How to totally screw up your guitar

[|iR|Focalor]

I have an old 1984 BC Rich Mockingbird. It's a very hideous hot pink. I guess all the kids wanted a hot pink crazy looking guitar like C.C. Deville back then. When I bought it, I didn't really care about the color, I always thought I would just have someone refinish it. That was before I found out how insanely expensive it was to have a guitar refinished,... more than the damn thing would be worth even after the new paint job.

So today I finally grew the balls to attempt refinishing it myself. All I'm using to remove the finish is my bare hands and some sandpaper. No sanding block, just holding the paper and scrubbing away like a psycho. I've got some terrific blisters on my thumbs, it's too bad I didn't get any pictures of them, they're really bulbous lookin'.

Just working on the body for now. I'm not sure if I'm going to try buffing off the finish down to the wood on the neck piece yet. The neck will be pretty tricky. I'd like to leave the serial number in tact, and it's embedded in the clear coat layer on the back of the headstock. The front of the headstock is black, so I won't need to do any removing on that part, no problems with the logo there. I'm also afraid I may completely fuck up the sides of the rosewood fingerboard if I try sanding the finish off the neck. I'd like to be able to leave the clear coat in tact on the edges of the fingerboard. As a finished product, I'd really prefer the back of the neck to have NO finish on it at all, just wood.

Here's what I've done so far...





I had the front of it wallpapered with tons of stickers. You can see all the leftover gluey gunk it left behind. I'm starting on the back in case I make any major fuckups that I might be able to learn from before I start on the front. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about refinishing it once I'm done. I may just leave it naked. Perhaps I'll stain it a walnut color and then clear coat it. It's also occured to me that if I got really ambitious, perhaps I could do a stained racing stripe design down the middle to make it look like the old classic Mockingbirds from the 70's.

[[BTF]Sigma]

Might help, might not:

Use lighter fluid or WD40 to remove the residue from the stickers' gluebacks. Pick up some thin/easily trimmable plastic to mask off the clear coat areas that you want kept. Use a non-caustic adhesive that's not known for it's best performance (aka Elmer's School Brand) and just affix the plastic in place with a couple dabs of the glue. Sand around the plastic because it will be resistant to the paper/pad approach. This should keep the areas that you want protected from being sanded back too much.

Good luck.

[|iR|Focalor]

Yeah, I've worked in commercial construction doing pipefitting, refrigeration, sheet metal, etc a good bit, so I'm definitely no stranger to having to "afro-engineer" something in order to get the job done. Using sandpaper and my bare hands is about as caveman and afro-engineered as it could possibly be. I've thought about ways I could cover the parts I don't want touched by the grit of the sandpaper. I'm using 60 grain paper to scrub off the majority of the clear coat and base paint. It appears as though there is a light pink primer layer under all that. What I'm trying to do at the moment is buff it down to the light pink with the heavy duty stuff, then use a 220 grain paper to remove the primer so that the larger grains on the 60 paper won't leave any deeper scratches on the wood that I'll have to sand away with the 220 paper later. You can kinda see spots on the wood where I've sanded a little more that I should have, the wood gets lighter in spots and almost looks like water spots on it.

Anywho, I'm not sure if I have any plastic that would do a good job of protecting the rosewood. Rosewood is pretty porous and I'm afraid that if I try applying any glue near it, it would stick to the face of the fingerboard and ruin the appearance of it once I tried to remove it. Plus, I believe that the sandpaper would eventually destroy the edge of the plastic and I'd start marring up the clear coat around the fingerboard. I have some pieces of sheet metal, but then I'd probably end up slicing my fingers open on it. I'm thinking about the only thing I could do would be to maybe use some kind of rotary sanding head to inch my way towards the edges of the fingerboard.

The glue on the front wasn't much of a problem since I knew I was going to remove the finish anyway. But yeah, it would probably be a good to get it off before I start sanding that side. It could gunk up the sandpaper and be a headache. I went digging through the mountains of power tools, parts, and other assorted garbage in the basement yesterday looking for some Goo-Gone and never found it. I was also looking through my grandfathers old woodworking tools trying to find a sanding block. I found every kind of dowel jig, plane, and assorted carving tool under the sun, but no sanding block, which is why I'm using my bare hands anyway. Oh, of course I got this old 15 pounder Craftsman electric belt sander from the 1970's, but that's a little like overkill.

[ReCycled]

There must be good advice on the net on how to do all that.

My 72 Les Paul had the finish develop a bunch of very fine cracks on the surface paint of the body and underside of the neck. Apparently you're not supposed to leave your guitar in the trunk of the car, overnight, when it's minus 30 outside. Well hell, it was in it's case. Anyway I like it. It shows character and history.

[[BTF]Sigma]

Following the good advice idea...try calling your local guitar shop. They must know some guy who refinishes guitars that you can talk to and get a few pointers.

Actually, I think I am going to do that b/c our car has a scratched rim that's been burning in my mind to get repaired. The dealership has a guy who repairs them as if it was factory fresh (unless you get, like, a foot away from it). I should call him and see if he'll show me how it's done for a case of beer and GC for some steak house.

[|iR|Focalor]

There must be good advice on the net on how to do all that.

My 72 Les Paul had the finish develop a bunch of very fine cracks on the surface paint of the body and underside of the neck. Apparently you're not supposed to leave your guitar in the trunk of the car, overnight, when it's minus 30 outside. Well hell, it was in it's case. Anyway I like it. It shows character and history.

NOOOooooooooooooOOOOOOOooooooooo!!!!1!

