Fixing a dent in a epoxied fretless board

Linas · #1 10-29-2007, 01:27 PM

So, i accidentally knocked my bass off its stand and it fell freboard first onto my eden head. Pretty lame. So it doesn't really effect the sound when fretting, but i can feel it when i slide over it. I would fill it with epoxy again and sand it down, but im afraid that if i fill it and its just a bit too high i will always have a high spot, because i experienced something similar once before with a high spot. Even after sanding i couldn't get it flush with the rest of the board. What do you guys suppose i should do? Its only an SX, so im not devastated, but it took me a long time to get that board perfect so this is bumming me out.

theshadow2001 · #2 10-29-2007, 01:47 PM

You could do the old mixing glue with dust from sanding a similar colour wood trick to fill in the hole (although getting the line to look right would be difficult) . Or if you don't really care just fill it in with epoxy. Then I imagine the process would be similar to how wilser installs his logos. Imagine the filled in nick on the neck is the same as one of wilsers logo's. putting on coats of epoxy and sanding and putting on more epoxy and sanding until everything is even. It seems like you would have to nearly refinish the entire neck to get it all back even again. If it doesn't trouble you too much it might be more trouble than it's worth.

But I'm not a luthier or anything so I'm probably wrong.

Linas · #3 10-31-2007, 09:23 AM

Anyone have any other tips?

Mon Rominee · #4 10-31-2007, 09:32 AM

refill the area with epoxy for the repair. trace out high spot with china marker or equivalent, then scrape it back down to almost level with a sharp razor blade and alot of patience, check and recheck by "feel". then, wetsand to blend back entirely, and then polish out.

Mon

PilbaraBass · #5 11-01-2007, 07:24 PM

I've had an idea about this, but I haven't tested it...(I'm going to test it with a scrap piece of wood with a hammer dent)

How about that stuff that they use to repair windscreen cracks?

It's a clear liquid acrylic compound that cures via UV.
fill it...leave it in the sunlight ALL day...then scrape and then sand, buff, and polish with a little car polish.

#include <MK> · #6 11-01-2007, 08:45 PM

Linas, correct me if I'm wrong but I assume you didn't epoxy the board yourself. Since I epoxy my own boards, I would fill the hole with epoxy first, after some surface prep. Then do one of the following:

- refinish the whole board with a few coats, sand. This way, I know I'll get a consistently even surface

- with care, scrape, blend the fill and surrounding area with light sand possibly over the whole board

then buff.

Scraping, as suggested can also work, but it can be difficult to get a perfectly flat surface to blend into the surrounding surface as you noted. The thing is that it's difficult not to affect the surrounding area when scraping. At some point, you'll have to touch that area.