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Lots of good advice on dealing with dings and other wear and use marks.
I'll add one more thing - in the electric guitar world, many people pay for a "reliced" guitar, one that has artificially had dings, scratches, and other stuff done to make it look more used than it is.
I don't sweat a few honest marks of use on my instruments.
We probably saw the same video, I remember the blade trick now. A lot easier way too. It gives a really clean result, doesn’t require a lot of skills and most everyone has materials needed already at home.
As Irving Mills wrote: "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that ding".
I have to admit that the first lacquer scratch on the top of my Altamira really shocked me. The thing with this antique finish is that the wood underneath is very pale, so even small scratches really stand out. But I took my colour pencils and "repaired" the damage (and the following ones) as good as possible with brown and orange.
I had an Eastman archtop, small body.. a similar finish actually but with a little more of a burgandy color. I remember it being like a $2k kind of price. Long story short, that think dinged like crazy and the cheap plywood looking wood underneath showed through. Ultimately, I didn't care cuz it was a great ax (and prolly is wherever it is out there). The finish must be one areas where they cut corners on these mass produced guitars.
Seems that the comments so far can be broken down into the technical and the philosophical. This applies in practice like this. You do all the technical stuff possible, inevitably run into limits, and sooner or later arrive at the philosophical side. Case in point, after I wrote my initial post about accidentally throwing my keys at my new cedar topped ax, I did my first show with the new guitar. It's all that and I love the thing. A day or so later I noticed a ding bigger than any of the ones my keys made. Again, I'm on crutches and move around in weird ways on stage.
So, I humbly accept the Universe's objects lessons regarding the dings which I take to be:
1) When something bad happens, just wait, it can get worse.
2) You can make yourself feel better about an initial ding you put in your fancy new guitar by putting another one on.
3) Who wants a fancy new guitar with just one ding? Wouldn't it look nicer in context of another ding or two and a light scrape or two?
I don't want to, out of shame, but I will post pics and perhaps a video from the show I did with it. Amazing axe.
two things that are weird:
1) people who keep guitars totally pristine to the extent of not playing them and never dinging them
2) people who pay to get their guitars relic'd to make them look like they've been dinged when they haven't.
I prefer option #2 out of these two but best is to play the F out of your guitar and put the dings in yourself.
Certain instruments probably look better without dings (I think superfine Somogyi fingerstyle kinda stuff probably looks pretty good without dings) but **** aren't one of them...
All dings on guitars (front AND back) can be easily fixed with duct tape. Silver is traditional, but they come in many colors these days. The advantage of the duct tape is that not only will it conceal the ding, but people won’t even notice the ding. No one ever mentions any dings or scratches on my guitars, they all say “Is that duct tape??” “Why is there duct tape on your guitar?” “There has got to be a better fix. That looks like ass”, or something thereabouts.
More experienced duct tape users often put a piece of peeling tape that has lost most of it’s adhesive over the ding so that when they are about to play a gig, the venue owner will say “You’ve got duct tape on your guitar!!??” And the knowledgeable player will then peel it off the ding and say “Better?” To which the owner will reply, “Much!”. It helps to both relieve yourself and the management about the ding on your guitar that no one cares about except the person who created that ding.
I hope my experiences help you!
Life-affirming. Thank you for sharing!
Eddie Van Halen did the same thing.