removing compression marks

[thistle3585]

I glued my back on last night and I have three marks on the top from the clamps. How could I remove these? Would a little heat do it or do I just need to creatively sand them out?

[Jim Hilburn]

The way I've always used is to wet a cloth and lay it on the crushed area and go over it with a soldering iron for a few seconds.
Then next time, make or get some spool clamps, or buy some of those padded Quick Grip clamps or get some leather scraps to pad your clamps.

[sunburst]

Steam.
Put a very clean (white) wet but wrung-out cotton rag over the dents and use your clothes iron to "iron" over the rag and steam the dents out.

Heat alone won't work very well, and if you sand the dents away, later on, if the mandolin is ever subjected to moist heat, the former dents can "steam" themselves out and turn into "bumps" in the finished instrument.

( Typing at the same time, I see, yep, steam)

[sunburst]

I was sawing lumber (for my shop, actually) many years ago with my Woodmizer sawmill. There was a rather big dent in one log from being hit by a piece of heavy equipment while moving logs. I sawed away the dent, had a flat surface, turned the log and kept sawing.

It was winter, and I had a fire burning to burn the slabs as I sawed them off. As I turned the log and sawed, the surface where the dent had been in the log was facing the fire for a while. It didn't really get very hot, but when I turned that face up to saw off a board, there was a bump where the dent had been. I set the blade so that it was in contact with the flat surface and sawed the bump off. I found the "bump" later and kept it to show what can happen if you level a dent by cutting away wood rather than raising the dent with steam.

Those are band saw marks on the bump. Proof that it was flat before I inadvertantly steamed the surface and raised the remains of the dent.

[mandolinplucker]

Before you clamp another back on build yourself some spool clamps. Its cheap and easy. You will need some 1" thick wood, a drill, a cheap hole cutting set (5 or 6 dollars from harbor freight) like you drill doors for locks, some threaded rod to fit the pilot hole in the hole cutter,and some felt. Use the size cutter for the size clamp you want. When you drill the hole,you wind up with a disk of wood with a hole in the middle. Apply felt to one side of two disks. Cut the threaded rod to length Put a nut on the end of rod, two disks with felt facing each other and a nut or wing nut on the other end. No compression marks, and you can make as many as you need - cheap and the size that you need.

[tope]

Steam, Steam, Steam, etc.

[David Houchens]

I found that a wooden clothes rod like for a closet works really well when cut to length for spool clamps. Then I cut leather pads for one side of each end, threaded rod and wing nuts and you're done. If you use them only on one size instrument you can get the proper length carriage bolts and have wing nuts on one end only.
# # # # # # # # # # Bryce

[Dru Lee Parsec]

I use one of these:



It's a tool left over from when I use to build RC airplanes. It's a nice little iron that doesn't get too hot. You can find them at hobby shops.

[thistle3585]

Thanks everyone. I too had an old RC iron and it worked fine. My biggest concern was loosening the binding, since they were right up against the edge, but no problem at all.

Andrew