WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

[daan]

OK since I was on here last, I quit my old job, and started a new one, and found out Kid #4 was on it's way... so lotta life changes since Summer ended. Anyway, in about August, I had been fooling around online, and found another Matsumoku neck-thru guitar for sale. I already have one of THESE

and really wanted one of THESE to go with it

THese Skylarks came in Blue, Fender scale with 9V booster, or Red Gibson scale with "just" Phase/Coil split/Series-parallel switching. Oh and the Red ones are set-necks, instead of the true neck-thru like the Blue ones.
And, I apparently am now collecting "vintage" Hondos, since I have 3 or 4 70's Hondos now...
Anyway, I had found THIS

which apparently is an early 80s Hondo branded guitar that somebody stripped all the (probably cheap and junky) hardware off, sanded all the Poly finish off and REALLY sloppily applied Green stain to the bare wood.



The cheapest I've seen the Red Skylarks go for, even with buckle rash and/or bad electronics is more than twice what I got this for, so I could make this into something cool and still spend less $ than just buying another completed guitar (which I can't really afford anyway) It's funny, I had been playing my Blue Skylark a lot lately, and thinking "I want another one", and had really forgotten about this Green thing, especially since I DON'T need another project. #4 won't be old enough for me to have any time to play, let alone work on guitars for at least a couple years, and my new job isn't as good salary-wise as the old job was. So out of the blue, I got an email from the guys with the Green thing asking "So do you still want this, we haven't heard back from you about it..." We had to go back and forth a couple times about shipping and stuff, but it's here, and now I have project #650685346834...



So it's in decent enough condition. The neck is straight, the frets need a good dressing, but are OK. I HATE the green, since they couldn't bother to put it on evenly (or on the whole thing) or at least put over a sealer coat of some sort. I REALLY want to take it off to make it almost any other color, I just don't want to sand 1/4 the thickness of the body off just to get it wood color again. Does anyone here have any experience de-staining a body? THe Blue one I have, the color is sprayed OVER a sealer coat (someone had recessed the bridge and there's NO blue in the bridge route) so it would be nice to have the "maple" stripe down the middle if I can. There's some evidence of a Walnut/dark brown color in the control cavity, which might be nice, too.

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question


Oh yeah, the crazy neck joint (rock solid, though)

and it looks like somebody busted off the strap button too-I do have a drill bit to get broken screws out of wood

so (other than having to use a hand drill) that shouldn't be TOO much of a big deal.
What I'd LIKE to do is just get it wood color (it's Ash/Mahogany/Maple), clearcoat it, and get all Black hardware. I'd love to get a set of P-rails and use the HUGE control cavity to put all the complicated switching in there for all the tone options those can do. I'd also make the Ash dark walnut-colored with the center stripe natural (or amber) colored, if I can. I PROBABLY wouldn't make it a Red Skylark clone, but would entertain that option. All the wood I have here is totally raw- completely open grain. THe headstock has the same shape as the Hondo LP-doublecut I've been working on forever, I won't change the shape (it doesn't bother me) but I'd like to veneer it so it's either Ash like the Blue Skylark or plain Maple and paint that black.

Current headstock

DC headstock (before I peeled the vinyl face off)

Skylark headstock

 

[Wattage]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Came across the Westbury version of these the other day. I always liked them

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Cool project! I attempted a stain job on a cheap guitar and re-sanded part of it to go with a different stain, but it didn't turn out well so I will refer to others. lol

 

[scottish]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZQPzbfmKqY

Ive had pretty good results following this video. Might be a little tougher in your case as im pretty sure whoever did the green stain didnt apply a grain filler/sealer first so it could have sunk in pretty good.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

To answer your (long) post...

If the wood was not sealed first, there is no easy way to remove stain. Sanding down to "clean" wood is the only way.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Well, Ill be honest and say that I have no useful help for you for your question. But I will say that the red and blue guitars at the top look cool! Its kinda odd they would do one color with diff neck mounting than the other. And, congrats on yun un number 4! Need one more to catch up to me.. haha

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

So after a hot date with a stripper, I'm down a bunch of green, and it hurts when I pee... Wait, forget that last part! I went and talked to the woodworking guy down the street (cabinet maker we bought our house from, been doing it since about when I was born) He said to get stripper that was "Veneer safe", let it sit on for a good long time (or even wrap it in saran wrap) and then use a green 3M pad and Vinegar to work it off. Well whatta ya know, he was right! I only had an hour or so tonight to work on it, but it's definitely coming off.



He also said to wash it down real good when I was done to keep the stripper from eating whatever new finish I put on, and then coat it in Shellac to seal it up before putting anything else on it. Now I wanna call in to work tomorrow (and find somewhere for the kids to go) so I can finish stripping it!

