small bit of finish repair?

Captain America · Feb 14, 2019

I dinged the back of my Mainland, and like the uke so much I want to touch it up.

No, I ain't obsessive compulsive. I just like the uke a lot.

What can you do here? The ding is a ding. Fine. The FINISH is what I'm wondering about. . . it looks like it lifted from the wood by 1/1000th of an inch!

Shoot in some acrylic superglue? What the standard procedure for thiskind of finish repair.

(Yeah, OK, if I were most guys, I'd take it to a shop. But I'm VERY HANDY and know how to do lots of things, repairs, etc., and I think this should be in my ken, should be able to handle it with my experience

).

spongeuke · Feb 15, 2019

go to the stewmac.com and click on the how to button and then find fixing a small chip in your guitar that tutorial will guide you and more.

ProfChris · Feb 15, 2019

Pretty much all the drop filling tutorials around relate to gloss finishes.

I believe the consensus is that satin finishes are almost impossible to fix in this way, because whatever you fill with will look far shiner than the rest of the finish and stick out like a sore thumb. I'd definitely not use CA glue (superglue) here.

I think if it were my uke I'd carefully scrape away the detached finish back to bare wood and then wipe on a coat or three of shellac (not sure whether you'd need clear or slightly darker), but not polish up the final surface. It would be visible of course, but not very noticeable from a distance.

But that's just a guess from the picture, as always you need to have the instrument in hand to be sure what the best course is.

Captain America · Feb 15, 2019

Yeah, thanks, this seems to make sense. I'll check stew-mac, too.

ProfChris said:
Pretty much all the drop filling tutorials around relate to gloss finishes.

I believe the consensus is that satin finishes are almost impossible to fix in this way, because whatever you fill with will look far shiner than the rest of the finish and stick out like a sore thumb. I'd definitely not use CA glue (superglue) here.

I think if it were my uke I'd carefully scrape away the detached finish back to bare wood and then wipe on a coat or three of shellac (not sure whether you'd need clear or slightly darker), but not polish up the final surface. It would be visible of course, but not very noticeable from a distance.

But that's just a guess from the picture, as always you need to have the instrument in hand to be sure what the best course is.

small bit of finish repair?

Captain America

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spongeuke

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ProfChris

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Captain America

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