Hello All & Pls. Check My Procedures

[ubersam]

Hello All.

I've been checking out a bunch of tutorials and post here and the main site. I think I've got a pretty good idea of what to do for my re-finishing project. So far I've sanded off the old finish, which appears to have been applied to the body (mahogany) without grain filler first.

Removing the old finish also revealed a couple of shallow depressions, one between the bridge pickup cavity and the tremolo cavity, and the other by the tail end of the tremolo cavity. The depressions are less than 1mm deep at their lowest point. I've applied Elmers Wood Filler in these depressions, sanded flush. I was looking forward to applying grain filler (Bartley Wood Paste Filler) this weekend but, I've come accross some posts here stating that Elmers is not a good idea (shrinks and cracks). So, should I scrape off the wood filler? Or, would an application of grain filler and sanding sealer stabilize the Elmers wood filler?

One alternative I thought of, the depressions being that shallow, is to: scrape/brush off the Elmers wood filler, apply and build up the grain filler in the depression. Would that be strong enough?

I plan on using a solid color (well, Mirage by Duplicolor) on the body. Do I still need a sanding sealer, our would primer suffice?

Thanks.

[Mickguard]

Here's my question: it seems that you only noticed those depressions after you had the paint off. So why would they be visible after you've done your refinish?

You don't say what kind of guitar this is--if it's a strat, then the pickguard's going to cover the first depression, and the second will be basically covered/obscured by the trem/bridge, right? Maybe that's why you didn't notice them in the first place! And that second depression might be functional, gives you better access at the saddle adjustment screws. All of this is conjecture because I can't see the guitar...

One alternative I can think of is to smooth out the area around the depression--since they're only 1 mm or so, it'll be easy to blend the wood around them to make them invisible.

Otherwise, I'm sure someone here is going to pipe up with the word 'bondo'....

[ubersam]

Thanks idch. I had just bought the guitar, used, one of those impulse buys. It's an Ibanez S520, (was a) walnut finish (WNF). To answer your first question, I haven't had possesion of the guitar for too long when I decided to refinish it. My thought is that the wood's grains somehow detracted any attention from the depression. Since I'm refinishing with a solid color, my worry is that the depression would be more obvious on a solid color.

The first depression I'm not too worried about, a pickup bezel would be covering most of that area. It's the second one that I'm more worried about, it may be less than 1mm at it's deepest point, but the area, it's about the size of a quarter after being run over by a train. The trem does not cover it, neither would my arm when I'm playing. It seems to have been smoothed out to blend with the surrounding area, maybe another reason I didn't notice it.

The more I think about it, the more I lean towards just building up layers of grain filler in there.

[mledbetter]

well if you've sanded off the finish, i assume you're down to bare wood. To do a solid you will have to lay down a layer of primer and you might be able to smooth that depression out during the primer phase. I'm not sure what the ramifications are of using a paste wood filler under primer.. someone else might chime in there, but for filling large areas, bondo or epoxy putty work really well. But primer does build some thickness as you lay the coats down and that's why i'm thinking that might do the trick for you.