Folks, sorry for the delay in replying - life kind of took over.
So..yeah... I can’t recall it being struck or knocked or anything, that’s whars frustrating. You would have thought that the finish would have been comprimised to be honest.
If, under magnifying glass, there's not even a crack in finish, then I'd bet it was present when the guitar was originally finished in factory.
Why can we see a shadow if the finish is "uncompromised" and "perfectly smooth"?
It's impossible to tell from those pics, need to look at it from several angles.
If finish is perfectly level with rest of finish along binding over that spot, then I'm guessing it was drop filled at factory to bring that spot up to level just before before finishing was completed.
(There's several layers sprayed during finishing)
It’s not B stock from memory (I’ll need to have a look) and was brand new when I bought it in 2014. Certainly hope it wasn’t B stock for the price I paid for it!!
Typically a "B" stock needs to be disclosed to buyer because of possible warranty limitations or complete exclusion.
We know New Hartford did liquidate sell some "B" stock during the shut-down and they weren't always marked, but a list of the excluded s/n's was provided to Oxnard so
they know which ones were excluded from warranty.
Cordoba-Guild (Oxnard) did assume warranty liability for original owners of "A" stock New Hartfords purchased from
authorized Guild dealers.
If you contact them with s/n they should be able to give a definitive answer.
Whether or not they'd consider it a genuine defect, ie a flaw in workmanship, is another matter.
Regardless of how it happened, I’ll need to get it fixed.
How does a tech go about this? I won’t be attempting it myself but am curious as to how they would sort something under the finish and repair to so you wouldn’t even know it had happened?
Well I'm not a luthier or tech but I'm be pretty darn sure it'll involve removing the binding, IF it's a dent in the binding.
I'd actually be kind of surprised if that
could be fixed
seamlessly, without replacing the entire strip.
Which might be surprisingly costly, I don't know.
The good news is that genuine NCL is relatively easily "patched", the bad news is that I believe it's problematic matching a sunburst top when doing so.
Before one considers the cost of the delicate binding repair.
Which is why I kind of suspect Oxnard won't consider it to be a genuine defect in materials or workmanship even if you can demonstrate it left New Hartford that way.
PS first step in a warranty claim is to contact selling dealer and let them know what the problem is.
They're your ombudsman with Guild.
And they should confirm warranty status regardless of whether Oxnard ok's the fix or not.
IF it were me, I think I'd try to learn to live with it rather than risk somebody making a very minor problem worse with a poor repair job, even if it
is covered by warranty.
"food for thought"
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