Official Luthiers Forum!

There I was... I had just buffed out the body and neck and was doing some final finessing of the neck joint and somehow the body slipped out of my hands and went to the floor! I counldn't believe it. I was amazed the the damage wasn't worse. There was some minor damage on the top binding of the horn of the venetion cutaway and what looks like a finish crack in the back. I think that the damage can be repaired. The crack does not appear to be in the wood, only the finish. I think the picture looks worse than the actual damage. ....so my question is this... The finish is em6000. Do you think that I could simply scuff sand the back and proceed with additional sprayed coats of em6000 (I'm wondering if the finish crack would be visable through the finish...),

...or would the entire finish on the back need to be sanded back to wood, pore fill again with zpoxy and respray with em6000?

Thanks for any sympathy and advise,
Steve

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I had success with Gluboost Fill n' Finish Thin on a side crack ona Martin's D-18. Couldn't see it afterwards.
Painted along the crack with this (using a needle with the eye's end ground off) zapped with Gluboost accelerator, levelled off using a single edged razor blade, then fingertip sanding as in http://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Resources/Learn_About_Instrument_Finishing_and_Finish_Repair/Fixing_a_small_chip_in_your_guitars_finish.html

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Doesn't it just make you want to smash everything in the shop and just give up? Sorry man I've been there done that too, even worse!

I think you would be fine doing the scuff and coat thing. I've burned through water based finishes enough to know that it will work.

The CA trick would probably work too and be faster.

Been there, done that, buffing outside over rough concrete. I feel your pain!

Looks to me like there's more than a finish crack, by the distortion in the reflection.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

This type of accident has happened to nearly all of us, builders and players alike. I try to console the recipient of such bad luck, whether another or myself, that people have momentary lapses of concentration every day with far worse consequences to life or limb.
I have to agree with Pat. To me, the pic indicates a split in the wood. If you apply light alternating pressure to both sides of the split with your thumbs you can quickly tell if the wood is involved.

_________________
Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Thanks guys. I know the refraction in the reflection looks like the crack goes through the wood, but I'm pretty certain it is only in the finish. Here is another photo. As TRein said, it was likely a momentary lapse of concentration... Robbie O'Brien would say, "I know a friend that happened to...". This build has fought me every step of the way. Some builds are like, "build me, please build me". This one was, "you are not going to build me. I am going to do everything to keep you from building me, including hurling myself off your bench". I can't wait until I am done with this one...

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I would go with a CA fill then sand and buff. If it doesn't look 100% then i would go with sanding the entire back with 400 and shooting a few more coats. Spot patching with most water based finishes on dark wood will show some witness lines. I don't know about em6000

Edit: before the CA I would put something inside the box and work at getting everything flat in the area of the crack. That is the only way to confirm how deep the crack is. Even cracked wood won't look cracked once it is leveled.

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

So sorry for your pain!!

Nearly the same thing just happened to me last month with a nice J45 sized instrument. I was final sanding the body outside, and while I was noodling with some sandpaper, a gust of wind lifted the body off my temporary work table and deposited it unceremoniously onto a concrete driveway... Two cracks...

_________________
"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

Drizzle some naptha on the crack then see if it wicks through to the inside. It sure looks like a wood crack to me.

I was thinking the same thing,

No advice here, just sorry it happened and glad it wasn't worse.

I find myself often mumbling... "You shouldn't have this much stuff and also the workpiece in your hands at the same time" But I keep doing it anyway, shuffling tools and material from surface to surface in my small shop.

_________________
Insta - https://www.instagram.com/cbcguitars/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/cbcguitars

I feel your pain...

_________________
"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Not to belabor the point (but I guess I am, aren't I?), if it was in only the finish, the amount of movement that would cause the reflection to distort like it did would have likely caused separation between the finish and the wood. I hope it was just the finish, but . . . knock on wood.

Pat

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

My building bench was table saw outfeed high. I usually sat on a regular chair. One day I was sitting and doing some work on a nearly finished mandolin and somehow it flipped out of my hand, did a 360 in front of my nose and I blindly stuck out a hand and grabbed it without it touching anything. I carefully laid it down on a cloth and turned out the lights, walked up the stairs and told my wife I was taking the rest of the day off. She said I was white as a sheet. Another time, I hooked a mandolin on a hook I had hanging from the ceiling. I was spraying it and set it off to dry, hooked through a tuner hole. There was a long eyebolt in the end pin hole. I inadvertently missed the hook. Lotsa cracks. Bad show...

Looked to me at first that it was a wood crack on that back , but it looks like it crosses quite a bit of grain...

I must say, and I know this is probably a bad time for sdsollod but... I do need to love to hear stories like this. Let me rephrase that, I need to hear stories like this. People will always tell you, 'You are only human.' Yeah but we are competing with the machines now

But it's true us clumsy humans do the damnedest things.

I once had a classical guitar assembly in the mold on the workbench, the neck glued to the hoop and ready to put the top on when I decided to clean up with the vacuum and the hose grabbed the assembly and the whole thing went headstock first right on the concrete floor. The neck pushed through the headblock and sides and the whole thing was ruined. I hung what remained of the hoop on a hook in my shop as a reminder to not be a dumb ass. It hung there for 20 years when I looked up at it and thought, I can make a smaller cutout guitar with this! So now it remains in my personal collection as the first double top guitar I ever made.

Lemons to lemonade, when it rains there are rainbows, if first you don't succeed try try again, and so on.

CUrious to know what becomes of that because yeah, on second glance that is looking more like either a wood crack or a finish crack that lifted and might require a whole refinish of the back.

Funny, I am just getting ready to fix a lacquer crack (nitro) on one of my recent builds.

Frank Fords method is to cut down almost to the wood with an exacto knife-then wick in retarder thinner-then brush in lacquer-let dry a month and level and buff.........

I don't know anything about em6000 so can't advise you on that.

As far as horror stories in my shop-I could go on for days-dropped guitars-check broke a truss rod-check burned through the finish-check dropped a chisel on the face-check

We have all been there........

The best story I know is someone came to John D'Angelicos shop to pick up a Favilla -factory made guitar (he also sold guitars) and he noticed a scratch in in it, so he asked his apprentice Jimmy D'Aquisto to buff it out on the buffer. He told Jimmy to take off the strap first. Jimmy didn't take off the strap. It caught in the buffer slammed the guitar into the wall and destroyed it! After D'Angelico cursed Jimmy out and told him it was coming out of his pay he told him to take another one off the rack and give it to the customer. He never did take it out of his pay.........

oh no!
looks like a lot of work invested for that to happen

_________________
"Practice enough till the results aren't hopes but expectations" forum member Peter Havriluk

Steve, to make you feel better, I'll give a horror story, a warning, and a suggestion all in one.

I have this friend.................
I told him, when you buy a bulk box of nice identical new solvent bottles and fill them up in a fit of organizational pride, make sure the Naptha and Acetone! bottles can never! be mistaken for each other

I now have that link together rubber matting on my shop floor. A lot kinder when you drop things and nice to stand on too. Oh and no, I am not going to tell you why I put it down in the first place!
Bob

I also have the rubber floor mats. Infortunately, it decided to drop where the mats weren't. It looks like repairs may not be to difficult. We'll see...

_________________
Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Agree with CA glue, sand & Buff, assess finish and go from there. Redo finish if not up to standard.

_________________
Greg
http://garibaldiinstruments.com/