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Got a bass Ovation in with some cracks in the finish on the top (epoxy finish I believe?) as well as other issues. This is a fix up to sell, not a restoration, but I like to do things right.
I was thinking thin CA to fill the cracks, dressing and buffing after, but am concerned the cracks may go down to the spruce and would discolour it.
I could put a thin shellac down inside first to try to seal off the spruce to prevent this.
Any suggestions welcome!

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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.

Take it from me - don't bother!
You'll just make it look worse.
My brother had one from the late 70's, and asked me to fix them.
I ended up doing a complete refin of the top.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The best solution I've found for these is to saturate the top with a solvent like naphtha or white gas, then apply heat to the top, for which I find a match tends to work well. Do this outdoors with good ventilation, and in just a few minutes the cracks will be entirely gone.

Seriously though, I second Chris on this one. Big can of worms, low value instrument, increase in resale value will not match the cost of repair, and there's a lot of liability to loose far more than you could stand to gain if it doesn't go smoothly. In spite of those finishes often being thicker than the top itself, in some eras of production I swear they laid the color right on the top, leaving no room to sand level and buff without going through.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

FWIW, I drop filled an 1111-6 with the CA method and it worked fine. But the divots were obviously not completely through the finish. This is one of the first run of production gits from Ovation, and I'm betting the finish was pretty thick. Man I wish I had that one back. One of the loudest acoustics I've ever heard.

Point taken.

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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.

The shellac would seal the wood but will also likely leave witness lines in the finish after leveling and buffing. I would use some polyester to repair something like that. You could also thin some clear epoxy with lacquer thinner and fill with that. The trouble is always in the level sanding. It is difficult to sand materials of different hardness perfectly level and if they are not perfectly level they will look like crap when buffed.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

That's one to file away. I wasn't aware you could thin epoxy. Good to know!

There is, or was, a guy named Tony Calman that posted all the time on the Ovation fan club (Ovationfanclub dot Com) about filling these cracks since they are very common. He swears it works (Thin CA, etc). You can search and read some of his threads.
I tried it once on a friends Ovation and made things much worse. I think it is much harder if the finish is colored instead of clear and if there is dirt etc in the crack.
Anyway, if you want to try this, read Tony's instructions. They are the clearest around and he certainly did a lot of them.

Dave