How to preserve Sharpie writing on metal?

Factual Questions
1

I have a guitar with a nickel-plated body.

I recently got it autographed by a venerable blues celebrity – he used a Sharpie pen I provided.

I regularly play this guitar, but I would like to preserve the autograph.

What would be the best way? Some kind of spray lacquer? Etc.

TIA.

2

You’ll have to be really careful with the laquer idea, the solvents in it might dissolve the ink and cause it to bleed or smudge; get a reasonably similar piece of metal (maybe an empty coffee can or something), write on it with the same pen and experiment a bit, before you take the plunge on the real thing.

If it does work, it will probably be a case of a few very light coats.

3

Shouldn’t this be in GQ? You can get a clear “mask” (it’s like a big roll of scotch tape, artists use it), put that over the autograph and then laquer the guitar. That should protect it. (There’s laquer which can be used to cover the mask without it dissolving the glue and the writing.) Sprayable fixative like artists use might work as well.

4

You might attach a clear piece of plastic over the autograph, such as a piece of PlexiGlass, if it wouldn’t interfere with your playing. This would probably be less risky than any spray laquers or adhesive tapes. Perhaps you could tack or glue the PlexiGlass around the edges, so that no chemicals would touch the autograph itself.

5

My bad – I meant to post in GQ – Moderators, Mod as needed.

6

[Moderator Hat ON]

To GQ.

[Moderator Hat OFF]

7

Hate to say it, but I’d retire the Axe. That’s what I had to do with my autographed Billy Duffy guitar.

8

For future reference, I just bought my first Sharpie to label blank CDs for my new CD burner. I bought the ones labeled “Industrial Super Permanent Ink”. I know that doesn’t help with the current situation, but for your next autograph you may want to consider it.

9

I thought Sharpies were harmful to CD’s. Something about eating through the plastic to the recording layer.

10

My 1st thought would be a clear plastic self adhesive sheet. My 2nd thought would be if such a sheet would effect the acustics. My 3rd thought is I know very little about guitars

I have been using them w/o problem for years, much better then that other marker, when I opened up the cd-tray I saw the faintest image of my writing and radial ink lines extending to the edge of the CD.