Boston_rocker51

I have a neck-thru tele style guitar (see avatar). It is mostly mahogany and the neck is mahogany and thin maple laminate. I don't like the way the maple stands out and want to stain it darker brown & clear coat the guitar. It has some very thin kinda clearcoat on it originally, which I'm stipping away as I type. It felt "fast" when I ran my hand over it, very flat/satin, not glossy at all, like very smooth dry wood. The original clearcoat is probably some cheapo fast drying stuff, it turns white if sanded, it has not filled top grain of the wood at all. Any idea what that stuff is? I like the way it feels, and woul not mind having that kinda finish once it's darker brown. I'm a newbie, but I'd like it to look decent and not like a hack job... Once I strip it, should I prep the maple to accept the new paint/stain better? Can you tell me what to use to prep the maple, or if I really need to do that at all?? For stripper I'm using Citristrip (orange) stripping gel. Nice smell, works ok and biodegradable. I need help with... fast, fairly fool-proof ways to stain it & clear coat it... brush, airbrush, whatevah! for stain thinking darker brown & cover up the maple, get an even color - thinking of using Minwax red mahogany wood finish since I have some floating around. Tried it on the back & it looked pretty good, but I would like to have the grain show as much as possible - a dichotomy, since I want to cover the maple, but still have grain showing. I have more pics & will send if you can give me your addy - they are on my camera or hard drive, not posted on a URL friendly site. I have one: http://img455.imageshack.us/img455/7238/img0185kl3.jpg I am a total newbie around refinishing guitars, have read a lot on it lately and just want to get this done. Don't care how I do it, but doubt I have the patience for a time consuming/fragile finish like French Polish or nitro. Any suggestions, please? If it seems best, I was thinking of maybe using Stew-Mac stuff, blow it on w/ an airbrush kit from ebay (about $30 shipped). I bought a can of minwax "Fast-Drying" Polyurethane (clear satin) and tested on the back of the guitar - it was ok but seemed to take about 24 hours before the finish felt smooth & fast at all and still was not as good as ther original finish. I just stripped the face of the headstock, the finish there almost flaked when I wiped it off. Don't know if it's the stripper or finish or both causing that. Looks nice, tho.

Can you get the plexi beveled on the edges, maybe a 45 degree angle? If it were done well, you could glue it or screw it (or both) and hot have to recess it or remove a lot of wood... just a suggestion....

Probably faster & cheaper to send it to Antonio Tsai's shop in Vietnam and have them do it. Their work is great! I have his addy if ya want. Even w shipping, it's prob cheaper & quicker to have them do it. Also - MOP dust is nasty, be careful working this material.

nice links - thanks for posting them - do you ahve any pics of the job you can post? very interested in what you may have done....

I know you posted a long time ago ()7+ months), but it is plain silly to refinish any vintage guitar if you want to preserve ANY collector value. You will GREATLY devalue the axe by doing anything at all to it. Now, if it's been modded, pickups replaced, repairs, bad wear that really would look better re-done, go for it - hell, it's your axe, give it a money grip and reshape it if ya want, but *don't* expect to get back what you put into it. Ever. Now, if'n I had a 1970 SG, I'd live with it's dents & dings and not eff with it, period. I have a 1980 SG that's a mongrel. I don't care what happens to it and I still won't mod it any more. It was cheap and has it's primary value in the headstock and not in it's body, pups, or whatever. Got any pics of your project? Very curious about what you did... keep rockin'