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Big chip in body :\

T

t0pher

Aug 16, 2008
26
0
Philadelphia
#1
I lent my jazz out to a friend while I was gone for an extended period of time and got it back with a pretty substantial chunk of my clear coat missing on the upper horn right next to the strap button. Its a natural finish fender jazz bass.

Any thoughts on what I can do to fill this in?

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Thanks!
 
#10
i doubt that's lacquer; unless it's a natural finish fender from the late '60s or earlier, or an AV reissue '62 in natural (i don't know that either of those things actually exists), it's gonna be poly of some sort.

the OP doesn't want to part with it, but any"homebrew" attempt is going to be permanent, and make proper fixing impossible afterwards.

i recommend he get it done right.
 
#11
walterw said:
i doubt that's lacquer; unless it's a natural finish fender from the late '60s or earlier, or an AV reissue '62 in natural (i don't know that either of those things actually exists), it's gonna be poly of some sort.

the OP doesn't want to part with it, but any"homebrew" attempt is going to be permanent, and make proper fixing impossible afterwards.

i recommend he get it done right.
Click to expand...

+1. and btw, fender didn't offer nitro natural finishes in the 60's, and every natural vintage one that i've seen was poly since Fender didn't offer a natural finish untill late 1972.
 
#13
that's definitely poly.
you'll have to call around for prices, but i'd expect that making it "like it never happened" will be pretty expensive, while just filling the area with something to seal it up, smooth the edges, and prevent further chipping wouldn't be so bad.
 
#15
I think it's polyurethane (I'm not seeing a year but if it's fairly new.....) There is also a possibility of isocyanate ploymers that are "trade secret" finishes but unlikely (in a unique case, sometimes they are DESIGNED to be patched through what's known as monomer functional groups i.e. finishes) that bond with existing cured polys. Cause is most likely a metal bracket contacting on the strap but that's immaterial. I agree that to make it look like it NEVER happened would be a pretty serious agenda. but you could come fairly close if you had a sample to work with. What would need to be done is to reduce the "wall" of the chip so that a shadow is not obvious or steep.
Hard Poly finishes respond somewhat like acrylic in that they can melt from too much speed in buffing - however they also can gloss enough on a "ledge" (in a chip) to obscure the wall. The strap button needs to come off and a very gentle and SLOWER buffing would need to start at a mid-level compound until all the "wall" were reduced & then a very fine gloss buffing (again at slow speed) should be attempted. If you even considering this you need to get a very high magnification lens and see if any finish is left on the wood. IF there is naked wood I doubt it will work that well. IF there IS some finish on the floor of the chip, it may work fairly well. The real work is getting all the compound or any buffing pad material out from the chip or chip wall. It would need to be totally clean so as to not attract the eye from the surrounding area of the chip. It's cleaned up with ethyl alcohol only! Polar & non-polar solvents must be kept separate for any work on a "poly" (meaning hard clear polymer) finish. You have to have a sample - at minimum to determine what you're working with.

PERSONALLY - I would not put anything over it other than a hard polymer & even then I doubt I would try a patch unless I knew exactly what had been used. The distinction against the wall of the chip will make it look MORE obvious. If you are actually down to the wood, you have to make some serious decisions becasue a "patch" of polyurethane would only work out if you could remove all steep grades from the chip and remove any & all debris.

Why does this type of thing keep coming up? People loan "friends" valuable instruments - and the "friends" treat them like trash????
 
#16
Like usual - the terms 'poly' seem to cover all the various 'polys' out there - and that aint true at all.

What you likely have is a polyester clear coat - that's the Fender/Squier and about everybody else's way of getting a glossy clear coat. Think: surfboards.

IF you use lacquer on it - expect troubles. Maybe. Likely, is more like it though.

If you use polyurethane - you MIGHT get big troubles - or maybe not. It depends on the 'green-ness' of the under coat that still exists and if it's still gassing out and therefore reactive to anything that gets put over it.

This isn't a good day to guess if you are using the right product of not - it takes a professional, although accidentally one might accidentally stumble upon an accidental decent repair by accident.

Nail polish, however, is a definite NO.

In any case - how much do you want this to go away? :hmm:
 
#20
john grey said:
I think it's polyurethane (I'm not seeing a year but if it's fairly new.....) There is also a possibility of isocyanate ploymers that are "trade secret" finishes but unlikely (in a unique case, sometimes they are DESIGNED to be patched through what's known as monomer functional groups i.e. finishes) that bond with existing cured polys.

...

It's cleaned up with ethyl alcohol only! Polar & non-polar solvents must be kept separate for any work on a "poly" (meaning hard clear polymer) finish.
Click to expand...
awesome! now how about some definitions?

"polar" vs. "non-polar"? referring to the molecules themselves? what is which?

superglue is often used to "fix" a patch like that, not to make it pretty, but just to seal the exposed wood, extend the hard edges of the hole into a smooth coating again, and prevent any further chipping. thoughts?
 

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