fake nitro you have to be kidding? i own a few 2007
highway ones with the nitro finish and its as real as real can get.
pay little attention to most of these so called strat pros.
and dont worry my friend its real nitro.

There is some truth in the statement that hotrods atleast have no undercoat. I stripped mine a few weeks back to note numbers and generaly have a poke around. There was a circular sticker inside the control cavity in candy apple red. I peeled it away to find nothing but bare alder underneath and a great view of the lack of paint layers.

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No no and no

An interesting read here:

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/stratocaster ... trats.html

Specially post #16.

Hello All,

The sealer used is called Fullerplast
a polyester product.

I have used polyester on many
industrial & commercial models.

Cheers.

I said almost Seriously though, the Eric Johnson is 100% real.

_________________
Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

if they use fullerplast in a thin coat, how could we even tell, unless we thin off the nitro finish, to check? I mean, a really thin coating isn't going to inhibit resonance in any way. it is only the super thick candy coating that people complain about right?

hey everyone...

this is what i know...unless the guitar is a "thin skin" model...so either a hotrod...or a wildwood...or unless otherwise specified...all nitro guitars...even my '62AVRI have a nitro coat over a base coat of "Fullerplast"

i dont understand why this fact drives people nuts!
i mean in all fairness...after i read about the benefits of nitro over poly i felt a bit taken by fender...but you know what?
who cares!

now that i have had some time to stew about it...this is more of an intellectual argument than a practical one...
in a perfect world every guitar would be thin skin...
but that didnt stop Hendrix, or Clapton, or Johnson or even SRV from buying strats!
so there is plastic sitting underneath your precious nitro top coat...are you worse off for it?
do your chords not sound as crisp?
even with the poly undercoat...nitro still ages and mellows and changes color...your guitar will still more or less "breathe" in time as the finish wears off from sun, smoke, sweat, and hours of play...

the fact that your guitar is not full nitro is also a fixable issue...may not be financially feasible to some but it is available to you...also...if you shelled out $1500 for a strat that wasnt thin-skin only to find out that you could have gotten a hot-rod that is for the same price (aka me) at the end of the day what does that mean?
that i am not happy with my strat??
cmon!
i love it!
i have a $400 Gibson Melody Maker that is all nitro and you know what??
I still like my strat better!

so if you see this as a crutch that hinders your guitar playing...you need to start playing the keyboard...
if you look at this fact as a potential value destroyer...are you into playing guitars or cleaning them??
besides what do you think lies underneath that nitro in original 57 and 62 strats??
the same crap that is under them now and you know what??
they are still worth tens of thousands of dollars!
thats it...no more venting...good luck everyone and keep on strumming!

_________________
07 American Vintage '62 Re-Issue Strat
(olympic white)
07 Gibson Les Paul Vintage Mahogany
(cherry red)
07 Gibson Melody Maker
(vinatge sunburst)
01 Gibson L-00 Acoustic
(vintage sunburst)
Mid-90's MIM P-Bass
(sunburst)
Little Martin Acoustic

For me it is a technical concern, I might be refinishing an older strat(not a 50's vintage or anything,) and if I acquire this guitar, I am planning on doing it like an original, before they switched to fullerplast. Not gonna do my 94 at all, it is a black M&M but I have no complaints about the tone, I absolutely love it exactly the way it is. Of coarse given my nature to tinker with stuff, if i get the other strat, and redo it, and like it, then I can see myself jonesing for the other one.

Uff so many quotes! yes Twelvebar, I'm not in any way debating the 100% nitro = "better tone than with an undercoat". Just stating that since 1963 actually, Fender has been using a plastic finish under nitro is most of the cases. I never heard a recording and atributed the nice guitar tones to "nitro finished guitars".

ha, wasn't suggesting anything, was more a question.Just was wondering, I don't think the coat of fullerplast would make any difference, Now the thick full poly finish versus the nitro i see being a big difference, but the sealer coat probably not.

I don't really think that there is a solution to this.. For whatever reason I believe that they sound better, look better and won't buy a guitar unless it's nitrocellulose.

But.. It certainly doesn't help the Les Paul to sound good. And, Clapton, Robin Trower, and so many other heroes of mine seem to disagree so... Who knows!

_________________
Custom Shop '59 Strat with John Cruz Master Design Pickups
Vibro King
Fulltone Clyde>Deja-Vibe>TS-808>TS-9>Boss Tuner

Thanks for the find! A reputable source tells me that the Eric Johnson model's get moved to the custom shop for the nitro finish, but no mention of the sealant before the nitro gets put on. Anyways on a different note, the paint on the white blonde finish is very thin on my Johnson model that I could see the wood grain through it. Everything that gets coated on my Johnson model is of a "thin skin" layer.