Fixing a Guitar Neck Ding…

I don’t know about anyone else, but when I first started playing my guitars on stage around mic stands, because of inexperience, I unfortunately whacked my guitar’s neck into the stand, which leaves a small ding. Difficult to see, but irritating when moving your hand up and down the neck, particularly when playing with a slide. While the guitar is still playable and the tone is not adversely affected, it is really annoying and distracting to feel the ding during playing. It’s particularly frustrating when playing a premium guitar knowing how expensive it can be.

I was playing my National M1 the other day and was immediately reminded of the ding(s) I had in the neck. One ding from a mic stand strike and another from my friend’s careless swing of his guitar neck onto mine, which is doubly irritating!

Driven by my irritation, I started rooting around on the internet for a solution and discovered multiple remedies for ding repair. Several involved application of moisture and heat which I did not want to mess with for fear of exacerbating the damage. Fortunately, I did stumble on a relatively inexpensive mechanical solution that was worth a try.

The Cue Doctor is a dense and solid cylinder of glass that is intended to remove dings in pool cues. Apparently a ding on a pool cue is as irritating and distracting as one on a guitar neck. The device is very simple to use. Holding the cylinder in the palm of your hand and rapidly rubbing it over the ding with a modicum of pressure will flatten out the damage. According to the manufacturer the combination of pressure and heat created by the friction of rubbing will cause the indent to rise and flatten out.

Some luthiers have taken the same technology and applied it to guitar necks. I did the same to the M1’s neck and it works amazingly well!