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rips, tears, wear spots on Toilex guitar cases?????


onewilyfool

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I've got a couple of rips and bare spots on one of my guitar cases.....are there any repair products out there that are any good? Thanks for the help.....

 

I'm not exactly sure what Toilex consists of' date=' but one suggestion would be to take it to a local upholstry shop. It seems they may have an assortment of materials for repairs, upgrades etc. Just a thought.[/size']

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I'm not exactly sure what Toilex consists of' date=' but [/size']

 

"Tolex" as a brand name was originally a sheet rubber product with a cloth backing developed, manufactured, and marketed by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. It has since become a generic description of any rubber or vinyl product used to cover amps, cabinets and cases.

 

Rips and tears can be reglued back in place with any contact cement type product, the type of glue where you coat both pieces, let it dry and then firmly press it together. A few types are Formica adhesive, weather strip adhesive, laminate glue, or a spray can product such as 3M Super 77 or Super 90. As for the scratches and bare spots, the old Sharpie trick had always worked for me.

 

Or, you can just enjoy the road worn look of a well used case. The whole reason for the case is to protect the guitar. A pristine guitar coming out of a beat up case just shows how well it did it's job. I once saw a Fender bass case with a tire track across it, supposedly the bass survived, and the case wasn't much worse for wear. The other really cool case I saw was a tweed case that had been in the trunk of a car that caught fire (the owner was also in the car). A lot of the tweed was burned off, and what was left was well charred. Except for the plastic parts, the guitar and owner came out OK.

 

When I picked up my 1947 L-7, it came in the original case that had seen better days. I bought a road case for it for trucking purposes, and considered buying a new Gibson hardshell for it. In it's regular case ot only travels around in my backseat or trunk, so I decided the old beat up case was fine for that purpose, and way too cool looking to replace.

 

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The guitar shop I live near sells Tolex that matches cases and a lot of Fender amps. As others have noted, you can use contact cement to repair patches of almost any size.

 

A technique we use where I work is to lay a new piece of Tolex over the old one and cut a new shape larger than the damaged area with an X-Acto knife going through both layers - the new piece and the existing finish. Then, you peel out the new shape from the original Tolex and replace it with the freshly cut piece. We use spray adhesive - which is indeed a contact cement, but goes on very thin - which is what you want.

 

Another solution, if you can't buy Tolex, is to take an impression with dental material of the existing Tolex texture and then make your own sheet of matching Tolex with a tin of rubber. The impression can be removed from the molding material, cut, pasted and painted to match. When done properly, these patches are nearly invisible. Many drug stores carry dental impression material.

 

The technique I have always used for my own cases is to apply stickers from my travels over the scuffs. I have a couple of cases that tell the whole story of my travels and the experiences I enjoyed in other parts of the world.

 

My friend and long time gig partner uses flat black spray paint and then does artwork over top with liquid paper. Of course, the liquid paper doesn't last forever, so his cases are constantly evolving pieces of art.

 

My niece, ever the crafty person, covers her scuffs with spray adhesive and glitter. Not everyone's cup of tea - but it matches her Daisy Rock silly guitar.

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  • 3 years later...

To fix rips in vinyl roofs, some upholstry repairs, etc, (don't think I ever used it to fix a guitar case or amp cover), you can use silcone, (black is easy since they sell black silicone), glue down the flap.... put on the silicone, use a piece of textured material, (like more Tolex), and make the pattern on the silicone before it sets up completely.

 

But...since they're guitar cases, just a black marker is gooe enough for me.

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