1984 Ibanez RS130 | Part Four

Bodywork

Quick Links:    Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five 

This post is the fourth of a five-part series on a gloss black Ibanez Roadstar II RS130 Strat-style guitar. In this post, I shall focus on the work done to repair finish damage on the body of the guitar. As you can see from the pics, the body had been finished in black poly, and whole chunks of had chipped off in two major locations: the rear of the lower horn and the area below the output jack. There were also other areas that had suffered dents, cracks and chips; but they aren't really visible in the pics.

To repair the damage, I started out by sanding the edges of the affected areas and roughening up any exposed wood surfaces. Devcon 2-part epoxy was then applied to these areas, and after sufficient hardening time, sanded down. The process was repeated several times until the epoxy layer was flush with the existing finish. Following this, the entire body was roughened with sandpaper to improve paint adhesion.

I then sprayed on three coats of black, wetsanding in between coats. This was followed by three coats of clear, with the mandatory wetsanding in between. Wetsanding is a real chore (especially when you accidentally burn-through and have to respray), but well worth the effort. Finally, after two weeks, the new finish was waxed and polished, and hand-buffed to as lustrous a shine as I could manage.