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Old 01-01-2018, 01:00 AM
AcousticAmber AcousticAmber is offline
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Location: Brisbane, Australia
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Default Old finish question

Hi all, hoping to get some of your excellent advice once again.

I have acquired a 2008 Cole Clark Fat Lady that suffered some damage. The strap broke at a gig and the guitar landed on its side, breaking off a piece of the top and taking a slice of the side with it.







The repair was tricky because the side had lost its shape a little bit, I assume from a loose side brace and lack of repair for 3 years. So I first re-glued the brace and repaired the several cracks stemming from the main break. Then I re-glued the broken off piece using the old 'forest of clamps' method.



The piece seems to have gone on alright, the edge and side has aligned pretty well but because of the pressure from all the clamps, I couldn't get the top to align very well. I'm hoping when all the glue is dry I'll be able to re-work the top crack and get it flat.

But it's looking like I may have to do some sanding, which I was hoping to avoid. So my question is, if the cracks are too uneven and I have to sand them flat to a point where bare wood is exposed and I have to re-finish... I'm guessing if I spray fresh nitro onto there, the colour won't match, would it? Since the guitar is older and the finish has yellowed?

If so, how do you go about doing this well, do I tint the finish with an amber or something to yellow it a bit? I'm looking at a brand new Cole Clark and its waaay lighter than this one so I'm just not sure.

(Steve, I'm looking at you)

Advice always appreciated, thank you!
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Old 01-01-2018, 03:27 AM
mirwa mirwa is offline
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Any sanding will discolour the top and sides.

Now that’s it’s all joined up, it has strength to the area again.

If the joins are not dead flush and you wish to make them better, steam that area apart and then realign and clamp, this allows us to work on smaller sections at a time and get them “”perfect””.

Once your happy that everything is aligned and flush as you can get it, then spray with a satin nitro, I recommend nitro becuase you don’t need to sand the surface to spray, just make sure it’s clean, if you spray anything else you need to key and sand to prepare for the new paint

Steve
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Old 01-01-2018, 08:33 AM
redir redir is offline
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It would never color match for sure but there are people out there who can color match very well. I've tried and sometimes can come close but it's always visible. Alignment of course is key here. If the pieces are misaligned so much that you need to sand them flat then the glue joint is not very good too. It probbaly would last just fine but it's something to think about.

Is the original finish nitro? That is also something you need to take into consideration. If it is then that's great becasue it's one of the easiest finishes to repair.

For color matching I use dyes and tint shellac to the right color and pad it on till it's about right. Then spray over with nitro.
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