Re: Guitar finish touch up help
I'm having trouble working out whether that's a sold black finish, or translucent black with the grain visible. The dent looks like a compression wound, i.e. the wood has been compressed (a lot) by a big impact, but no wood is missing.
If i was right about the dent, I'd start by trying to steam it up as much as possible. A deep dent like that would probably take quite a few steaming sessions with at least a day or two between each. Steaming can be done with a soldering iron and damp cloth.
I also can't tell whether the fractures in the finish (where the white-ish colour is in evidence through the splits (top pic) are in just the finish, or are actually into the wood itself. I'd try flaking a chip off, and if it came away easily, i'd chip away all that fractured area to be able to observe the wood for fractures. If the wood itself is cracked but still feels solid, i guess you could fill the cracks with thin superglue or Titebond.
If the finish is solid black, the repair could be done more simply. Chip away all the fractured paint (keep the finish chips, they may be useful in trying to determine what kind of finish it is), fill the dent with some kind of auto body filler or something similar (I can't recommend products as I'm on the other side of the planet, I don't know the names of your local products), sand the repair smooth and then build up a new finish using something compatible with the existing finish. Nail polish works great for Nitro, although I'm not sure if your finish would be nitro. Coloured superglue would probably work for most other finishes (won't actually melt into poly, but a repair like that would be close to invisible).
The finish repair would be fine work involving fine-grade abrasive papers under a good work lamp, but it's eminently do-able.
