Angels Watcheth Over Thee

John Herndon “Johnny” Mercer was an American lyricist, songwriter and singer. He also co-founded Capital Records in LA way back in 1942. Considered famously by many as “The Great American Songwriter” in his time, Johnny Mercer passed away in June of 1976 at the age of 67. He is laid to rest in the Mercer family plot in beautiful historic Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, GA, Mercer’s birthplace. Inscribed on his tomb is the saying “And the Angels Sing” taken from a song Mercer co-wrote with Ziggy Elman, and made popular in 1939 by Benny Goodman.

One fine sunny day in May of 2015 another Savannah songwriter called me with an unusual repair request. “Can you remove the angel I had someone paint on the top of my guitar?” Hmmm… I said, “I don’t know. Check it in and I’ll check it out!” So he did. It was nasty, real nasty. And I’m trying to “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive” here.

The instrument was a Blueridge model BR-43AS, a 000 body with mahogany neck, back, and sides, and an Adirondack Spruce top sporting a gorgeous Sienna Burst finish. A well-put-together, nice sounding import specimen at an affordable price. Well, “she must’ve been a beautiful baby”… But baby, to look at her when she arrived in the shop was… just look for yourself!

Not pretty.

After discussing some options, including if it was worth the expense of doing anything at all, my client decided he would go for it. “Remove the ‘artwork’ and restore the guitar to it’s original finish,” with the end result being an “aged” or “distressed” appearance, was the order! Of course, the “distressed” look would not be too difficult to come by under the circumstances. But how to get the “angel” to fly away was a challenge that could have been addressed by any of several methods, including a top-down strip and refinish of the guitar’s top. I wasn’t exactly certain what the material was that the artist used, but it smelled and felt like either an oil or acrylic based paint. It was thick, recently applied, and it completely covered the top, with ample splattering on the sides, the neck and fingerboard, and the bridge. There are a couple of online forum groups I enjoy keeping up with, so after a little brain-storming with fellow craftspersons online I had a plan of attack. The shared consensus was almost unanimous, to scrape the paint off and hope the original finish was still intact under the urethane top coats applied at the factory.

I actually ended up going at it with a combination of denatured alcohol to loosen the paint and a cabinet scraper to remove it from the top. It was a long, long process…

Once it was clear I was on the right track it was just a matter of settling in for the duration, washing with the denatured alcohol and scraping with the card scraper.

It took about 3 1/2 hours, but I finally got the paint completely removed from the top without inflicting any more “distress” to it than had already been suffered.

Polyurethane is among the toughest finish materials in the industry. Lucky for me, in this case the factory top coat remained impervious to the paint job and subsequent stripping and scraping process. Underneath it all the original burst finish was likewise preserved intact. All that was left to do now was to “wash” the top, and detail the areas where paint still needed to be completely removed — around the rosette, and the edges of the bridge and fingerboard. I let the top acclimatize for a few days, during which time I dressed the frets, which needed it badly. The paint splatters where also removed from the other regions of the guitar. Finally the top and sides were wet sanded with Micro-Mesh up to 6000 grit. The end result was a soft patina with light “stress marks” that gave the guitar the appearance that it was several years older than the less-than two years it actually was.

Probably the best outcome here, in addition to the obvious one — restoring the instrument’s beautiful aesthetic — was the fact that once all that junk caked to the top was removed you could really hear how beautifully responsive this very affordable acoustic guitar actually sounds!