Stripping

[nomusicnolife555]

okay, so im refinishing an old rg body i have, and it has a couple chips here and there and whatnot, but im trying to strip it using a gel/chemical but its not having any effect. its been on for 30 minutes and it hasnt shown any sign of working. is there something im doing wrong?

[Nitefly SA]

have you scrapped it to check? on a few bodies ive stripped it looks the same but came right off when touched

[nomusicnolife555]

have you scrapped it to check? on a few bodies ive stripped it looks the same but came right off when touched

yeah and it did nothing at all...we have a heater on it because its about 40 degrees outside, but were also in the garage which is warmer, but its not terribly cold either. and are all strippers gel?

Edited March 12, 2006 by nomusicnolife555

[Nitefly SA]

no, some are liquid, but the one i used was gel , "stripease" or something like that. check the label to see if there are minimum time requirements

[nomusicnolife555]

its 15-30 minutes...but my dad was wondering, on this rg theres almost a "laminate" coat on top that isnt getting touched by the stripper...is that something that most guitars have, or something else?

[Nitefly SA]

ibanez is famous for their clear coat, not only is it very thick, its also very hard, you may need to do some sanding to penetrate it

Edited March 12, 2006 by Nitefly SA

[nomusicnolife555]

okay. and if im planning on refinishing everything electronics, hardware...should i get rid of the electrical paint in the cavities, and use electrical tape when i refinish, or should i leave it?

[nomusicnolife555]

alright update, i know nitefly, you said that the coats on ibanez are thick, but ive been using a palm sander for about 2.5 hours and i havent seen any grain at all. the paint is off but now its this pale, pale red that looks like part of the finish...i also can see from the chip that until i for sure hit grain, ill have to sand another couple mm's. do i need to hit grain before i can refinish?

[GodBlessTexas]

alright update, i know nitefly, you said that the coats on ibanez are thick, but ive been using a palm sander for about 2.5 hours and i havent seen any grain at all. the paint is off but now its this pale, pale red that looks like part of the finish...i also can see from the chip that until i for sure hit grain, ill have to sand another couple mm's. do i need to hit grain before i can refinish?

Only if you want to reseal the body before painting.

GBT

[Southpa]

What plans do you have for this guitar? Just repaint in solid color or do you want to see wood grain? If you just plan to paint then you need go no further, just sand smooth, shoot primer so you have a uniform color, and shoot top/clearcoat.

Strippers are most effective on varnish type coatings. I've had good results with an aerosol stripper called "Circa 1850" which I used on an old archtop. But the paint etc. thickness on those style of guitars is much thinner than that put on solidbodies. Your best bet with those real thick coatings is to attack it with a heat gun while scraping. When you get it down to where you can see wood grain you can use paint stripper. I'll bet you're going through a lot of discs with that palm sander. The friction generated by sanding melts the finish and clogs up the paper. I've done my fair share of guitar, furniture and boat stripping and have learned what works best, the hard way, over the years.

[Racer X]

Welcome to the wonderful world of poly finishes.

[Craig]

I just finished stripping an RG body, and I had great results with a palm sander and 80 grit sandpaper. I tried the stripper first, but it didn't do a THING to that clearcoat. After the clearcoat was gone I went down to 120 grit paper to take the paint and primer off. Looks great!!

The guy who had this "project body" before me tried the heat gun thing. It burned some of the wood which I had to grind out with a Dremel. After it was all done I filled the missing wood and gouges with Bondo. If it wasn't for the color of the Bondo, you wouldn't have known that body had some serious damage to it.

[1576]

Chemical strippers wont touch a polyester finish, you have to sand it off if you really must get down to bare wood. As has already been said, however, if you're doing a solid colour then just sand the whole thing flat to about 240 grit and then do your colour and clear coats on top.

[redwall89]

on the guitar i just stripped useing a gel stripper i first took an automatic sander and scuffed up all the clear coat/ laminate stuff over the paint. then applied the stripper with excess like where it was visibly more then u needed because the instructions on the can told me to do so. waited 15 min did a test wasn't long enuf waited another 15 came back and it came right off with only a few trobble spots.