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I bent up a set of very light colored curly maple the other day and I have some black stains similar to what happens when the metal comes in contact with glue and wood. The sides were bent inside stainless steel and wrapped in craft paper with a minimum of water but there are a few black or dark grey slotches. I tried sanding them but they don't seem to want to sand out and I don't want to sand too deep on this set. I tried some bleach which had absolutely no effect. Any ideas? The stains are near areas that could be covered by a sunburst which is what I will do if nothing else works but there are also some on the inside that I would like to be ride of. Anyway just fishing for ideas here. TIA

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

As dumb as this sounds I have had some mild success with steel wool. I have cleaned up bindings and parts with it before and it seemed to work better than sand paper.

I wouldn't hang my hat on this idea, but it is worth a shot.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

John,
It sounds like this might be a good case for usingoxalic acid. The are a
numbe of sources online that tell you how to use it. Any paint store
should have some, they might even give some to you for free.

I think that would work much better than bleach.

I used it on a mahogany neck that I thought had a water stain - turns out
it was some weird grain but the oxalic acid didn't harm the neck. So I
think you'd be safe giving it a try.

Hope you get it worked out.


--
Simon

Thanks guys, for a couple good ideas. I'll give'm a try.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

You might try CLR which probably contain oxalic acid and some others

Hi John,

When I read the title of your thread, I thought "this is a job for oxalic acid!", but I see that several others have already given you that advice.

So, I'll offer an alternative: holding an eagle feather in your right hand, dance around the instrument on a full moon night, sweeping the eagle feather approximately 4 inches above the guitar, from the headstock toward the butt of the guitar. Repeat until the stain disappears.

If that does not work, try oxalic acid!

Dennis

p.s. I will never put chlorine bleach on wood again! Poisonous, it stinks and hard to get rid of the smell, reactive, and since it makes my skin feel like there's slime that won't wash off, I assume there is a residue on the wood that won't wash off - even if you wanted to wash wood!

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia