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Advice on De-Polyfication of Body

arealken

Senior Member
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I've scoured the Internet, and seems that most people Depoly-izing ( ok, is that even a word?  :laughing7:)  use a torch, which fuhgheddaboudit ( now THATS a word) I am not about to do because I would burn  it for sure. I picked up this beuatimous Koa body for a song, and being as how I likely could never afford another Koa body , I am going to keep it, but would much prefer it to have a natural Oil or Nitro finish instead of the 5 miles deep POLY FINISH.

Should I drop the notion of removing the thick Poly ( which I guess is a Warmoth Factory finish, but I could'nt say for certain), which everyone knows smothers tone?

Does anyone know of any solvents that would eat through the stuff? Any other ideas? Thanks.;

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Well, there's a lot in there to address.


Firstly, removing poly means one of two things - either you apply heat, or you apply a strong chemical with methylene chloride in it.  Applying heat with a heat gun - NOT a torch - should allow you to scrape the finish off, but there is still some risk - albeit much less than with an actual flame - of scorching the body, and of gouging or scratching the body with whatever tool you use to scrape.  Using chemicals of course includes the risk of exposure to harmful stuff - but if you follow the instructions and take appropriate safety precautions, this should not be an issue.


One of our resident finishing gurus, Tonar8353 details steps he took to strip and refinish a Warmoth-finished body here:


http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=20663.msg305977#msg305977




But is your issue that the finish that's already on there is poly and therefore inherently bad?  By "five miles deep," are you saying it's objectively much thicker than a nitro finish is likely to be?  Because the Warmoth finishes are very, very thin, and your impression of thickness may really be a misperception based on its durability (which is one reason why manufacturers have largely switched over to poly products - along with speed of cure,  durability of the film at the same or lesser thickness is a major factor).  This is not some cheap Indonesian job that's been dunked in polyester by someone who's working to pay off the fee for whatever procurer got them the job - it's a fine finish applied by dedicated pros.


Now, if you have an aesthetic preference for a matte finish, that's cool, and you're entitled to your taste and no one can argue with it.  But stripping and refinishing is a hell of a pain-in-the-ass job, and if you are contemplating doing it because of some received wisdom about how bad poly is and how awesome nitro is because it "breathes" or doesn't choke your tone, well, I'm of the opinion - and opinions will vary - that you will only perceive an improvement in tone because you want to hear it, and not necessarily because it will be objectively possible to detect. 


Hope this helps, and if I offended, it wasn't my intention.


Also, that is a handsome body and congrats on securing it.



 
Bagman beat me to it.
I was going to say:
1. If it's finished by Warmoth, then it's super thin.
2. If you removed all finish from the body you might perhaps hear a tone difference playing it acoustically. But connected to an amp? I doubt it very much. You would get much bigger tonal difference by playing with another pick (an incredibly overlooked tool for getting a different tone).

Of course YMMV and all that ...  :icon_thumright:
 
That looks like a pretty nice finish. Unless you've lost your mind and are going to finish it in something opaque, I wouldn't touch it. It is as Bagman says - a very thin finish to start with. Lacquer (or anything else) won't be any thinner and will also be less durable. And while too heavy a finish on an acoustic guitar can have a detrimental effect on tone, there's no corresponding punishment with solidbodies. You want punishment, start stripping catalyzed polyurethane. It really isn't any fun at all.
 
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