Thread: Filling screwholes in guitar body (also need to redrill them). What to use?

Hi Boogieman and welcome.

I assume you are removing the pickups, and plates on the front and the machine heads?
First thought is trade up to a Fender, or if you must hae a Flying V, at least an Epiphone.
But seriously, given the vibration issues, I would have thought car body filler or Epoxy resin. But there are better Luthiers than I here.

Regards

Rob

Flowboy - ah, you know about guitars! The area where the pickup rings screw into the body is exactly where most of the filler needs to go (just talking 10+ screw holes here). I won't get rid of my Ibanez V, I love the guitar and it's quite rare! So I must fix it up.

There won't be any virbation issues since it's not acoustic or hollow body. Is JB Weld overkill? I have some around the house and if I can use that I will, but I dunno if you should use it with wood. What do you guys think?

I was wondering can we get a close up picture of where your trying to fill?

Cheers Ian.
who is currently working on making archtops.

Ian007 - Sorry, I don't have a digital cam at the moment, that picture is a few months old too. Basically, the holes are underneath the pickup mounting rings. I sold the original pickups a while ago with mounting rings and bought some new shiny pickup rings and a Seymour Duncan JB pickup to throw in the guitar. I found out, my new rings don't line up with the Ibanez, they're short by about 1/2 cm. It's not the new rings, they're standard size, but it's the way the Ibanez was built and the old rings are long gone (they were very worn anyways). I refuse to give up on the guitar, you see.

I failed to mention, but I drilled new holes and was off. The screw holes are not very big, like toothpick size and just over 1 cm in length. Maybe I'm making a big deal out of this. I just need something I can redrill into since the holes overlap and something that will "settle" well so I can finish over it. Thanks for trying to help so far guys.

Hi Boogieman,

Having just come back from 5 years in Bahstan MA, you'd think I could remember JB Weld. I think you're best to buy some proper epoxy resin, such as araldite, but a strong epoxy anyway.
If you're going to use 10G screws then you may want to open the holes a little further to ensure good purchase when you reglue. Otherwise perhaps you could use 8G screws.
I have a '79 Stratocaster (last of the Americans), two Australian handmade Matons and a Martin HD28 reissue. Had a Gibson 20th Anniv Les Paul Custom, but hated it and sold it.

Regards,

Rob

If all you need to do is fill the scew holes then you simply need to glue in dowels that are the same size as your hole with wood glue and cut it flush to the body.