ItsaBass
New member
Several months ago, I bought this '95 Godin G-4000 cheap from my friend, who was moving to Baltimore. He asked me to sell it for him, to send him $100, and to keep anything over that. But it was such a good guitar that I just bought it for $100 instead.
It is a great sounding guitar, and has a cool and interesting set of specs. It is basically a Strat. However, it has a Gibson scale length and 24 frets. The body is either maple or basswood. I get conflicting spec sheets when I look it up. Looks and feels like maple, but it's almost feather light. It came stock with Schaller locking tuners and a Schaller Tremolo 2000 (both black and gold). The body is a thin polyurethane, and the neck is nitrocellulose lacquer. It is U.S.A. made, and better in quality than modern day MIA Fenders IMHO.
There were problems, though. First off, the body was just ugly as sin. The bottom horn's kind of like a Jag/Jazzmaster, but the top horn's a toucan beak, kind of like an Ibanez RG, only bigger. I didn't think I could be seen in public with it. LOL. Second, while the original finish was a cool blue burst, there was some bad marring on the front. Thirdly, the pick guard was badly warped.
It looked like this, except the pickups and knobs were black, and the pick guard was white. Also, there are no string trees on mine:
So, I came up with a plan. I want to strip the body, reshape that godawful horn, repaint it in nitrocellulose lacquer from ReRanch, and make a new pick guard for it. I obviously couldn't find a virtual Godin builder, so I used a virtual Jazzmaster builder. The guitar won't look like a Jazzmaster in the end, but this helps give an idea. This is the basic cosmetic design I decided on. The main differences are that the tuners and bridge on the Godin are black and gold. I will also be applying the white directly to the wood (no primer), and skipping the heavy clear coating process; I may just put on one or two coats of clear. So it should show the wood a tiny bit, and "relic" relatively quickly.
I got a wild hair the other day, and got to work. I took it apart and started stripping it. These pix are after a few passes with polyurethane stripper and a putty knife. I focused most of my energy on the back, but I ran out of light before I could finish. I will finish the next time I have some time to work outside.
You can chemically strip polyurethane. You need to get the hardcore stripper (containing methylene chloride), dirty up the finish with 80 or 100 grit sandpaper, let it have some time to work, and be patient. It takes time, but it can be done, and IMO the final results are much better than sanding in the end. No plastic sanding dust all over the place. No accidentally mis-shaping the body, rounding off contours, or getting sanding marks on it. You just end up with a bunch of goop on some newspapers, which you let dry.
Anyhow, project, and project thread, under way. Wish me luck.
It is a great sounding guitar, and has a cool and interesting set of specs. It is basically a Strat. However, it has a Gibson scale length and 24 frets. The body is either maple or basswood. I get conflicting spec sheets when I look it up. Looks and feels like maple, but it's almost feather light. It came stock with Schaller locking tuners and a Schaller Tremolo 2000 (both black and gold). The body is a thin polyurethane, and the neck is nitrocellulose lacquer. It is U.S.A. made, and better in quality than modern day MIA Fenders IMHO.
There were problems, though. First off, the body was just ugly as sin. The bottom horn's kind of like a Jag/Jazzmaster, but the top horn's a toucan beak, kind of like an Ibanez RG, only bigger. I didn't think I could be seen in public with it. LOL. Second, while the original finish was a cool blue burst, there was some bad marring on the front. Thirdly, the pick guard was badly warped.
It looked like this, except the pickups and knobs were black, and the pick guard was white. Also, there are no string trees on mine:
So, I came up with a plan. I want to strip the body, reshape that godawful horn, repaint it in nitrocellulose lacquer from ReRanch, and make a new pick guard for it. I obviously couldn't find a virtual Godin builder, so I used a virtual Jazzmaster builder. The guitar won't look like a Jazzmaster in the end, but this helps give an idea. This is the basic cosmetic design I decided on. The main differences are that the tuners and bridge on the Godin are black and gold. I will also be applying the white directly to the wood (no primer), and skipping the heavy clear coating process; I may just put on one or two coats of clear. So it should show the wood a tiny bit, and "relic" relatively quickly.
I got a wild hair the other day, and got to work. I took it apart and started stripping it. These pix are after a few passes with polyurethane stripper and a putty knife. I focused most of my energy on the back, but I ran out of light before I could finish. I will finish the next time I have some time to work outside.
You can chemically strip polyurethane. You need to get the hardcore stripper (containing methylene chloride), dirty up the finish with 80 or 100 grit sandpaper, let it have some time to work, and be patient. It takes time, but it can be done, and IMO the final results are much better than sanding in the end. No plastic sanding dust all over the place. No accidentally mis-shaping the body, rounding off contours, or getting sanding marks on it. You just end up with a bunch of goop on some newspapers, which you let dry.
Anyhow, project, and project thread, under way. Wish me luck.
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