This is my attempt to give you a step-by-step tutorial on refinishing, written in an elementary way because I assume that you have never done this before. It will be presented in chapters, each in it's own post. Since this is a Fender Forum, I am going to stick to the process pertaining to a bolt-on neck / body type of instrument. Please take the time to go over all of these directions before you start so you know what you are in for, and familiarize yourself with what the different steps are. You can easily find a furniture stripper to remove the finish for you if you don't want to tackle that part of the process; it is a messy endeavor. Just tell them not to do any sanding.

Small print, just in case: I am not guaranteeing that you will end up with a perfect finish. This is only instruction based on my experience, and is not a guarantee that your results will be fabulous. The easiest part to mess up is the finish application, but you can screw it up at any step. If you need to, practice your spray technique, sanding or any other step on some scrap wood.

I want to stress that this is a process involving hazardous chemicals. Chemical strippers can cause skin burns and irritation, and if it gets in your eyes, you aren't going to be able to see to wash it out.

• Wear gloves that are resistant to the stripper, and wear eye protection.
• Work in an area that has plenty of ventilation. The fumes from the stripper and from the lacquer are hazardous to your health, and will kill brain cells.
• Cover all surfaces that can be damaged by these chemicals, and wear clothing you don't care about because it will get on them.
• Read the directions and precautions on the chemicals you are using
• Work slowly and patiently.
• You can't be too careful!
• Work smart: keep your work area clean. Have a place to safely set the work down, and have what you will need readily at hand. Plan ahead.

1) Assess the project:

a) Condition:
Is it the original finish, or is it a previous refinish? If it's a previous refin, there may be distortions to the contours, edges or flat surfaces from careless sanding. These problems will show on your new finish if you don't correct them, so you need to decide whether it is worth the trouble to fix them before proceeding. If you want it to look right, and repairing previous damage is beyond your woodworking abilities, consider buying a replacement body to put the new finish on.

b) Existing finish type:
If you do not know what kind of finish you have, you can test it with a small amount of stripper. Just brush a small amount on a spot on the finish, wait about 5 minutes, and wipe it off. If it is polyurethane or epoxy, there will be almost no effect. If it is lacquer, varnish or enamel, it will be lifted, bubbled, melted, softened or otherwise damaged by the stripper, either a little or a lot. If it left any evidence of softening, be thankful for that and use to the lacquer stripping section below.

Gather your stripping materials:
You will need:
• stripper. I recommend Jasco "Premium Paint & Epoxy Remover". It is in a red and gold can
• stripper neutralizer as recommended by the stripper manufacturer. It will be listed on the can. If you are given the choice between water and a chemical, use the chemical. Water will raise the wood grain and cause swelling at any screw hole or end grain. If you sand these, they will eventually dry into depressions. Never wet sand with water.
• a glass bowl big enough to pour the stripper into
• a couple small, cheap paint brushes (1" wide) Not the foam kind, the stripper will melt them
• a box of heavy duty aluminum foil
• a 1" putty knife/scraper
• wet/dry sandpaper in 180, 220 & 320 grit
• sanding blocks: one for flat surfaces, approx. 3" x 5" and a 1" dowel about 6" long for inside the cutaways
• stripper-proof gloves
• eye protection
• paper towels, newspaper and paper grocery bags
• trash bags
• vapor masks
• a piece of cardboard a couple inches bigger than the body
• Q-tips
• wooden toothpicks
• 000-size steel wool
• a stick to attach the body to. You will have to make this, and it should be a little smaller than the width and length of the neck pocket. It should be hardwood or Birch plywood, 1/2" thick and 12 to 16 inches long. Too short means you spray paint your hands, too long and you have bad leverage. Make the part you hold comfortable. Make a spacer out of wood or plastic that is about 1/8" thick and is slightly smaller than the neck pocket end of the stick. This spacer will set the handle away from the neck pocket so the paint does not build up between the body and the stick, and keep the finish off the neck-mating surface of the neck pocket. Drill a hole at the far end of the stick big enough to hang it on a hook or nail.