 

[BloodRose]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Better be careful messing with stripper if you have kid 4 on the way or your possibly soon to be ex will own you... hahaha.. coming along nicely! what ya doing with it once you have it stripped?

 

[uOpt]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Use bleach, household bleach. It will kill many forms of color particles.

Use low concentrations and long periods of time so that it doesn't come out uneven.

And do not do this indoors without breather. VERY SERIOUS. The Germans' first chemical weapon in WW1 was pure chorine gas. It works. And it gets very ugly with random other substances, some of which might be in your original stain.

But it will help a lot. It's also awesome to clean painted maple fretboards before re-sealing them.

 

[sosomething]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Are those body wings oak??

Edit: looking closer, it's probably just really densely-grained ash. Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing the two. Question still stands though.

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

As far as I know, it's Ash... but since it's made "overseas" who really knows. And the plan (so far) is to get all the green off, and MAYBE stain the Ash parts a slightly darker color than it is now. AFTER sealing it! There's some really dark (almost black) stain in the cavities, I won't be going that dark. If any of my crap on the bay sells I'm going for a set of P-rails for it. There's enough room in the control cavity for 623562346345 switches, so I can do crazy wiring if I feel ambitious.

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

I got more of the stain off last night


I can't tell if the grain is full of the green stain or if I'm just pushing the stain further into the grain while I'm stripping it.


It's OK, the stain's coming off without me having to sand half the body off. I THINK I can just grain fill it with something dark-ish to cover the green.
Here's what it probably looked like before:

So somebody got all the dark brown fully off, without wrecking the wood... and then slopped the green stain all over it.

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question


More stripping. Apparently the best way to "unwind" after yet another little kid birthday party is inhaling stripper fumes downstairs. (I SWEAR every one of my wife's friends has 4-5 kids, and one of those little bastards is having a birthday party every weekend...gettin' tired of that)

It's getting cleaner, other than some parts that I think the stain is too far into the wood to get out, without too much sanding. Overall the effect is either I used green grain filler, or the guitar is moldy :eek13:

As far as once it's done, I have some pretty maple veneer for the headstock and I THINK I can tint my grain filler ("Aqua Coat") with one of the 14 bottles of "RIT" my wife has laying around. Some dark grain fill and then clearcoat is the plan so far for a finish. MAYBE I can Tru Oil it, since I have enough left to do about a dozen guitars... if I can oil over the grainfill without dissolving it.
As far as the tone circuit, I really want a set of P-rails for it. Which will cost more than the guitar did. My Skylark has enough controls to launch the Space Shuttle, but the one I use the most is the "Varitone" circuit, and I've found ones on line (and there's more than enough space for it in the control cavity) I just have to sell something to pay for all that. I should just focus on finishing the wood first, though...

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question



It's just about done being stripped. I've hit all sides of it 3X now, followed by a good scrubbing with Vinegar and a green Scotchbrite pad (what the stripper instructions said to do)
Next is sanding, which should get even more of the old color off. I bought a couple colors of Brown/Tan RIT dye and am tinting my grain filler (Aqua Coat) to grain fill the Ash, which SHOULD cover up some of the green in the grain. I want to stain the Maple parts yellow-ish like they would have been originally, but now I don't know what I want to do to the Ash. Maybe color, maybe just some tinted clear... who knows at this point.
It's come a long way from THIS

to THIS though

 

[daan]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question


OK so I tried cleaning up some of the stripper/stain residue with Ammonia (what my cabinet-maker buddy told me to use) A LOT of green came off with this latest round, once I'm sure it's all dried up and/or cleaned off, I'm taking it outside and CAREFULLY taking some bleach to it (with my painting respirator on, since I'm paranoid)
Also after lots of research, I found out that Matsumoku (the guys who made Westones, Arias, Vantages (and many, many more) PROBABLY didn't make this. APparently they sent a lot of their equipment/guys over to Korea when Japan got "too expensive" for a lot of the jobbers buying cheap guitars back in the day. APparently they ran off a bunch of direct copies of various Mats. designs, and it doesn't suprise me that they slapped whatever brand name they had on it to sell. (Compare "Washburn Eagles" to "Lotus Wing" guitars, same deal there) Whatever, I don't care where my guitar was made. Ive had more Korean guitars than anything else at this point anyway.
I successfully tinted a bunch of my grain filler, so that's next now.

 

[Demanic]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

You've come a long way. Don't get discouraged that you still have a long way to go.

 

[Rand-O-Monium]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

Looks Great!

I'd do Trans Blk w/ Amber stripe...

Yum.

 

[rgand]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

That's looking really good. I look forward to seeing what it finally looks like.

 

[JOLLY]

Re: WTF was I thinking, and Stain Removal Question

I bet that guitar would look great in just its natural color.