12 String Telecaster: Goof-off to the Rescue

Well more progress on the 12 String Telecaster today after a few days procrastinating over my glue issues. Resigned to the possibility that a solid finish may end up being the only possibility here, I decided to break out the Goof-off adhesive remover from Bunnings and give the glue spots some curry.

Goof-off glue remover - a bacon saver!

I made three passes over each glue spot. First I applied the Goof-off with a rag, rubbing hard on each spot for two or three sloppy applications. Then i took a clean rag and rubbed the same spots, trying to draw as much of the chemical back out of the wood as possible. This process I repeated three times in total, using up a good quarter of the container in the process.

After letting the body dry completely (this stuff evaporates pretty quickly), I then hit each glue spot with some 240 grit sandpaper; sanding until the (dye) tide lines around each glue spot couldn't be seen any more. I risked sand-through with each swipe of the paper, but there wasn't much alternative. It was with trepidation that I then broke out the black Colortone dye to see how successful my ministrations had been. Turns out they had been quite successful indeed!

A much better dye coverage second time around.

Fortunately there were no sand-through patches to be seen. Not only that, the dye had soaked into the previously bare patches remarkably well, with most of the glue spots now completely invisible. There still remains the faintest few spots around the bottom binding, and I'm still not sure what I will do about these. I'm not too keen to get too much of the remover on the binding, so I'll possibly use the wire brush during final dye application to try and get more dye in there. Either way I'm immensely pleased with the results. Looks like I somehow dodged a bullet with this one. Hats off to Goof-off. It gets a high recommendation from me after the results I've seen today!

12 String Telecaster: Fucking Glue Spots

Ok, did I say that the 12 String Telecaster kit had no obvious glue spots? Well, I was wrong. I got the kit out today to do some more sanding and to hunt for possible glue spots on the flame maple veneer (just in case :o). I'm leaning towards a trans black finish on the top, so I applied a weak wash of black dye to start to pop the grain and as a pre-colour just in case there's any glue spots to uncover.

A weak wash of black dye to highlight any glue spots.

The flame started to pop alright, but unfortunately I uncovered glue-a-plenty on the veneer. There's big gloops of glue around the binding near the neck pickup route, and it continues around most of the top half of the guitar. How the hell do you spill so much glue getting the binding on there and not clean it up?

A real mess around the binding

I'm pretty pissed off to be honest. These factories will build a kit with the thinnest of thin veneers to save money, but will then slather glue all over it to make finishing said veneer next to impossible. I don't know how I'm going to clean this glue up without sanding right through the veneer. I might try a few rounds of Goof-off Adhesive Remover on there to see if it helps, but I'm not holding out much hope. At this rate my nice flame maple 12 string is going to be covered with a solid colour finish. Not happy Jan!!