How to determine if a top has been refinished?

[dukeskd]

There are some refinishing jobs that are truly spectacular, but how can it still be detected on a vintage guitar?

I appreciate any insight.

Duke.

It helps to have seen a lot of original finish vintages guitars. Old finishes look old, but very high quality refinishes also look old. Those are not the most common ones though. Depending on the method used, refinishes sometimes have splotchy color, dings under the finish, cracked binding due to reaction with the refinish work. Very poor quality refinishes are done with the neck and bridge still attached. Replaced pick guards, non-period binding materials, and finish where it shouldn't be are other indicators.

[zombywoof]

It often takes a trained eye to spot a good refinish. Best way I know is to look in places where the finish is not supposed to be. Also look to see if any dings have been filled in by the finish although this could also be the result of some touching up.

[dukeskd]

Originally Posted by Todd Yates

It helps to have seen a lot of original finish vintages guitars. Old finishes look old, but very high quality refinishes also look old. Those are not the most common ones though. Depending on the method used, refinishes sometimes have splotchy color, dings under the finish, cracked binding due to reaction with the refinish work. Very poor quality refinishes are done with the neck and bridge still attached. Replaced pick guards, non-period binding materials, and finish where it shouldn't be are other indicators.

How would the cracked binding look? Would it be very severe separations within the binding?

[Outhouse]

Originally Posted by Todd Yates

but very high quality refinishes also look old.

was lucky I figured out a hybrid finish that achieved just that on my first acoustic refinish.

Very poor quality refinishes are done with the neck and bridge still attached

And on mine the neck stayed on, and you can see it plain as day. But it did blend in well.



Had this been a high dollar guitar, it would have been done better.

dings under the finish

Those are dead giveaways, and there was nothing "I knew" that could change it.

I actually put fresh ones in the sitka most cannot see but I can just from fingernails and one from a watch wristband I had to massage out.

[Wade Hampton]

Sometimes there's also a sort of powdery, atomized look to the edges of the finish on an over-sprayed top. This is most noticeable when it's just been the top that's had new finish sprayed on it.

But if the top looks great, shiny and almost new, there's a sort of lessening of the effect out towards the edges, but the rest of the guitar looks older and maybe a little bit crackly, that's a tip off.

Nitrocellulose lacquer gradually shrinks as it ages, and there's a sort of drawn in upon itself effect that should be present if the guitar is fifty or sixty years old or older. But if it doesn't look that way, and there's an almost Botox effect to where the finish is smoother and fuller than it should be on a guitar that old, that's another tip off.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller