Removing paint from Strat

[LeftyBlues]

So I have a MIM Strat I rarely play (my American Deluxe gets all the lovin') so I want to strip the paint off and give it a natural finish, then get a Warmoth neck that is like my American Strat. What's the method for stripping paint off a chunk o' wood, just use some paint stripper? I don't want to harm the wood so figured it's worth asking. Oh, this Strat has upgraded Texas Special pups so it's worth my time to upgrade it...I think. Thanks fo' yo' hepp gents and gals.

L.B.

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey lefty, there's three ways to do it friends have done...

 

zipstrip, which is messy and toxic, but won't damage the wood of the guitar but is a pia to work with...it really will just eat all the finish away, and turn it into a toxic sludgy gloop that melts thru plastic and stuff with impunity down to the wood itself. not reccomended...

 

scraping...take a knife and draw it down the length (with the wood grain) of the guitar until all the paint is scraped down to bare wood...this works, but can be mildly dangerous, and a mega pain in the ass...and is time consuming..but gives a great result.

 

or sanding..if you use a sanding block, you can get the finish off pretty quickly and evenly and get really good results...you will lose a little wood this way, but it shouldn't affect the tone too much. i used to sand the faces of some of my strats clean down to the wood, and it really did seem to improve the tone somewhat, probably cuz the wood was free to vibrate and not choked with the finish...

 

or, the best bet, call stewart macdonald guitar supply, and ask one of the techs...they are all great guys and may have some options i don't even know about.

 

good luck mate!

[02R96]

Belt sander with 60 grit paper; finish will be gone in no time!

 

Just kidding!

 

Actually there are new non-toxic strippers that work very well. I don't remember the name, but one I used actually smelled like oranges. No matter what, I believe a bit of light sanding will be needed no matter what method you use.

[pinkjimiphoton]

+1 on the belt sander...lol!

[Lokair]

I have used paint stripper for wood, read and follow the instructions. this is a messy endeavor, but the fastest. Use it liberally and clean the wood after you strip it(I use steel wool). Then you will have to sand it to the desired smoothness. Never ever ever let the stripper dry on it, as this causes the paint to be really hard to remove and may damage the wood and may make any finish you apply to be messed up.

 

I have sanded all the finish off as well. This takes a long time but for an old guitar this is best( and is better controlled for partial refinshes)

 

Lastly the old heat gun, this will work very well, my experience with it is limited, but it worked well on newer paints with less mess.

 

Remember the pick up pockets and neck pockets. I use a flapper wheel on a dremel in the pockets. I also have few tricks to get larger tone out of newer woods .

 

You may be surprised at how nice or badley the wood looks after stripped(I have seen very nice fenders and some with a load of filler in them). Good luck and have fun, never rush the job of.

 

Lok

[Caevan O'Shite]

 

http://www.shawnbreedlove.com/pics/n-stevie-ray-vaughan-05.jpghttp://www.fakeplasticrock.com/wp-content/uploads/jimi-burning.jpg

[picker]

I also have few tricks to get larger tone out of newer woods.

 

Talk to us...

[LeftyBlues]

Caev as always you kill me man! As much as Stevie's gnawin' on it method appeals, as a fellow bass-ackward lefty I feel obliged to follow Jimi down the path to bare wood rightousnes. I started sanding on it but all that did was kick my bursitis (shoulder) up, so me thinks a paint stripper, outside, will be the way to go. If the body has filler or is just not nice looking grain I'll no doubt re-paint it but something other than boring black. Probably a nice blue since it's my favorite color (4 is my favorite #)Thanks as always for the advice gents, and the humor.

[pinkjimiphoton]

I also have few tricks to get larger tone out of newer woods.

 

Talk to us...

 

yah, please do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[pinkjimiphoton]

Caev as always you kill me man! As much as Stevie's gnawin' on it method appeals, as a fellow bass-ackward lefty I feel obliged to follow Jimi down the path to bare wood rightousnes. I started sanding on it but all that did was kick my bursitis (shoulder) up, so me thinks a paint stripper, outside, will be the way to go. If the body has filler or is just not nice looking grain I'll no doubt re-paint it but something other than boring black. Probably a nice blue since it's my favorite color (4 is my favorite #)Thanks as always for the advice gents, and the humor.

 

ya know, Jimi's method does make for a pretty cool lookin' strat!!

 

http://www.strat-central.com/pics/strats/19651971/hndzoom_front.jpg

 

http://www.feelnumb.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/rr-78-06.jpg

[Larryz]

As long as you are ordering the neck...just go ahead and order the Warmoth strat body as well...if you've got a few extra bucks get the Quilt Maple...and just sell that old MIM strat to offset the cost...saves a lot of time and it will look fantastic...

