Okay, so I'm guilty of taking my pristine '09 Candy Cola american standard straight to the car and taking it on a trip in the trunk on a cold day. I noticed last night that when held up to a light, you can see finish checking in the clear coat. I'm assuming it's a clear coat because the checking isn't readily apparent when looking straight at the metallic paint with no glare. Hmm, maybe what I'm looking at is buff marks. If anybody has experienced anything similar, let me know what you think I'm seeing.

The American Standard is finished in urethane. You would have to go from arctic to sahara desert conditions in a very short time to get urethane to check. That's a little overexaggeration but it is really tough stuff. It is basically plastic. You are probably seeing polishing marks. I have them on all my guitars.

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Bill

Thanks man, that's what I was thinking too. I can only see the marks when light is glaring off the finish.

My friend has a 70s strat with thick poly U fininish on the body and it has checking all over the body.



Although hard to see in this photo, it is noted in the area where the arm rests on the guitar. Hard to see but you can feel the cracks when you rub your hand across the body.

Hi candycoke09: to be very pedantic about it, it depends what you mean by "checking".

Here is an extreme example of what some people use that word to mean:



Lacquer/paint is technically a "film" and as such has a physical structure. With rapid temperature changes it is possible for the surface of the film to expand or contract at such a different rate from the substrata that tensions occur within the structure and cracks are formed. A little bit like sheet ice breaking up. This is exacerbated if the paint film was applied in several layers, as with guitar finishes: it is possible for there to be an imperfect bond between the layers which increases potential movement between the two.

(This is sort of my day job. Can you tell?)

So regardless what your lacquer/paint is made from it is perfectly possible that an abrupt temperature change has causes tiny cracks to form. But without seeing it we can't know for sure.

BTW: the photo shows Fender's 25th Anniversary Strat where extreme checking occured very soon after the guitars were made. In that case it was due to a fault in the finishing process with made these individual guitars especially vulnerable to the process I have described. To such an extent that Fender offered owners the option of a recall and refinish to put things right (that's very unusual: Fender normally specifically exclude finish issues from their warranty).

Ironically, amongst 25th Anni Strats it is the ones that weren't refinished that now command the premium price...

Cheers - C

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Well, what I'm seeing isn't nearly as dramatic as your picture, in fact I believe the reason I've only just recently noticed the "checking" is because I've moved into a room with flourescent lighting. But I'll have to admit, I kind of like the "flawed" 25th anni. Strat in your picture. Nice color combos and the checking gives it a lot of character. The reason I haven't posted pictures is because I doubt I could replicate the effect for a photograph, if anyone wants to know.

Checking on a new 2011 EJ Strat. Granted, this is a nitro finish but this happened just from outside winter temps to room temp. This is just an example but it's all down the neck.

UPS delivered a guitar to me on a day that it never got out of the 20's. They left it sitting on my front porch (For all the world to see!) for about 4 or 5 hours. I brought it inside and left it in its box for several hours. I opened it later that evening and found it was perfect.

I still say that urethane and polyester have to be pretty mistreated for damage to occur. If you guitar was in its case when you brought it from your house to your car and then back inside, unless the trunk temperature dropped really low and the finish was flawed to begin with (as Ceri mentioned), and you kept it in the case for a while to stabilize, I doubt you should have any problems.

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Bill

The 70s strat has been stored in its case when not used through over 30 years of extreme desert weather: humidity >10% in the winter and temperatures of 58-65 degrees and humidity, and summer temperatures exeeding 85 degrees with humidity >30%. And this is the indoor stored temperature Outside the temps vary from 20 degrees to >110 degrees and humidity lower. The checking does go clear through the Poly finish.

I would call those less than optimal storage conditions. Did the checking occur suddenly or slowly over the course of 30 years?

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Bill