Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

d1dsj

d1dsj

Cornographer
I have a great see thru' blonde ASAT but wanna strip back to ash as I also have a Blonde Legacy. Don't like having 2 the same colour anyway and Legacy looks a cooler in that colour! The finish looks thick, so what's the best way to remove it and be sure that it's all out of the grain???? I wanna then stain it like a '52 Tele and put a black plate on.

Thanks for any help.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

As far as I know, which doesn't mean jack (:)), the only real way to remove it is to sand it down slowly and painfully. Keep sanding it! I've never done it, but that's what I hear.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

I've heard heat gun, but I have never done it. Hopefully someone will chime in with more info about it.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

I've heard the heat gun too and always thought it sounded fun, but I've always just sanded (for dayssss)
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

That's an ugly, nasty job. Really. You'd be better off selling the guitar and getting what you want.

Bill
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

It's a pain in the booty, but it can be done. Heat gun or sanding is your best bet, but it's a job one way or the other..
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

A tactical nuke ought to do it from what I read and from the looks of mine.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

napalm as i think Zerb once said.

stuff just dont come off
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

I really don't like the sound of this... I'm going to investigate these places that do door stripping, I think they dip them in an acid bath or something? If that ain't happenin' then I'll leave well alone! Thanks for the words of caution tho', 'coz i reckon I'd have regreted it as this is a great guitar.. never found a Tele that feels like this... just wanted it to look like a '52. It's my mates fault 'coz he's got me on the '52 Tele thing.. he's thinking of having that one off Hoss. Thanks again guys.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

I've stripped 3 poly-painted guitars using Citri-Strip brand paint stripper. It's messy, but it's non-toxic. I bought the cans at Wal-Mart, and it'll probably take an entire can to strip it.

Get some gloves (It says it can burn your skin. It definitely discolors it.), a paint scraper and/or a good brush or scrubbing pad, and a drop cloth (unless you have a good place to do it where you don't care about the floor or whatever you're doing it over). You'll need several coatings - the first coat won't look like it did much of anything. I think most if not all of the ones I stripped were done in a day. I'd spray it down and leave it for an hour or two.

Click the link in my sig and go to the "Matt's Frankenstrat" folder. There are a couple of pictures of the stripping process as well as some of the things I used to strip it.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

It depends on how much your time is worth to you. By the time you spend $30 in stripper, gloves, disposable brushes, etc, you might as well buy an inexpensive power sander. A belt sander might be a bit excessive for the job, but an orbital sander will cut a lot faster than your arm can, and still gives you enough control not to sand through the finish unevenly and take away too much wood.

Even with an orbital sander (all I had at the time) stripping my old Ibanez took the better part of two whole days. I tried two different strippers on it, neither of which did much to remove the finish.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

if you are lucky, and if the guitar was finished properly in the 1st place then there shouldnt be any poly in the grain at all. Ash should be grain sealed and then sander sealed which shouldnt allow any poly into the wood itself....in an ideal world anyways
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

JacksonMIA said:
I've stripped 3 poly-painted guitars using Citri-Strip brand paint stripper. It's messy, but it's non-toxic. I bought the cans at Wal-Mart, and it'll probably take an entire can to strip it.

Get some gloves (It says it can burn your skin. It definitely discolors it.), a paint scraper and/or a good brush or scrubbing pad, and a drop cloth (unless you have a good place to do it where you don't care about the floor or whatever you're doing it over). You'll need several coatings - the first coat won't look like it did much of anything. I think most if not all of the ones I stripped were done in a day. I'd spray it down and leave it for an hour or two.

Click the link in my sig and go to the "Matt's Frankenstrat" folder. There are a couple of pictures of the stripping process as well as some of the things I used to strip it.
Click to expand...

That reminds me of a mix my dad does with lime stone and a couple other ingredients. Nasty stuff, you'd only use it if you don't care about your health or the surface. He laid off of making it cause it would eat anything it was place in. Gloves couldn't handle it.
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

Elbow grease or sandblasting.

Practically everything else short of ballistic projectiles will not faze it at all... Napalm might...
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

Zerberus said:
Napalm might...
Click to expand...

I dunno, I have this vision of :rocket: napalming a polyurethane finish, only to let it cool and discover that the hard plastic-like shell still remains and that the wood inside the shell has been burned to ashes. :firedevil
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

source%20dryer.jpg


It actually works, heat up small sections at a time and it will peel off like sunburnt skin!
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

After you all got rid of the poly and repainted it with (nitro or other finish) did the guitar sound any better?
 
Re: Polyurethane finish.. best way to remove?

We would all like to think so... but when I stripped off the finish of my Ibanez I was disappointed tonally. The wood was so bad that Finish + Wood > Wood.

Depressing, huh?
 
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