Repairing The Covering On a Vintage Guitar Case

[BebopFan]

Hi All,

I have a 1968 Gibson archtop guitar case that is in excellent condition. Recently I discovered that some of the tolex(?) is missing from the edge of the case. (See attached photo.). I know that the damage is small but I’d like to prevent it from getting worse. Does anyone have experience with performing this type of repair?

Thanks for your help!

Jim

[customxke]

Perhaps a vinyl repair kit?

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Vinyl repair kits vary greatly in quality. Most just give you a paste to wipe into the defect, and a few include small pieces of grained plastic so you can emboss a grain pattern into the surface of the filled area. The one I found to work best is this one from Amazon. It did a really good job on a scrape on my wife’s steering wheel from her jewelry.



But tiny areas like the one on your case don’t hold the filler paste very well, and it peels out easily if rubbed firmly. That area looks like an abrasion from rubbing against a rough surface, and the edges of the covering material are probably not lifting. After trying every repair I could think of or find described, I’ve just been using a Sharpie to color in the exposed underlay. From more than a foot away, it’s very hard to spot the repair, especially on black. If you don’t let them get soaked, abraded defects like that don’t spread IME. If the edges are lifting, I apply a tiny amount of liquid cyanoacrylate along the edge with a very fine brush and magnification. Use a Sharpie on it after it’s thoroughly dry.

That exposed backing material may be rough enough to give the paste some grip. It’s probably worth a try for a slightly better repair than a Sharpie touch up. The kit is about $15 IIRC. It does not come with grain embossing templates, which is fine because they just lift the soft filler before it sets. That exposed backing is not perfectly smooth, so a Sharpie touch up will look like it has a little grain. Good luck!

[wintermoon]

I don't touch up my cases and I highly doubt that tiny scrape will get worse but a friend wanted me to touch up the tolex on his old Fender Vibrolux. I used Mars Black acrylic and you couldn't tell it was worked on.