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I have a 335 that I purchased from the CME sale that I've enjoyed, but decided I don't need quite as much as I thought. So I've made the decision to sell, but bumped the guitar a couple of months ago on a rivet on our living room chair. Its very, very hard to see, but there are 2 small marks that are preventing me from listing the guitar as "mint". I've done some research on fixing these and besides being a little confused on how to proceed, i'm also nervous about trying to do anything myself.
I'm pretty inexperienced with guitar maintenance/repair and was looking for any thoughts or suggestions.
Thanks in advance!
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10-29-2018 11:14 AM
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Leave it for the next owner.
Once it's repaired it's out of the all original category.
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Pics
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Just wondering how beat up on price am I going to get. It's flawless with this exception. I don't use a pick so the pick guard is even untouched.
Originally Posted by wintermoon
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Anyone that would devalue it much because of one ding needs to just buy a brand new guitar.
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...and put it on a stand in a corner to just look at it.... Originally Posted by wintermoon
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That is an easy drop fill repair. "Mint" is more important than "all original" to a late model, high end guitar buyer. I would spend the $75 to get those dings fixed before selling it.
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... and I would not even think of bothering to repair that. Those are really tiny. I would find the price range for that era of 335 and make sure that my offering was attractively positioned within it. And of course, disclose it (without undue apology) and show the photos.
I also don't really want people who are anxious about flaws like that to buy my guitars. They can be potentially annoying customers who hassle you for insignificant things.
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Very interesting. Clearly 2 camps and unsurprisingly I see both sides. I'm going to speculate that a $75 repair you would at least get your money back or basically a wash. Not sure if someone would try to knock $300 off the price, but then again nothing would surprise me when some people see what they deem an "opening".
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There are always people that will low ball. If you’re upfront that the tiny dings were drop filled, I seriously doubt you will be able to recover the cost of a professionally done drop fill. In fact, I doubt you would lose anything significant for those spots at all. Mint vs near mint really doesn’t mean much significant with a guitar this new with high production numbers. Originally Posted by DMgolf66
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I've seen many brand new guitars with more cosmetic flaws than that in guitar stores. Interestingly the more expensive the guitar is the more likely it'll have dings and scratches. Cheap guitars sell more often so stores order many of them. If you like the guitar, they get you an unopened package from the storage. Expensive guitars ordered individually usually. Also because they are expensive, sometimes they hang on the wall for years before being sold. That's years of customer (and staff) abuse.
If you must fix it, there is the simple wet cloth and iron trick. Do at your own risk. Place a wet cloth on the ding, lightly press on the cloth with an hot iron. Steam swells the ding back into its smooth form. Works better on unfinished wood. You can find videos of people demonstrating it online. It'll probably make the ding less obvious. I doubt it'll fully cure it.
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One thing I noticed with contemporary Gibsons is that when doing the drop repair with Behlen instrument lacquer, let the repair dry for months before the final leveling. I have seen the repair lacquer continue to shrink over months, revealing a divot just like you are starting with.
When done right, one can have near invisible results. AFTER on the LEFT and BEFORE on the RIGHT.
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Your dents are nothing compared to what a previous owner did to my Gretsch Tennessean with a capo. Again, this was very repairable with little evidence of the original insult.
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You got dat right! Originally Posted by rpguitar
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You'd be surprised how much stuff like that occurs at the factory, gets drop filled, and then gets sold as brand new. Heck, I worked at a big place that did a lot of that work to new instruments before they could be sold as new. That's business.
FWIW, there are two kinds of players/owners: (1) those who don't want mint/as new guitars for fear of what they themselves are going to do to an instrument, and (2) those who only want mint/as new instruments. Some folks have really lousy senses of space and bang/ding anything they hold--I wonder how their kids made it out of infancy with all of their faculties...maybe they didn't. Other people have nearly perfect senses of space and their places in it. They bump into nothing. Their guitars look unused.
You already know into which category you are grouped. I played guitar for 25 years with a guy who flipped guitars that were too mint quickly--before he could screw them up, because he knew he would. He only held onto the stuff he thought already had enough wear that the dings he would inevitably add wouldn't matter.
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Holy shit , some kinda capo !!! Originally Posted by icr
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Interesting. Turns out pipe ranches can be used as capos after all. Originally Posted by icr
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Do nothing. Take off $50 from the true market value just because you're nice...
These things are so insignificant that you don't want to deal with anyone who acts unreasonably towards you over them. Beware of tyre-kickers and Paypal's 180-day return "policy". Talk to the fellow and suss him out. You don't want to sell to a whacko or indecisive arsehole with buyer's remorse or someone out to get a free loan of your guitar to lay down a few tracks and then force a return.Last edited by Jabberwocky; 10-30-2018 at 06:40 AM.
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that looks fairly harmless, but if you are real purist...could try lifting the dent with steam...otherwise you could drop fill with super glue..
doesnt look like wood is showing so you are basically refilling the clear coat
so even easier than this great vid...but fundamentals are all here
otherwise just move it along..thats no biggie
cheers
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Just disclose them in the sale. Presumably you got a good deal at the CME sale, I seriously doubt you will get dinged (pun not intended) too much if any on the going used price for that. Every guitar that has been played has something to nit pick over. Of course, I think your crazy for selling it in the first place! Ding it some more and keep it!!
Last edited by Ken Olmstead; 10-29-2018 at 08:11 PM.
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Drop fill on lacquer with Cyanoacrylate (CA) works but is VERY prone to remarkable issues if you do not understand what is happening and are not extremely careful. Uncured CA can be very energetic in an unfortunate way if you are not experienced and careful.
The vid shows CA on polyester which is far more robust than lacquer.
Also, as mentioned earlier, a lacquer drop fill on an existing lacquer finish requires many weeks (and often months) to completely sink back before the final sand and polish. Not only does the new lacquer need to sink back, the old lacquer can often swell slightly during a drop fill.
If you do not wait for the drop fill to sink back, you can fill a hole, sand a polish to flat-surface perfection, and 6 weeks later have a hole every bit as deep as the original one.
None of this means drop fills do not work. They work extremely well. But on a lacquer finish, they require some notable care.
I like the earlier comment that a buyer who cares about the micro-ding in question is possibly a pain in a more generalized sense anyway.
Good luck with whatever solution you choose.
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Oh and - a CA drop fill on lacquer can actually swell the existing lacquer slightly. This results in a VERY slight depressed ring around the CA drop fill a few days or weeks later. The effect is rarely a practical problem, but it is possible.
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And another unsolicited comment - I would run very, very quickly and far, far away from anyone who offers to steam this finish ding.
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The old way to repair lacquer was to use lacquer sticks. This barbaric method (common even into the late 70’s and maybe 80’s for some) involved melting a stick of brittle god-knows-what “lacquer” material with a flame and dropping the melted goo more or less onto the chip and ding in question.
It worked about as well as it sounds. Almost.
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My business mentor taught me, "If you're in comtract negotiations and the other side doesn't get up and storm out of the meeting at least twice, you've left too much on the table". Originally Posted by DMgolf66
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An amateur attempt at a repair will devalue the guitar more than a couple rather minor dings. Leave it alone.
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I agree that it's difficult. However, I daily watched experts with lacquer sticks work miracles on damaged instruments that you might have thought beyond repair. Not so. These lacquer stick gurus worked their magic and you'd be hard pressed to tell that there was damage to begin with. Most of these guys learned on the furniture lines in North Carolina back in the 50s/60s. Originally Posted by ptchristopher3
Still...I'd rather not work with the sticks. I just don't have the talent.
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