Graeme Parfett wrote:
Yep but it's worse on the other side as the plastic binding surrounding the fretboard is a little.... er "finished" to say the least! Ursh smoothed the little charred/bubbled bits off with an ultra-fine nail polisher thingy which made it a lot better. When I'm done with addressing or redressing the "hookers", she is going to build the binding up again with a few coats of thick enamel. Any other paint suggestions?
You can sometimes use ether or acetone to soften/melt a binding to let you mould it back into place, but it doesn't look like that's your best bet from the pic as there are charred and missing bits. Scrape the binding with the edge of a blade to smooth it down - you'll probably have to do all the binding to get rid of the yellowed lacquer over the top, otherwise the areas you scrape will stand out too much. Don't use an enamel - use the cyanoacrylate, which will fill cracks, build up voids and dries really hard and clear so will even work as a finish touch-up. Use the proper thin stuff as it's water-white (completely clear) - if you use the thicker stuff or use an accellerant it will cloud up.
Thanks for the cyanoacrylate tip! Didn't think of that ?
CA is wonderful stuff. One of he most commonly used glues in guitar repair.
It looks far worse in the macro pic, but still a pain in the....fingertip?
To be honest, faced with that, I'd probably strip the binding off, rip the frets out and refret the Gibson way and rebind. But then I'm probably a bit more comfy doing that kind of thing than most.
