Your First Scratch

Spending my idle time repairing guitars for free. What else are friends for.
 
Today, it was a 1950's Gibson acoustic. Struts unglued, cracks all over the place. Bent tuning pegs. Bridge separated from the body almost a quarter inch in some places. Major signs of abuse and failed attempts at past repairs that only made things worse.
 
Got my big hammer out and put the rig back into commission. Owner said it was the perfect guitar to take out in the woods on a girl scouts adventure. Pack it into the rough backwoods. Sing Kumbaya in the firelight and not worry about getting a scratch.
 
Friend of mine several years ago bought a beautiful macho truck for his freight hauling business. Almost blinded by the designer chrome work he had custom made. He took it back to his shop. First thing he did was take out a sledge hammer and swing a dent into the bumper. He said, "Now, that's over with".
 
I'd mentioned on the Gibson thread about a friends mother who was the master wood carver with Gibson until she was in her 80's. One of her last works was an acoustic Hummingbird she did for her son. Beautiful beautiful axe in every way. He had to handle it with kids gloves for a month until the finish was completely dry.
 
The guy was always in terror about the first scratch. Then his kid plowed into it one day with his tricycle. The guy was philosophic about it and said he felt somewhat relieved getting on the other side of the dreaded event.
 
As cool as road worn gear is, some of us still prefer the pristine state of a new instrument. With this goes the lurking, subliminal paranoia that some horrific event is going to put a gash in the finish.
 
Anyone else share this sentiment. Any words of wisdom what you did to cope with the big ugly ding on your new sunburst strat?
 
John

Bapu,
 
Not to feel bad about painting failures. Was able to hang out once with a master craftsman in refinishing and repainting guitars.
 
After the tortures of prep work, progressive lower grit sanding after chemical paint removal, priming the body and resanding, the subtle stuff started. Oil free air compressor sprayer (over 2000 bucks just in the sprayer). Room with a crude hepa filter to reduce dust particulates in the air down to so many microns. Controlled exhaust fan to balance with the filter capacity. Temperature adjusted for fast but not too fast curing. Humidity had to be within certain limits or painting was postponed.
 
If all the stars aligned, he put on his lint free space suit and went forward with the task. Took many light coats meaning a lot of time between drying cycles.
 
All I can do is drag a Walmart paint brush over the finish with some generic acrylic slop. My painting attempts probably look way worse than yours. Considering what is required to do it right, we can't be too hard on ourselves.
 
John

...for hardbody electrics anyway.
 
Dipping an acoustic is not advisable.
 

Tuff actin' Tinactin?

michaelhanson
My last 5 guitars, 3 American Strats and 2 Les Paul's were used instruments. All but the newest Gibson already had its first ding when I acquired them. I am being cautious not to ding this newest 2013 LP, but it plays live again on Sunday, so it could happen soon.

The ding that upset me the most was in my 4003 Rick a couple of years ago. After the gig, while starting to take down equipment, the Sound Guy started to pull on one of the mic cables, which appearently, somehow got wrapped around my guitar stand; the Ricky went over face first. It was a loud crash, followed by thundering bass resonating strings. I was terrified to pick it up and look at the face. When I finally did, I couldn't find a single ding or scratch on the front of the Bass. Later, I found a small ding in the back of the neck, fortunately high up on the back where you don't play that much.

The most scary guit droppy moment for me was when I was jamming with my REALLY old band (I was like 16/17 at the time) in the basement of the bass players house... with a bare concrete floor.
 
I was still playing my old SAGA II ES-335 copy. Loved that thing.
 
So anyway between songs we were just doing the usual stuff you do between songs and KERPLONK! The guit strap decided to just... stop working. Full on faceplant right onto the bare concrete.
 
Picked her up and she was fine but man oh man... I think I touched proverbial cloth that day.

Oh... and I'm ridiculously tall too so that guit dropped looong and hard.
 
It's mind boggling there was no damage.
 

That will leave a mark!
 
(Was looking for the one where he lets go and the guitar flies back about 15 feet...)

Iknorite?
 
I'm not a huge RS fanatic (a few songs I loooove though) but really... Keith is pretty friggen' badass.

Always enjoy reading your stories Randy.....very entertaining to say the least.  

Guitars are for playing, not collecting. 
...
Reminds me of renting a car in Italy. Given previous experience with rental companies, went to check it out before signing the lease. Yikes, front bumper had all kinds of dings, paint scraped off, etc. When I pointed this out to the charming clerk, she goes "Oh that's nothing. Here in Italy we use our bumpers."  

@Jackson...
 
Brings back fond memories of my European driving experience, but more, the cars and driving mores of cultures from Istanbul and east. Italy was a cake walk in comparrison.
 
They have a replica of the San Fran Golden Gate bridge across the Bosphorus straits. Said this was the last icon of leaving western civilization. They were right. Not to judge or say that my way is any way more civilized or safe.
 
Somewhere way more remote out there in the dust, a road link from Iran to Afghanistan, there is a steroid version of the Ben Hur chariot race. Deadly circle of hell bound drivers ready to die for Allah if you get in the way of any of the exits. No rules, no speed limits, no lane demarcations. Survival of the fittest.
 
In India, the horn was the most used item in the car. The street was shared by pedestrians, cows, bull carts. You aimed down the middle and kept the horn blaring. Road kill, human or animal was just part of life. If you could afford a car or motorcycle, you cleaned the blood off the grill and called it another day.
 
Legal requirements to get a driver's license if you could afford a car was to be tall enough to see over the hood.
 
John

@JohnKenn, getting a bit OT, but from what I can tell, seems to be the whole point of the CH. 
 
The Far East can be quite challenging, but the only place I had to hire a driver was in China, mainly because maps were completely useless (wild wild west days with everything under construction). The best one was a former policeman who made full use of all sides of the street, sidewalks, traffic signals be damned and often took "shortcuts" through active construction sites. I distinctly remember pondering the futility of beeping a horn when facing down a massive earth mover.
 
After finally making it onto a brand new 8 lane super highway and hitting top speed, I noticed something in motion head of us in our lanes. Turned out to be some old farmer herding a flock of (peking?) ducks across the road with 10 meter lengths of bamboo. We managed to stop in time and I could only imagine he had been doing this forever and wasn't about to let some stupid highway keep him from his "ancestral" path to market...
...
The only issue in Italy was other drivers and the occasional guardrail.