The Strat remodel begins

[scartozi]

Well it's been disassembled and fun will begin this evening. After spending A LOT of time sanding the plastic like poly off my latest remodel I've decided to use chemical stripper on this one.....getting some today.

The guitar is a 1999 MIM Strat and it plays and sounds excellent. Nice heavy body, great playing neck (that has aged quite nicely) and the pickups arent bad.....I'll probably replace them. I'm not quite sure of the theme I'm gonna go with and probably wont know until I see what lies beneath all that poly.....I do have some ideas though. I have a warmoth all maple superwide I may be putting on this but not sure yet....we'll see. Here are a few pics of the guitar and pics of it disassembled. Some of the pics make the neck look real orange but its not.

 

[bagman67]

Heat gun?

http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=heat+gun

 

[scartozi]

I've tried a heat gun in the past and wasn't diggin it. I'm refinishing a table too so I'm going to need the stripper for that project. I've read a lot of good reviews on the Citristrip. Kinda liking the idea of coating it on and letting it do the work instead of hours with a sander and sanding by hand. We'll see how good it works. Having time is an issue for me so if I can slap on some stripper and walk away that would be great

 

[reinhold]

Sorry to go a bit off topic here, but that is the same Strat I have except mine has a rosewood board.  Does it happen to say "Special Edition" on the back of the headstock?  Mine says that, but I bought it used and never found out what was special about it and I've been looking for info.

 

[scartozi]

Reinhold......nothing on the back back of the headstock.

That is some bullet proof poly on this sucker....I've  had the citristrip3 hours and its just now staring to eat at the thinner areas. Still.....I'm enjoying football and not standing in the garage for hours making a huge mess. I put a pretty thick coat on and I'll check it on the morning. Staring to get some ideas on what it want to do with this one. The good new is I dnt have to do anything with the neck other than clean and polish the frets. :icon_thumright:

 

[DangerousR6]

:headbang:
[youtube=425,350]JoqDYcCDOTg&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube=425,350]VZ2HcRl4wSk[/youtube]

 

[scartozi]

So maybe some people have had luck with Citristrip but after 24hrs I wiped it off and it looks like I never put anything on it. Sooooo....back to the store I went and got some that actually worked....almost ready to sand.

 

[Cagey]

So maybe some people have had luck with Citristrip but after 24hrs I wiped it off and it looks like I never put anything on it.

You mean like most products that are "green" or "environmentally safe". Along with being low-impact, they also have low effectiveness, so you end up using 5 times as much as you would have of the good stuff and have a greater impact on things than you would have had you used the right stuff in the first place. That's assuming the tree-hugger version works at all. Pour that Citristrip crap down the toilet. Of course, you'll probably have to flush it 5 times to get rid of it all if you have a "water-saving" toilet.

 

[scartozi]

Cagey: Agreed! Since I didn't use that much I returned it and got my money back. They asked why I was returning it....simple....it didn't work. Give me the Sh-t I have to wear a chemical suit with as long as it works.

 

[pabloman]

There's only 2 kinds of strippers I like. Pudgy ones with questionable morals and Aircraft strippers. Anything else and you won't get it off and just waste your money.  :headbang1:

 

[scartozi]

Couldn't find any of that at Home Depot :sad1: There were 3 different types of Klean-Strip and I got the one for epoxy and poly. Within 30 minutes it was working. Thought about sanding the rest but will probably scrape off what I can and do one final coat.

Pabloman: What brand of aircraft stripper have you used? Roughly how many application are needed to get to bare wood? When I sanded my American Strat it had a light coat of pain and really thin poly....Fender has a name for it but can't think of it right now. It was fairly easy to sand and thank God because I did that whole guitar by hand

 

[pabloman]

I used the Klean-Strip from Walmart. It was on a blue gave Mexican body. I needed 2 applications and underneath was that veneer thing you were talking about. It worked pretty good.

 

[scartozi]

Did you stain or repaint it? I'm curious to see what the wood is like on this one. I will be staining this guitar but it's going to be dark....really dark....one might even say Ebony like.

 

[pabloman]

I wanted to stain it a honeyburst variant but I ended up painting it. I should have realized that if it had decent grain and only 2 or 3 pieces it would have been a burst from the factory. I think your super dark almost ebony will be ok though.

 

[scartozi]

Well the body is all sanded except for the cut-outs and ready for stain. I'm using Stewart McDonald ebony fretboard dye for the body followed by many coats of tung oil. I want a nice ebony look with almost no grain showing through the stain (since its a MIM strat). You will be able to see the wood grain just not semi-transparent. I figure after 7-8 coats of tung oil and sanding between coats with 0000 steel wool it'll have a nice semi gloss glass like finish.

 

[jrybicki]

reguarding you ebony satin mim strat, id love to see a pic progress, ive got a yellow squire with a very nice neck id like to strip n stain.  id like to see if your staining will hide the wood piece joints?? 

 

[scartozi]

It depends on the stain you are going to use. No matter what you will see faint lines where the pieces are joined and more so the more translucent the stain. I just put a the first coat of ebony stain on and you can see the lines if you really look....the stain is so dark it's like paint. I would imagine that the squire body will have multiple pieces and a top veneer....at least the MIM's have a veneer on the top and bottom which I sanded off. I'll see how the stain soaks in overnight and check it tomorrow and put one last coat on. I'll try to get some pictures tomorrow.

 

[jrybicki]

very cool, thanks

 

[scartozi]

The body is done and put back together. Getting ready to solder the ground and jackplate but have to wait till tomorrow to get some strings...and I will be taking some pictures tomorrow. So how did it turn out? I love the look of the ebony stain and polishing with 0000 steel wool gave it a slight transparent look with dark "chocolate" random streaks....it actually looks like natural ebony. I decided at this point not to age the hardware but once I get the hardware switched over to gold I think i will....I like the way gold hardware looks when aged...properly. I actually think I'm going to refinish "Driftwood Strat" following the same process and since it has much nicer wood I'm hoping it will match the wenge neck. I'll probably sand down the wood pickguard and stain it to match. I've never used this dye before on a body and was a little nervous, needless to say a little goes a long way.....I'll bet I still have over half a bottle left. BTW I used Stewart McDonald's Ebony Fretboard Stain (dye)

I'm very anxious to hear this guitar because the last MIM I refinished sounded like a completely different guitar once I got all that poly off of it. In case some of you haven't noticed I'm not a fan of painted guitars.....I have my reasons. 

And finally.....after the body was sanded and stained it soaked up more tung oil than any other guitar I've refinished. The first coat I applied a thick coat with a cloth and by the time I finished the back the top was completely soaked in. The second coat I went with a foam brush and really laid it on and within 30 minutes it was soaked in. So before bed I put yet another thick coat on and let it sit overnight. After sitting for 24 hours I polished it with 0000 steel wool to reveal a nice satin silky smooth finish. After the first 3 coats I then applied 3 more coats but this time I wiped on a generous amount, waited 10 minutes and polished with a cloth, waited 24 hours and repeated until the finish was what I wanted.

 

[Cagey]

Sooo... you took off the 6 oz. of poly and put on 4 lbs. of oil?