• At this point, you need to decide how you will attach the stick to your body. I recommend drilling two new holes in between the existing four neck bolt holes. Drill them in the stick first, then use the stick to mark the location on the body. Just be sure it's centered correctly so it fits the pocket without touching the bass side of the pocket. You don't want the new finish to bridge the gap and stick the body and handle together. Use screws similar in size to the neck mounting screws that will go in at least 3/4 of the way through the body wood. Depending on your paint stick thickness, the screws should be #12 x approx. 1-1/2" long.

• If you don't want to drill any extra holes in the neck pocket, you can drill four holes at the body end of the stick that match the hole pattern for the neck screws. Use the neck plate as a pattern. You will hold the stick to the body with four screws of whatever size will screw tightly into the existing neck screw holes in the body. Probably #14, but you will have to determine what will hold it securely. Having the body fall off the handle will ruin your day. The screws should go into the body about 3/4 of the way, but not all the way through. They need to be tight enough to hold the body securely, but not so big that they widen the holes too much. You want the threads to bite into the body, but you don't want the shaft of the screw be any bigger than the existing hole. Having all four in there is extra security. You don't want to use bolts and nuts, which would be more secure, but you would end up with bolt/screw heads on the back side of the body that would be covered in paint, presenting a problem when it came time to remove them.

Gather the finishing materials:
• Wet-Or-Dry sandpaper in 400, 600, and 1000 grit
• If you have an Ash or Mahogany body, you will need pore filler paste and mineral spirits to thin it as the first step.
• Sanding sealer, base coat, color coat and clear coat
• paste or liquid automotive paint polish. You want polish, not compound.

Organize your work area:
There will be times when you only have one free hand, so:
• Have the paper towels on a dispenser so you can get them with one hand if you need to.
• Cut open a paper grocery bag and lay it out to set the messy body down on.
• Have a trash bag in something (like a trash can!) that can hold it open for you.
• Figure out where you will hang the body to cure between coats. Have it be close as possible to where you will be spraying so you don't have to walk around with it when it's wet.

Stripping polyurethane/epoxy body finishes:

Any poly or catalyzed finish is difficult and time-consuming to remove. I have had some success with a Jasco product called "Premium Paint & Epoxy Remover". It is in a red and gold can. The first step is to use 180 grit sandpaper with a sanding block to roughen the shiny surface of the finish. This gives the stripper some extra help biting into the poly. Just take all the gloss off, and be careful of any sharp corners, like the edges of the neck pocket on the top of the body. Don't distort these edges; especially vulnerable is the small radius on the treble side of the neck pocket. If you have a Tele Custom with binding, keep the stripper away from the plastic binding at all times. It will melt!
• After sanding, lay out a length of heavy duty aluminum foil on top of the piece of cardboard. The foil needs to be long and wide enough to go all the way around the body loosely. If you have to use two widths of foil, make sure you fold the edges together securely so stripper doesn't leak out. The cardboard provides a base in case you have to move it, and also provides some protection against setting it on debris that could poke through the foil.
• Put on your gloves, vapor mask and eye protection.
• Pour about two cups of the stripper into the glass bowl.
• Place the body in the center of the laid-out foil.
• Apply the stripper in a heavy coat to the top and sides of the body with the paint brush, and just brush it on in one direction. Don't brush back and forth.
• After one side is coated, carefully flip the body over and lay down a thick coat on the back side.
• Carefully fold the long edges of the foil to each other, and fold the ends into this. You need it to be sealed tightly enough to keep the solvents from escaping so the stripper can work as long as possible on the tough poly finish. Wrap more around it if you need to.
• Leave it for 12 hours, and then take a look.

Open the foil. You may see a couple different things going on, depending on what kind of finish you are dealing with.
• It may be melted and easy to lift,
• It may be dried and flaky, like big potato chips,
• It may be whitish, powdery and only loose on the upper few layers of the finish, like the color coat or top coat,
• It may be unaffected.

