Kick's first build LP-1MQ Red Widow

[Simon Barden]

I did try to warn you. You won't see them all unless you wet the wood. If you've got a toothbrush style brush with brass bristles, then you could try rubbing that over the glue areas to break up the surface and let the stain into the wood.

[Kick]

I know you did but as I said, I thought I had discovered all the spots. Unfortunately I was wrong. I have a small brass brush so I can try what you suggest.

[stan]

Don't worry too much Kick, we've all had something like this happen, you know what to do now. The red looks amazing

[wazkelly]

Late on the scene but have had similar stubborn glue spot issues on my blue flame top Tele.

WARNING: Be very, very delicate and careful when using brass 'toothbrush' or even a regular toothbrush as it is so easy to dig deep scratches into the veneer whilst trying to remove glue spots as I found out the hard way. Thankfully I didn't go through the veneer to surface underneath but there were noticeable gouge marks that were filled with saturated layers of Tru Oil in those parts. Not ideal but solved most of that problem.

Best thing is to be patient with using Goof Off which smells like an Acetone based solvent. Powerful stuff as it even ate through the blue Nitrex rubber gloves I was using at the time. Remember to use a clean white cotton lint free rag or cloth so that you don't transfer any dye colour from the rag to the guitar body. You may need to have several attempts at it to get most of the stubborn bits off and as Dedman said, sometimes you can only do so much and then have to figure out how to disguise the remaining bits. Solid paint or permanent marking pens are the only ideas that come to mind.

Also reckon you have enough black in the mix and need to add more red as the Tung Oil will darken things up a bit too.

Edit: Centreline looks pretty tricky and may need a very steady hand to scrape some of the glue out of the join and then load up with lots of red stain. As you add top coats leave body lying face up and be careful not to create runs or puddles around what you are trying to hide and fix. It will probably take many coats, possibly 8-10 before things level out and suggest a very light sand with 1200 or finer wet & dry used wet after about the sixth coat. If done before there may not be enough thickness in the coats to handle any sanding. Do not recommend using steel wool at all as it can lead to other problems that are even harder to fix.

The red ink looks like stamp pad ink and wonder if you have tried mixing a bit of the fountain pen ink with it as that should give a more vibrant shade of red to crimson?

[Kick]

Thanks Stan

@Wazkelly: thanks for the warning. I think I'll have one try with the brass brush and see what happens. I'll will also use Tungoil to cover the body in a later stage. And if I can not remove the spots I just hope that adding more black will do the trick.

About adding the fountain pen ink to the stampink; will that mix? The fountain pen ink is glycerinebased and the stampink is waterbased...

[stan]

Thanks Stan

@Wazkelly: thanks for the warning. I think I'll have one try with the brass brush and see what happens. I'll will also use Tungoil to cover the body in a later stage. And if I can not remove the spots I just hope that adding more black will do the trick.

About adding the fountain pen ink to the stampink; will that mix? The fountain pen ink is glycerinebased and the stampink is waterbased...

I'm not sure adding more black will hide stubborn glue, if red wont cover it neither will black, the glue prevents the wood absorbing the colour, you need to get rid of the glue

[Kick]

I tried the brass brush but I only see that it makes scratches and I see nothing happening to the glue...

Just for a little test; I put a little drop of black ink directly on a very small spot and let it cure. Stupid perhaps but since we do not have that Goof Off here in the Netherlands (or something similar) it is just an attempt to see what will happen.

[Kick]

Hm... It looks as if it works! I just checked the little spot and the ink dried up and stayed black. I then took my cloth with black ink/water mix and gently rubbed the area again to see what happened. And to my surprise it stayed black

Apparantly, the stampink is so concentrated that even the glue cannot stay unstained...

So I took the plunge and treated all the gluespots with a thin layer of unmixed ink, just right out of the bottle. I'll now let it dry for a couple of hours and then, fingers crossed, I can finish the edge with a black burst. One thing I know, the mix for the black burst must be concentrated much more then the mix I have now.

[Simon Barden]

Glad you've found a way out of the problem!

[wazkelly]

Hi Kick, suggest mixing up a small amount of the red inks and see how that comes out on scrap timber. If you see oily bubbles on top after shaking to mix the 2 inks together that indicates it won't work however if they look blended you may be in luck. A lot of this is down to experimenting until you find the right stuff to use and in what quantities.