Box modification (sanding, refinishing, restaining, etc)

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Permalink Reply by Jim Mitchell on October 29, 2010 at 6:38pm

I think Shane has been known to take a belt sander to his.(nice touch BTW). I have painted a box with spray paint to look like those old black and red burst guitars. (course I am the guy that likes these things to play like they are new but look like they came from the attic)... There are plenty of pics on my page. You may be looking for something much more refined.

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on October 29, 2010 at 8:00pm

On one of my first guitars I layed the lid down to scrape the paper off the inside, when I was done I realized the table had some grit on it and scatched up my nice clean fuente box, oh crap! well I dusted it off finished the guitar made it play well and it is now in the hands of a musician somewhere (I sold it). Moral of the story, don't fret the scratch's, just go with it.

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Permalink Reply by Mister Scott on October 29, 2010 at 8:21pm

MichaelS said:

Moral of the story, don't fret the scratch's, just go with it.

Heh heh, "fret", I get it... :-)

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on October 29, 2010 at 9:12pm

I've painted the whole thing black and then sanded it off. I was using a cheap oak for the neck and so I painted that, too. You can sand as much or as little as you like, and try to simulate wear patterns. Old Lowe is pretty much the master of that, as far as I am concerned.

Here's one of his:

Don't ever give him a nice box, he'll just ruin it. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Craig Cox on October 29, 2010 at 10:59pm

guess it's all personal preference. you can see the variety on this site. some guits look pristine, some look like they were dragged behind a mule over a hundred acres of hardscrabble (wait... I feel a song coming on...), some are painstakingly painted with an airbrush, some with a can of spray paint and then roughed up with steel wool. I saw some cbgs at the Pa fest that looked like they'd been blasted with buckshot! Here's the reso I built recently. I sanded the bottom, drew a design, used a woodburner on it, then stained the whole thing with super-strong coffee. Go nuts, man. No rules!

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Permalink Reply by Craig Cox on October 29, 2010 at 11:32pm

PS, Diane is right about Old Lowe. I mean, just look at what he did to my shiny brass cone!

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Permalink Reply by Reverend Hellgood on October 30, 2010 at 5:23am

Here is a trick I've used for small dents and dings on acoustic guitars. Get yourself a damp cloth and a clothes iron. Get the iron good and hot. Place the damp/wet cloth over the spot where the dent is, and apply a little heat with the top corner of the iron. Just do it for a couple of seconds (be carefull you don't want to melt or scortch anything), and check to see what happened. Repeat, if needed. The moisture and heat will cause the wood to swell. You have to be carefull, though. I can't say if this works for all finishes (like nitro for example). I know it works on poly finishes, and should certainly work on unfinshed wood. I have even heard of guys using soldering irons, with good results, but like I said.....Be carefull!

Make sure the cloth is very damp. As for unorthodox finishes, I am currently working on a three string project. It will have a very very super high gloss lacquer finish to both the box and the neck. I'm talking super high gloss. All of the original stamps and artwork will be left in tact, but will be encased under many slick coats of nitro laquer. The lacquer will be viven ample time to cure and harden, then the finish will be wet sanded using increasingly finner grit paper. This CBG is gonna look like hot rod, when all's said and done. Some would argue and say that all the the lacquer will kill the resonant qualities of the wood, but I'm going for a certain look with this build.

Besides, I don't buy into all of that mumbo jumbo when it comes to thick vs. thin finishes. I've refinished quite a few guitars, and have done a lot of experimenting with different types and amounts of finishes. I have not noticed any noticable difference between poly vs. nitro or thick vs. thin vs. raw finishes. I have not noticed any situation where a particular finsh "killed" the tone. Nor have I noticed a situation where removing a thick finish enhanced the tone of a guitar. Like I said, I think it's a lot of mumbo jumbo. That is unless you're refinishing your guitar is plaster of paris or cement.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on October 30, 2010 at 6:52am

I built one of my boxes from scratch using materials left over from a guitar build (western red cedar for the front and some rosewood banding) and some american walnut (from a model shop) for the back and sides.The walnut (ORBIT was the name on the sticker)came ready sanded 4" wide x 1/16" thick so two pieces glued together made a great "book matched" back that only needed light sanding to finish. This was coated with sanding sealer and sprayed with aerosol lacquer from a car accessory store.

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Permalink Reply by Wiley Rutledge on October 31, 2010 at 7:31pm

You might try a black or dark brown finishing wax if you want the "aged" patina look, or you can fill in selected gouges with an inlay powder covered with super glue or poly, when the glue drys, give it a slick finish of some kind and you've got another "one of a kind" look. I know a guy who carves duck decoys and after they're slick and smooth and well painted he takes them out in a gravel driveway and drops them from 6 ft or so, scuffles them around with his feet, then sometimes beats them with a chain or scrapes them across a tree limb---gets major $$$$ for them so maybe you can find a customer who just likes the look.

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on November 1, 2010 at 8:20pm

A new "sound port" can make some boo boos seem intentional!

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Permalink Reply by Mister Scott on November 1, 2010 at 8:25pm

A number of people in this thread have mentioned finding buyers for my guitar... At the risk of taking this thread somewhere else entirely, do you fellow builders really find buyers for your pieces that easily?

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