Ding repair ?

[shadco]

I have a very small ding on my new to me Weber Yellowstone.

The Mando is finished in Weber's std gloss laquer.

everything related to the ding is at or below the surface of that part of the mando.

Would it be possible to use a bodkin (large needle)to drop some type of clear material into the hole and use multiple applications to bring it up to the rest of the surface?

If so what material would be best to use considering the std weber finish?

http://www.pbase.com/shadco/image/93919058.jpg

[Brad Weiss]

Someone will know far better than I what to do here- #but when I put a (less ghastly) ding in my Phoenix, Rolfe G. recommend I wick some superglue into the spot until the wood was sealed. #Worked fine, no further problems.

[Hal Loflin]

Hey Shad...Try this link:

Dent Repair (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070918182351AAk5Lmt)

It tells about fingernail polish, or if you are real brave, using a wet towel and a soldering iron to raise the dent.

Good luck!

[Hal Loflin]

Here is a pictoral link to steaming out the dent. Pretty risky though. Maybe you could contact the guys at frets.com for some help.

Steaming Out Dents (http://www.frets.com/FRETSPAGES/Luthier/Technique/Finish/SteamOut/steamout1.html)

[KanMando]

Don't try steaming out the dent unless you've had plenty of practice. I practiced on an old beater guitar until I could raise the dent without fogging the finish around it.

Bob

[shadco]

Don't try steaming out the dent unless you've had plenty of practice. #I practiced on an old beater guitar until I could raise the dent without fogging the finish around it.

Bob
Finish is stlightly cracked and I'm not gonna do the steam thing I would jsut like to build it back up to just about level

[Dale Ludewig]

Not that I have any business in talking about this, but- it's but the first ding in a wonderful mandolin. There will be probably many more. My advice would be to let it go. Your mandolin will never look like new if you really play it. Why would you want it to look that way? It's probably the first of injuries that the finish shall incur. It doesn't look like a structural damage. Or is it? If it's just cosmetic, I wouldn't worry about it. We all get older and show signs of it. JMHO.

[David Newton]

My new shoes are never comfortable till I've gotten a few scuffs.

[buddyellis]

If it's lacquer, you could use something like Deft brushing lacquer, and a toothpick to build it up over several days, and then level it out with 400grit, 1500 grit, and the 2000 grit paper (all available at a local auto parts store) after which you could then micromesh up to 12k, or use meguires #2 with a bit of work to gloss it back up. You might could do this without cutting into the surrounding finish if you were very, very careful. Or you might cut through the surrounding finish and make what was a ding an worse issue.

Or you could do as Dale said above, realize that a mandolin is an instrument to be used, and in the use of such, they will get dings, scratches, etc.

[shadco]

I bought it used with the ding. i don't expect to make it look better I just want to meake sure it's sealed and to not make it look worse

[barry k]

I would think twice about using CA fo drop filling over laquer, sometimes it acts quite weird over certain finishs. Can turn pure white, or white with bubbles....yuk

[Brad Weiss]

Someone will know far better than I what to do here- #but when I put a (less ghastly) ding in my Phoenix, Rolfe G. recommend I wick some superglue into the spot until the wood was sealed. #Worked fine, no further problems.
Yes, Barry's right- my Phoenix has a sort of varinish based finish, so the CA seemed ok. But, Dale's right; when I put my little ding in my Phoenix I thought, "well, now I really own it!"

[puroguitar]

If you're not confident doing the repair yourself I would suggest taking it your local repair person. I have had similar dings filled in the past and if done by a talented repair person the ding will almost disappear. I think the cost for my repair was arround $25 and I didn't have to worry about damaging it further by doing the work myself. Best of luck!

Steve

[Bill Snyder]

If you just want to seal it you do not need to build it up to level with the surrounding finish. You could drop fill and leave it low.

[mandolinplucker]

I am on Stewart MacDonald's e-mail list for their tech tips. A recent one was a finish repair of a place where a repairman let a screwdriver slip on a Les Paul. I didn't save it but you may be able to dig around their site and find it. They dropped laquer in the depression with a toothpick over a period of days,masking taped the ends of a razor blade to keep from gouging with the ends and used the blade to scrape the repair almost level with the finish, sanded and polished as mentioned in a previous post. I let the lid of my case fall on my mandolin and put a couple of deep dings in my mando. I was going to just let it ride untill I loaned my mando to someone at a jam. He just played it for an hour or so but when I got it back it looked like Willie Nelsons guitar. He must have claws instead of fingernails cause some of the claw marks took chips out of the finish. I used the drip-fill method to repair it and the dings are almost invisible. When I took it apart to fix the finish damage I found out that I was to impatient when I finishedthe build and strung it up before the finish had cured enough. The bridge was stuck to the top and pulled up some chunks of finish when I took it off. The drop filled laquer fixed that too.