Paging BCR/Greg: Did you ever end up doing this fix for Hameritis video?

[FrankieIII]

Re: OKay......Ask Grumpy Old Luthier BCRGreg Thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronsonic

So Greg, can we talk Hameritis and it's cure. I've got a case of lacquer lifting on the edge of the fingerboard of my mid-90s Hamer Studio. On the low E side it runs from the nut to about the second fret and there's a bit mid neck on the high E side.

I can push on it and see the movement in how clearly I can see through the lacquer (hope that made sense). And it's tempting me to think I can wick something in to rewet or at least reglue the lacquer. I'm thinking thinner would only run into whatever adhesion problems caused this in the first place. Could I use a water-thin CA glue to wick under the lifting lacquer and stabilize and secure it?

I've heard of people respraying with special solvents to melt this back in, but that seems to be working this the hard way. Or is that the right way.

I'll be doing a video of the cure soon. Put a dime sized dollop of water thin CA on a piece of wax paper, lift a little bit with a knife blade and touch the tip of the blade to the edge......*POP* it goes in!

__________________

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[FrankieIII]

I've got a bunch of Hamers with the itis and would love to see a video of the "correct/best" way to fix...

Thanks in advance!

[tomteriffic]

The Phantom Custom that has been modded, re-modded, and passed around to several owners here had some bad Hameritis at the neck joint. greg improved the situation (didn't entirely cure it but it was loads better) with water-thin CA in a syringe shot into the bubble. Whoever has that now might notise a tiny peck mark in the middle of the repaired area. I tend to believe that that was where it was injected.

[tbonesullivan]

Water thin CA is what Erlewine uses for finish lifting. I wonder if you put it right on the edge of fretboard hameritis, whether it would get sucked under by capillary action or not.

[zenmindbeginner]

Nitro melts into each coat, if it was nitro, the easiest fix would be to feather out the edge where the shrinking occurred with cellusolve. Then lay some fresh nitro over the whole repair.

Poly needs to be repaired with CA or nitro since poly coats sit on top of the last one with no melting of layers. Amalgamating poly is impossible.

And then there's the catalyzed lacquers that Hamer has used throughout the years.

Some models got nitro though.

I mean you could use acetate if it was nitro, but acetate is a little heavy handed.

I'd try Behlen Qualalac with a Q-tip on the edge of the fretboard. Hamer's catalyzed lacquer doesn't react to Cellusolve like nitro would but it does have an effect... the efficacy of the qualalac on CA is probably reduced to one third of what it can do on nitro which means that the first application won't seem like it is doing anything. Subsequent applications will work though. Just don't let the Q-tip to get too soggy with qualalac so it runs down the neck when you press too hard.

Stewmac makes the super thin CA for this kind of stuff, it has a brush end so can be applied better than with a pipette.