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Joined:
July 2004
Posts: 766
Location: New Hampsha | My recently purchased Tornado/T'head mongrel was rather severely finish checked. I resisted the idea of a total refinish because while the finish was cracked/checked and ugly, it had a heck of a lot of character and warmth. The mother-of-toilet-seat binding had yellowed nicely and it looked grand, but the cracks just bugged me. The checks were slightly raised, and they reflected light such that they looked like "white" lines on the finish. I noticed that if I ran my finger nail up the crack I could get the raised part of the finish to crumble off, somewhat leveling the finish. Not perfect, but a lot smoother. So then idle hands took a pick and ran it along a crack; same results as the fingernail. Getting into the mood of the moment, I used the whammy bar of my G&L and that really smoothed them down. So I took off the pickguard and "smoothed" the whole surface. At this point this was not for the faint-hearted! I wiped off the dust from the smoothed checks, and then used a wiping polyurethane finish from Minwax (high gloss). Two coats, and the old dog looked very nice! The cracks/checks are still visible as darker lines in the finish, but the top is lots smoother and glossy and doesn't throw reflected light off the checks as white lines any more. The wife noticed the difference - she commented about how nice the guitar looked that same night. I'm a happy boy because it now looks as nice as it sounds. Total time taken - about an hour. Legal disclaimer:
Results may not be typical and may not be transferable to non-storm finishes, but it worked for me!
Mitzdawg
'68 Tornado/T-head cross w/ Trem
'69 Hurricane
cc 15 beer barrel 12-string
G&L Legacy
Les Paul Black Beauty
Fender J-Bass, and
still waiting for my Typhoon. |
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Joined:
December 2003
Posts: 13986
Location: Upper Left USA | Good Dawg!
Better living through chemicals! |
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Joined:
June 2002
Posts: 6197
Location: Phoenix AZ | Another solution would be the following: I've noticed that the storm guitars usually only have bad checking on the front. The back and sides hold up fine. So I would suggest that you just cut out pickup holes and F holes in the backside and re-mount all the hardware on the back of the guitar. That way the badly checked "front" will now be the "back" and nobody will really see it. Oh yeah, you also have to bolt the neck to the other side. Dave |
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Joined:
August 2003
Posts: 4619
Location: SoCal | Dave,
I'm getting worried about you...maybe you should send all of your Storm series to Moody and me for safe keeping.
We will allow visitation rights but only if supervised.
;) :p ;)
After two or three years of treatment, we may consider returning them. |
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Hiding finish cracks - quick and dirty!