Official Luthiers Forum!

My son has a Fender MIM Strat, with a polyester arctic white finish. While we were working on it yesterday, a dime-sized chip of paint came off the side of the body right below the neck pocket.

This is not an expensive guitar, and it doesn't need a perfect repair. But I would like to get the area white again, rather than seeing a dime-sized piece of exposed wood every time he picks up the guitar.

The problem is that the finish is polyester, and it's pretty thick. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Here's my wild guess, but I've never repaired polyester, so please chime in:
(1) Put in some bondo or wood putty to get the chipped part level with the rest of the finish.
(2) Shellac the area so my repair paint will adhere to the putty and to the adjacent polyester finish.
(3) Use an airbrush to spray white over the putty and blend with the surrounding area.
(4) Shellac over the area & buff to a gloss.

I know this won't be perfect, but anything is better than exposed wood.

Any critiques/suggestions? Does anyone know a good place to get something that looks close to Fender's Artctic White?

There are polyester type repair kits available from finish supply stores. Piano stores use them all the time. A google search brings up a bunch of info and suppliers. You could also contact a piano dealer/store to get more info.
Good luck.

I thought Guitar ReRanch.Com might have arctic white but they only list Fender mary kaye white and olympic white on their site. They carry nitro in aerosol cans and have lots of diy info. maybe they can help.
Rene