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Can you remove poly finish from guitar?
I’ve found the best way to cleanly and easily strip polyurethane finish of this type is to use a hair dryer or heat gun and a flexible putty knife (Photo 3). Lightly scoring a starting point in the finish with a sharp putty knife will give you a good entry point once the finish is heated.
How do you strip off polyurethane?
To create your remover, you need to mix denatured alcohol with lacquer thinner. You can mix them with a stick. This combination is excellent for stripping polyurethane. It is also great because it removes the varnish only, but it isn’t harmful to the wood.
How much does it cost to strip a guitar finish?
Varnish and Lacquer can probably cost you around $300-400 just for the finish itself. Stripping the body and neck will cost you around $100 each, with poly finishes being the hardest and costliest to strip.
What do you seal a guitar with?
There are many different types of finishes for guitars and musical instruments in general, but we could say the most used are: Oils and Waxes. Shellac. Nitrocellulose.
Can you use polyurethane on a guitar?
The two types of finishes traditionally used on guitars are nitro-cellulose lacquer and polyurethane. Most guitar companies use polyurethane. Fender used nitro until the late 1960s and Martin and Gibson still use nitro finishes on their guitars.
How can I tell if my guitar finish is nitro or poly?
If you are not sure if your finish is nitro or poly (polyester or polyurethane) you can find it out with the following trick: take some ordinary paint thinner and apply it to a tiny spot of the finish (e.g. under the pickguard or near the tremolo springs). If it solves the finish (paint is removed or it becomes dull) it is nitro, if not it is poly.
What kind of paint do you use on a guitar?
Many modern guitars are finished with polyurethane by the way, which is a bit similar to polyester but thinner so the sound is not that much affected. Removing polyester is tricky. The problem is that chemical paint strippers in most cases will not work.
Is it worth it to refinish a Japanese guitar?
Even those Japanese vintage guitars like the first Squiers, Tokai Springy Sounds, Grecos and so on, will be worth more with the original finish, even if it is poly (the more expensive ones were sometimes nitro anyway). If you however have a guitar that was refinished anyway, you have not much to lose.
How long does it take to sand a plastic guitar?
It takes ages to sand through such a thick plastic coat. This time I tried something else, something that was recommended in a guitar forum: heat. I used a cheap heat gun and a scraper, and with these tools the finish was off in about 2.5 hours, including the control cavity.