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stripped naked


Woko

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As anyone had there guitar stripped back to the wood and revarnished.(a bit like John Lennons Casino)

Questions.

What did it cost.

How did it look.

Do you think it make any differance to the value.

Any one you can reccomend in the u.k.

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doing that now on an Ibanez RG. It stripped very well with a heat gun...took some time so as not to burn the wood. But the time spent was well worth it. Next steps are filling screw holes and applying sanding sealer to flatten the surface out. After that this is going to get either a flame top or quilt top...I am going to order both and see which looks best.

I'll post pics as I get further into it.

So far my cost have been

$40 heat gun

$35 maple veneer (both styles)

$25 for sand paper, wood filler and sanding sealer and foam brushes.

 

add another $30 for varnish (nitro) so I should roll in under $150 for the project.....less than a hundred if you already own a heat gun and don't plan on topping it.

 

Tried sanding but you really don't want to go there...too much chance for sanding down angles and coating your lungs with bad stuff. Oh do not wait until the heat gun bubbles the finish to remove it, just heat it up around 900 degrees for 15 seconds holding heat gun three inches from finish...only attack a 4 to 5 inch area at a time and you should be able to scrape it off with little problem. If the guitar was properly wood sealed then your removing the lacquer from the sealing and you should have a good result.

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depends a lot on the guitar..

for instance.. refinishing a p bass... fairly straightforward... slab body.. no plastic binding.

 

a casino is another animal and requires more steps.

 

that being said.. heat guns and zip strip can eat the plastic bindings .. sanding can pierce the veneer and leave you with butt ugly wood in spots.

 

after that finish is off correctly, you can leave it plain or stain it, seal it, finish sand it, and poly coat it in satin or gloss for the cost of the

finish materials.

 

veneers are a difficult thing to apply, esp. on a carved top or other curved surface, so you'll want to do a lot of googling before you

attempt that first time.

 

you're probably not going to make a value improvement, unless you did a really pro or otherwise special job of it.

And even then it depends on brand and model.

 

I've got a saga tele here that's done in natural.. they come sealed so you just finish sand it and put on the clear coat.

Looks really sweet, too, simple as can be.

basswood takes stain in really odd ways. so a previous saga tele with basswood body that I stained had to be worked on and worked on

in order to get it looking good.

maple mahogany etc.. all take stain more uniformly than basswood. so that process depends also on the type/quality of wood.

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I completely stripped a Dot and refinished it in lacquer. I did it with sandpaper and a blade to scrape some of the thickest areas. I couldn't believe how thin the veneer on the back was. I sanded through in spots and got some of the butt uglies that Twang mentioned. I also found that there were spots that either weren't completely stripped, or it was just the wood not taking the stain evenly all over.

 

Either way, I'm still glad I did it. It was a fun project and I learned a lot from it...mainly, if you want a lacquered guitar, buy it that way! Seriously, it was an experience, and I have a great playing guitar that I've modded to my preferences and enjoy playing.

 

Here's the butt ugly spots where I sanded through the veneer...

 

DotRefinish010500x333.jpg

 

Here's a post stain, pre-buffing of the ugly spots...

 

100_1942333x500.jpg

 

The polished neck...

 

100_1959500x333.jpg

 

And the polished top...

 

100_1954500x333.jpg

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It started life as a natural. It looked good' date=' but I wanted to mess with it.[/quote']

 

Seeing as I've done damn near everything else to my dot, changing color seems logical...

It's black, but the wood inside looks nice. Thinking red, brown, natural, or blonde. I know two of those colors I wouldn't be able to find anywhere else, but then again I'm unsure how it'd look...

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I am not sure if this will be useful to you or not, but it outlines in a document the entire refinishing process on a '64 stratocaster that I did here, using the ReRanch kits that someone else had mentioned. Obviously, aside from the neck there were no binding issues to contend with, but it may prove informative. It was my very first shot at something like this and I chose a 3 colour sunburst. Although it required effort and care, it ws not that difficult - If I can do it - anyone can! The ReRanch kits really made it a lot earier (no affiliation - just a happy consumer).

 

http://www3.sympatico.ca/cill/TheStratocaster.doc

 

cheers!

 

PS. I do have about 4 epi's just to be on topic! ](*,)/

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