Repairing scratched Jagstang

MartinBush

Hi all

I have just retrieved my Jagstang from where it's been for a fair few years and it's been bashed at some point on the end of the body. Whatever the impact was has scratched and gouged the finish to the wood. It's not a massive area but I know it's there.

I'm not a fan of relics as such - some look good, but this one won't!

I was wondering if there was a good way to fill and repair the finish. I'm not sure what the finish is, but it seems quite deep so I am not sure if it is nitro - there are bottles of the right colour available.

Perhaps something like milliput with a layer of paint might work?

I'm open to ideas - I doubt I'd get perfection, but something not too obvious would be good.

Martin

Funkfingers

MartinBush said:

it's been bashed at some point ... Whatever the impact was has scratched and gouged the finish

ICBM found it!

MartinBush said:

I'm not sure what the finish is

The finish on a production line Fender Jag-Stang will be poly. 

MartinBush said:

I was wondering if there was a good way to fill and repair the finish.

My approach would be to divest the finish of that ghastly body. 

Buy a Duo-Sonic body. Screw the J-S neck onto that.

MartinBush

I nearly added a line on expectation of a comment along those lines. The thing is it's a guitar I bought 21 years ago and as well as being special to me, it also plays well.

GoldenEraGuitars

It’ll either be a urethane or polyester finish. Do you have a picture of the damage?

barnstorm

Without pics it's hard to know, but any touch-up on poly is likely to be visible enough to bother you as much as the knock itself. A well chosen sticker would be my suggestion if you can't bear to see it. I forget who, but someone on here has a Mr Bump one covering a ding. Always makes me smile.

MartinBush

Hope this works.
https://imgur.com/a/3Z1Xxkj

It looks worse than it is in a way, but I still dont like it.

GoldenEraGuitars

MartinBush said:

Hope this works.
https://imgur.com/a/3Z1Xxkj

It looks worse than it is in a way, but I still dont like it.

That’s a sizeable chunk tbh. We’ve stripped many of those jagstangs... is yours Japanese? You’ll note how thick that finish is... not easy to cover that up tbh. You could use a filler to build the finish up and then dust a finish onto it. But anything you do with be just as visible as the damage. I feel your pain

MartinBush

It is Japanese. I think it got shut it a case.

I'd be interested in refinishing it providing I can afford to keep hold of it (usual conflict of wanting to have more than one guitar but having less than enough money at the moment!)

Something tells me its destined to stay a while now as, while cleaning it just now, I managed to pull the shaft out of one of the pots. I've taken some pretty tough knobs off very old radios using the technique but never had that happen!

thermionic

I got reasonable results on an old Squier by building up with a smear of wood filler. You only need very little, as you can sand through the paint layer as you try and blend in the raised fill.

By far the hardest part was matching the red colour - I tried 4 different touch-up pots before finding one that was close enough not to bother me. I eventually settled on a second car touch-up from Halfords, after also trying model maker’s enamel and a pot of “proper” guitar paint in a well-known Fender shade.

edit - just looked at the photo, and it’s quite a bit larger than what I needed to cover up!

barnstorm

Bad spot for a sticker, too! I’d give some thought to a nice refinish if it’s a guitar with sentimental value and just enjoy playing it until the time comes for its makeover.

ICBM

MartinBush said:

I'm open to ideas

Ask yourself... what would Kurt do?

Do that.




Well, probably not ceremoniously smash it to pieces at the end of your next gig, although that does tend to be my preferred use for one .

Something either involving gaffer tape, or ignoring it completely.

The finish will most likely be polyester, by the way.

GoldenEraGuitars

@MartinBush this is the last one we refinished 

https://i.imgur.com/8B4UDVf.jpg

If you need to chat about that, let me know. Maybe you could make do with the chip just now? If you need help to figure out a few things just send me a PM.

MartinBush

Well so far I've wrecked a pot and taken off the scratch plate and found a mystery metal bit knocking around. I'm also not convinced theres much shielding going on. Back of the plate is just plastic and the pickup cavities are some sort of black paint.

ICBM

MartinBush said:

Well so far I've wrecked a pot and taken off the scratch plate and found a mystery metal bit knocking around. I'm also not convinced theres much shielding going on. Back of the plate is just plastic and the pickup cavities are some sort of black paint.

If you're going to fix it up properly, you should probably budget for junking the entire electrics including the pickguard, and replacing it all with something better - it's all really low-grade stuff.

GoldenEraGuitars

ICBM said:

MartinBush said:

Well so far I've wrecked a pot and taken off the scratch plate and found a mystery metal bit knocking around. I'm also not convinced theres much shielding going on. Back of the plate is just plastic and the pickup cavities are some sort of black paint.

If you're going to fix it up properly, you should probably budget for junking the entire electrics including the pickguard, and replacing it all with something better - it's all really low-grade stuff.

I couldn’t believe how bad it was when I dismantled it. Having said that, the Jap reissue strat I’m about to finish up has equally poor components. 

Funkfingers

Funkfingers said:

MartinBush said:

it's been bashed at some point ... Whatever the impact was has scratched and gouged the finish

ICBM found it!

ICBM said:
ceremoniously smash it to pieces ... although that does tend to be my preferred use for one .

Told ya!