[RocketRobinson]

THAT'S FUUUUNNNY, I loved it, C-Man.

[Lokair]

Getting more tone from a newer bodies, especially alder, is the soak and dry method. I did this with a weak sounding peavey strat, no finish on the body(striped and sanded).

 

Take the body soak it in clean water(I used distilled) for an hour or so then wipe it off using white paper towels then let it dry for five days in a dry environment hanging, rinse and repeat, till when you are wiping it down you get very little staining on the paper towel. this is very basic the cleaner the wood the better it will sound when dryed method mind you I also dried it for a month befor re building this bass. Some manufactures actually do this before they build a guitar.

 

Next up I used this on a strat, It made an improvement but not what I wanted. I took the stripped body and sanded down then used mineral oil (linseed) and soaked it in very good and let it sun dry(the theory being that the sun reacts with the oil. The guitar turned out amazing but the tone was brighter the opposite of what I wanted. A country guy liked it so much he paid me to clear it and still plays it.

 

Alder bass bodies are what I messed with most. The best body I ever built is a thunder bird body that I bought un cut and 7 years kiln dried(i then used the water soak method) then put it between my bass head and my two ten cabinet for four years of playing. When I finnally cut it out and mated it to a neck it sounded amazing, using just Duncan spb-1s pbass pick ups. This bass sounded much more like an old p bass than some of my old pbasses.

 

If you have a lower line guitar or bass feel free to experiment, I got most of my ideas for this from an old guy who just happened to build guitars( acoustic ) , he said go for it when it came to this stuff. He tried some of these same methods and liked the water method best.

 

I also tried an alcohol soak, soaked for an hour and dried, but this was a bass I had already done the water method on, so the results were hard to tell, also the alcohol may have messed up the glue between the body panels. it cracked at a body joint a few months after it was done.

 

Lok

[pinkjimiphoton]

hey lok,

i had a squire II strat someone gave me once, it had been in a basement that had flooded, and had soaked up so much water that the wood actually split by the upper bout where the armrest bevel was...that guitar's body was some kind of ash, and is crazzzzzzzzzzy heavy...and sounds way darker than any strat i've ever played...

do you think that may have influenced the tone when it got soaked like that?

i mean now, almost 20 years later, it's still dark and woody and heavy as hell...

 

http://ph1landrews.com/jp/930x666jimising.jpg

 

can't really find a good pic of the crack, but you can see the general area in this crummy pic near my elbow..

 

http://ph1landrews.com/jp/368x757jimipdlbrd.jpg

 

that is still the grooviest little guitar, and i think i did more shows with it than most of my other guitars combined..

[Lokair]

Well I have not done much with ash, but if it stayed heavy my guess would be it changed and apparently for the better . Now if we could do it again and repeat the results . If I see an ash bodied strat style guitar I may buy it and try it.

 

Lok

[Caevan O'Shite]

Damn, Lokair, that's awesome!

 

Getting more tone from a newer bodies, especially alder, is the soak and dry method. I did this with a weak sounding peavey strat, no finish on the body(striped and sanded).

 

Take the body soak it in clean water(I used distilled) for an hour or so then wipe it off using white paper towels then let it dry for five days in a dry environment hanging, rinse and repeat, till when you are wiping it down you get very little staining on the paper towel. this is very basic the cleaner the wood the better it will sound when dryed method mind you I also dried it for a month befor re building this bass. Some manufactures actually do this before they build a guitar.

 

Next up I used this on a strat, It made an improvement but not what I wanted. I took the stripped body and sanded down then used mineral oil (linseed) and soaked it in very good and let it sun dry(the theory being that the sun reacts with the oil. The guitar turned out amazing but the tone was brighter the opposite of what I wanted. A country guy liked it so much he paid me to clear it and still plays it.

 

Alder bass bodies are what I messed with most. The best body I ever built is a thunder bird body that I bought un cut and 7 years kiln dried(i then used the water soak method) then put it between my bass head and my two ten cabinet for four years of playing. When I finnally cut it out and mated it to a neck it sounded amazing, using just Duncan spb-1s pbass pick ups. This bass sounded much more like an old p bass than some of my old pbasses.

 

If you have a lower line guitar or bass feel free to experiment, I got most of my ideas for this from an old guy who just happened to build guitars( acoustic ) , he said go for it when it came to this stuff. He tried some of these same methods and liked the water method best.

 

I also tried an alcohol soak, soaked for an hour and dried, but this was a bass I had already done the water method on, so the results were hard to tell, also the alcohol may have messed up the glue between the body panels. it cracked at a body joint a few months after it was done.

 

Lok