both shallow and deep and there
are different ways to deal with both.
The best way to get rid of shallow scratches is to wet sand, buff, and
then polish. Wet a piece of 1000-grit sand paper with soap and
water. Lightly sand down the area of scratches and make sure you
only remove a slight portion of the lacquer. Then take a buffer or rag
and rub in some buffing compound. After you have buffed the area,
polish it down to make it shine.
Deep scratches are much harder to remove and are usually best just
left alone. If you try to sand out the scratch then you will have to go
deep and may even sand off the paint. At this point it would have to
be refinished.
This is caused by an improper finish where the
top coat does not stick to the sealer coat. When this occurs, you will
need to strip the finish off and refinish the guitar. Simply spraying
more lacquer on the guitar will just make this problem come up again
later.