Take the putty knife, and gently push it under the finish at a shallow angle. Any time you are using this tool, beware of gouging the wood! You shouldn't have to press down really hard to get the stuff off. If you do, it isn't ready yet. If this is the case, and the finish is not coming off:
• Lay out some newspaper or paper grocery bags to collect the paper towels that will be loaded with the stripper,
• Lay out a two-by-two-sheet square area of paper towels, a couple layers thick, on top of the newspaper/grocery bags
• Pick up the body (with the gloves on), and stand it on the paper towels. Using the scraper and some wadded paper towels, wipe off as much of the stripper as you can. When you get a pile of stripper on the paper towels, fold it up and put it in the garbage bag.
• Continue this until you've gotten as much off as you can
• Don't just scrape it off into the garbage bag, because the stripper will melt through the plastic and make a mess.
• After you have cleaned off as much of the old stripper as you can, repeat the whole process of applying stripper and wrapping the body in foil. This time, leave it for 24 hours.
• When the finish is finally coming off with the scraper, lay down the newspaper/bag/paper towel area as above, and start removing as much of the finish as you can. 100% of it may not come off; you might have small patches or even large areas that won't come off with gentle scraping. You will have to sand these areas to get the finish off.
• Once you have removed as much of the finish as you can, you have to neutralize the chemicals from the stripper, or they may lift or otherwise effect the new finish. Take a pad of the 000-steel wool, wet it thoroughly with the neutralizer, and apply the neutralizer, wiping it everywhere, inside all routings and holes. The steel wool will remove finish residue and you may have to replace it as you work. Use the Q-tips to get into the tight areas and larger screw holes. Use toothpicks to clear the small screw holes. Do this twice to be sure you get it neutralized as completely as possible. Follow this up with paper towel and neutralizer, and get off any steel wool fibers stuck on the wood.
• Now you need to let the body dry for a while before sanding, or the sandpaper will just load up and clog instead of sanding. Get the stick you prepared and attach it securely to the body so you can hang it to dry, at least 12 hours depending on the humidity where you are working. It is dry when the sand paper produces dry dust, and doesn't clog up with residue.

Stripping a lacquer, varnish or enamel finish:

• Lay out a length of heavy duty aluminum foil on top of the piece of cardboard. The foil needs to be long and wide enough to catch all the stripper/finish that may slop over the sides while you are working. The cardboard provides a base in case you have to move the body, and also provides some protection against setting it on debris that could poke through the foil.
• Put on your gloves, vapor mask and eye protection.
• Pour about two cups of the stripper into the glass bowl.
• Place the body in the center of the laid-out foil.
• Apply the stripper in a medium coat to 1/4 of the body at a time. It will work quickly on the finish, so work on small areas at a time. Apply the stripper with the paint brush, and just brush it on in one direction. Don't brush back and forth.
• Take the scraper, and gently push it under the finish at a shallow angle. Any time you are using this tool, beware of gouging the wood! You shouldn't have to press down really hard to get the stuff off.
• Once you have removed as much of the finish as you can, you have to neutralize the chemicals from the stripper, or they may lift or otherwise effect the new finish. Take a pad of the 000-steel wool, wet it thoroughly with the neutralizer, and apply the neutralizer, wiping it everywhere, inside all routings and holes. The steel wool will remove finish residue and you may have to replace it as you work. Use the Q-tips to get into the tight areas and larger screw holes. Use toothpicks to clear the small screw holes. Do this twice to be sure you get it neutralized as completely as possible. Follow this up with paper towel and neutralizer, and get off any steel wool fibers stuck on the wood.
• Now you need to let the body dry for a while before sanding, or the sandpaper will just load up and clog instead of sanding. Get the stick you prepared and attach it securely to the body so you can hang it to dry, at least 12 hours depending on the humidity where you are working. It is dry when the sand paper produces dry dust, and doesn't clog up with residue.

The next post will cover sanding and prep work for the finish.

_________________
"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Looking forward to the rest!

Ben thinking of doing this to a inexpensive guitar as a test.

_________________
-T

"You can't spend what you ain't got, you can't lose what you ain't never had" ~ McKinley Morganfield

Hi Ashtone,

Lots to read here so I've bookmarked this for further study. I've had a few miserable goes at spray paint jobs.

Thanks for taking the time out to post that info.

Andy

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Pending Greatness

great thread though! Why not post in the Lounge? Just an idea!

Cheers

Nutter

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I started out with nothing, and still have most of it.

Good point. Maybe I can move it

_________________
"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

[qoute]5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs[/quote]

No Wife??

Thanks for the post - good idea

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs
3 kids
1 wife

_________________
"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs

Is this in order of favorite?

No, it is the order of aggravation, most to least.

_________________
"There's an arse for every chair"

5 guitars
7 amps
4 dogs