Extreme temperatures, high or low, can drastically effect the tone of a guitar. There could be problems like neck relief, where the neck will actually bend ever so slightly and completely ruin the intonation. A good indication that that is a problem is when you get all the strings tuned perfectly, and the 5th fret notes will be perfectly in tune with playing the open string above it, but if you attempt to play the same note on adjacent strings on up towards the 12th fret, they will be slightly different. If it's bad enough, you can take one eye and look down the length of the neck towards the headstock from behind the bridge and actually SEE the curvature. Sometimes it'll bow up, sometimes it'll twist at a slight radius on one side or both sides. If you're really familiar with the feel of the guitar, you may even be able to FEEL how the action of the strings changes at certain points on the fretboard. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think set necks and glued-on necks are more susceptible to relief. I'm not sure if it's something like a Les Paul Special, even those are probably not bolt-on neck guitars, I'd guess it's probably a Standard.

The cracking isn't really much of a problem though. That often happens with older guitars when they are subjected to radical temperatures and humidity changes. I'd guess if they slapped on about 10 or 15 more layers of clear coat, it might be a little more durable and prevent that unsightly cracking from ever occuring, but that would probably change the tonal characteristics of the guitar too. As far as I know, Les Pauls are mainly made of mahogany and almost always have a radiused maple cap over the face of the body, and that maple top along with the mahogany body wood is where it gets its deeper warm tone from. Too much finish would probably cause it to vibrate differently and create more of a higher crisper tone.

If I were you, I'd just live with it. I certainly wouldn't have the balls to attempt refinishing a 70's model Les Paul myself, you're talking a MAJOR fuckup if you screw that job up. If you really want it fixed, take it to some old fart with a LOOOOOOONG history of doing refinishing. Perhaps he could work some magic and keep from removing any of the original paint under the clear coat. Even then, it may just be better to leave it alone. Older Gibsons are expensive as hell and most people prefer to keep them completely original and untouched as possible to increase their value and attractiveness to collectors. If you paid to have it refinished,... be prepared to take out a nice loan or pawn your Lexus and house.

[ReCycled]

This happened quite a while ago. I'm guessing around 79--> 80. I just forgot about it (in the trunk) and it turned really cold that night. So this many years later, I would have noticed an out of tune condition along the way. It desperately needs a re-fret though (original frets). If I was still living in Ontario that would be no problem because they are many expert technicians there. But Nova Scotia has barely 900 thousand people in the whole province and is less sophisticated. Here's a pic - you've seen thousands of these.

[Skillz]

fuck u recycled that guitar is the shit, but it weights like 50 pounds

[ReCycled]

... but it weights like 50 pounds...

That's how it gets it's sustain on notes. Also makes a good support for the neck.
 

[|iR|Focalor]

Maybe my eyeballs aren't working right, but those don't look like the typical PAF humbuckers, those look a little slimmer like P90 soapbars.

[ReCycled]

Maybe my eyeballs aren't working right, but those don't look like the typical PAF humbuckers, those look a little slimmer like P90 soapbars.

It's a stock 71 or 72. If I can find my camera, I'll take a shot of them up close. I guess I should check the serial number too.
 

[|iR|Focalor]

They look a little slimmer than most of the hums I've typically seen on Les Pauls. If I'm not mistaken, soapbars are actually not humbuckers, they have one coil around a larger magnet than what is usually used in a single coil pickup that is typically found on Stratocasters and Telecasters. They have a springy tone like single coils but a little beefier. I don't know if Gibson makes them anymore, but they used to make a model called the Nighthawk back in the 90's that was pretty similar in appearance to a Les Paul but on a slightly smaller scale and I think it had smaller pickups just like that too. Then again, those probably ARE regular humbuckers and my eyeballs are just fucking with me.

[|iR|Focalor]

I abandoned the idea of attempting to completely sand off all the finish. I ended up getting as far as maybe 35% of the finish on the back of the body scrubbed off before I threw in the towel. The sand-paper was doing nothing but marring up the surface of the wood under the finish once I got down to the primer coat. At present, it's all completely reassembled and restrung. One of these days when I get around to it, I'm going to do it CORRECTLY and use some stripper like a sane person. I would still like to remove the finish from the back of the neck without doing anything to damage the fretboard, and since the edges of the fretboard are obviously coated in clearcoat as well,.... If anyone has any advice or any clue on how to accomplish that without possibly causing the fingerboard to come unglued or warped, I'm all ears.

[Th0m@s29]

That is one messed up guitar!

[|iR|Focalor]

Hehe, yeah. I put it all back together and strung it with some old Gibson flatwound jazz 13's. At some point this spring or summer, I'd like get some kinda stripper and take the finish off of it in a much gentler way than scratching the shit out of the wood with sandpaper. That's why I started on the back, I figured if it became an issue, at least the front of it wouldn't end up looking like shit by the time I decided to stop sanding.

I still haven't decided if I'd like to undertake the possibly arduous task of stripping the neck and headstock too. The headstock would be very troublesome. The face of the headstock is black, I don't want to touch that part. But the sides of the headstock are finished pink too, so I want that part gone if at all possible. The back of the headstock has a hologram label embedded in probably the first clearcoat layer, I'd like to leave that. I'm thinking it will be anywhere from "hard as hell" to "virtually impossible" for an amateur like me to do correctly. I'm also not sure if the stripper would cause the fretboard and/or frets to come unglued. I can't remember if the sides of the fretboard are bound, I think they're just clearcoated with pearl dot inlay position markers on the top side.