Official Luthiers Forum!

I have started a new project. Yesterday I was gluing the fan struts with the aid of a go-bar deck. Something went wrong and several rods went flying across the room like arrows.
Result: an impact mark on the top my new guitar that was nearby.
What is your advice?

Thank you

I'm sorry that this happened to you Antonio.

The first thing that I would do is take a good look at my go-bar deck and go-bars and try to understand why this happened and make changes so it does not happen again. Some folks will rough up the tops of their go-bar decks, some even carpet them to help keep the bars in place. Then there is the issue of the bars themselves, do they provide enough, too much clamping pressure, are the tips rubberized to prevent marring, slipping etc. Is the deck in a place that's hard to reach and perhaps easy to knock bars loose. What ever it takes to make it work better would be what I would do first. And be sure to use eye protection too....

Then when I calmed down.... I would see about fixing the guitar. Some of the dents look pretty bad and steaming may not work but I would try it first because it will do no harm if done correctly and then you will know what you have left to fix.

Here's a link to how I steam out dents: http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=20604

Hesh,

Thank you so much for your swift reply. I have already read and bookmarked your tutorial . The guitar top is finished with tru-oil. Should I try it the same way?

You are very welcome Antonio.

I didn't know that the top was already finished and I have not used True oil so we need someone else to lend an opinion here. Having used Danish oil which is similar I might decide that if I attempt to fix the dents the entire top should be refinished anyway. But again let's see if someone with True Oil experience has a better idea.

Antonio,

Show us a picture of your deck and of your go-bars. I am thinking that maybe the top of your deck is not stiff enough and as you added more go-bars it deflected the top which allowed the others to shift and finally dislodge. But until we see what you have it is hard to say for sure. As for the dent, try steaming as Hesh mentioned, even through true oil. If you do nothing you have to live the dent or replace the top in any regard so may as well try steam first.

Shane

_________________
Canada

Thank you Shane.
Perhaps I didn't explain well. English is not my native language.
The dent is not on the guitar that was being glued but my first guitar that was on the other side of the room. I touched one rod (in fact it is a piece of bamboo) and it started a chain reaction. I will put rubber on the top part next time for not to slip.

One thing I will add to Hesh's tutorial is to use distilled water. Your tap water may be just fine - or it may not be. There are lots of dissolved minerals, including iron, in many water supplies, either municipal or well water. Each time you add water and steam up the dent (and yours will take repeated steaming), you leave behind traces of minerals if there are any. So, avoid that with distilled water.

In addition to Hesh's fine tutorial, here's Frank Ford's take on the subject: http://www.frets.com/fretspages/luthier ... mout1.html

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I'm so sorry about your accident. It's just awful.

I'm also very sorry to tell you the following:

You cannot steam out a dent with finish on the wood.
I don't know how far TruOil penetrates the wood (I've
never used it) but the finish would have to be removed
in its entire depth for steaming to have much effect.

With a dent that size, steaming will certainly help but
I don't believe that the dent will disappear. No matter how effective
the steaming will be, you cannot repair the fractures across
the grain. There will always be a blemish.

If you can't live with the blemish you have no choice but to either remove
and replace the portion of your top that is affected - along a grain line - or replace the top entirely.

I wish you the best of luck.

Steaming the dent through the Tru-Oil finish (if relatively thin) should work to a degree. And you certainly have nothing to lose in trying it. I would simply place a drop of water in the dent and hit it with a hot iron and see if it works.

Antonio,

Some decent advice has already been offered here. That said, it appears that some of the fibers have been broken. Typically, there is no way to repair this properly other than to strip the finish off of the top, steam it as best you can back to some resemblance of normal, then sand out the remainder of the damage (keep in mind your current top thickness) paying attention to the whole area while sanding so as not to create a divot. Since you're so close to the edge, it should be fairly simple. It looks as though your finish is relatively clear (no tint) so you may be able to fudge by just stripping that specific area and not remove the finish of the whole top. But, because it is an oil varnish, I would advise against it. If it is a commission guitar, I personally would strip the whole top, follow the above, and refinish the top. With broken fibers especially on softwoods it's virtually (though not completely) impossible to just steam it out without the added task of sanding and make it disappear. Ultimately, it's your call though.

_________________
Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Antonio:
Perhaps the dent will be an opportunity for some creative inlay. Or as we sometimes say - "I meant to do that". It might be worth looking at the underside of the top to make sure there are no fiber breaks where the top was hit.

Gobar rods can easily put too much pressure on a top when used to clamp top braces while in a solera. You do not need a lot of pressure for effective clamping. To test how much bend you need in a gobar try clamping your finger. If it hurts there is probably too much pressure and a shorter gobar is needed.

_________________
GEO
perpetual beginner

I'm with Barry. I would sure try steaming it out before doing anything else. If the finish is relatively thin, which it looks like, then it may work just fine. The down side is that you may have to re-finish the top. If it doesn't work, you have another issue to deal with, and it will involve splicing in a piece from the original set.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

It might be good to post a picture of your go-bar deck to get suggestions.

Mine was unstable the first time I built it, mainly due to 2 factors. One was that I was using 1/4" go-bars which were way way too stiff. I could get them to work, but all it took was one bump and they'd fly everywhere. I replaced them all with 3/16" rods, much better. Also, I was only using threaded rod for side supports, and the upper part of the deck could rack and twist around. I cut 2" diameter PVC and used that for the supports and that made it much more stiff and stable.

Good luck, and make sure to wear goggles when you use go-bars!

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I have steamed a true oil top, the good thing is that it is really easy to sand the area and ad new true-oil. for steaming it will probably be small bubbles around the area if to hot ! mine did. So I sanded the area and put new trueoil on and I could not see a difference.

Lars.

anyone tried this stuff for dents? http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproduc ... ent+Filler

Time for a dark sunburst. Really. It's the only "fix' for a scar that deep.

As for the deck, the only way I can imagine bars flying across a room and causing that much damage is if they were bent too far to begin with. In other words, your bars are too long.

Thank you very much everybody for all the advice. I will be away for a few days but on my return I will try all the suggestions starting with the steaming, hoping that this one should do.
Yes, I realize now that my rods are too long, they were bent too far.
This is my first guitar, it is not a guitar for sale, so not a great problem.
The positive side of all this is that now I have to learn how to do repairs

Mario stated

The bars hardly need to be bent to exert full force, do an experiment with a bar on the bathroom scale and see the force applied. The greater bends don't add any more force but are poised to fly if disturbed.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Yes, use a bathroom scale to test. My bars only exert 2 lbs and I have to use at least 50 to close a box, and 6-8 on a brace, but the pressure is much more uniformly distributed which is good.

_________________
Build log

I was actually going to say "repair it with a sliver, and then do a sunburst"...but I thought, nah, that can't be right. Nice to hear somebody else say it first. That's a big dent, and I don't think that can be steamed out at all. Won't hurt to try, but I don't feel good about it.

_________________
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

My thoughts exactly.

Yeah, I tried it once or twice and was unable to get a close enough color match with the wood I was using. I cannot recommend it, but maybe that is due to my lack of skill - anyway no 'silver bullet' IMHO.

Max

_________________
Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan