Always Learning - (heh, I feel like that should be the title of the blog!) 

I’ve been working on a refinish for a Squier VM Jaguar, and I took the opportunity to try out some new methods in stripping the factory finish. These VM Squiers are from the Indonesian plant and are finished in polyurethane, extremely thick polyurethane, so sanding the entire body was something I wasn’t looking forward to. I decided to try out “other” methods as, there’s no progression without experimentation I say. 

Photo 1 - Well if you have ever jumped online and looked for ways to strip a guitar, no doubt you will have come across countless articles and forums and arguments, detailing the pros and cons of paint stripper. I’m really not a supporter of introducing harsh chemicals into the environment, and although there are “natural” strippers such as citri-strip out there, it’s all pretty nasty stuff. Nasty, and it didn’t really work for me. Most of what is removed from the body in the photo is actually from sanding after removing the strip product, that did soften the finish a little, but no where near enough to make it any less of a chore, so I called it quits with that stuff pretty quickly. 

Photo 2 - The heat gun method. Again something I had never tried before but had seen many videos of folks having great success with it. In a lot of videos you will see paint peeling off in large pieces about the size of your hand or bigger. For me, it was more like finger sized slivers but I could instantly appreciate the process and I feel that with a little more practice, I’ll be able to manage the task without charing the timber as you can see pictured. One little spot of trouble I ran into was deciding what heat to run at and how far to hold the heat gun away. Many blogs detailing the process don’t go into what heat to run at, or the wattage of their heat gun. Mine is a 2000 Watt gun, and I ran it at about 600 Degrees celcius, so that’s about 1100F. I think the heat was about right, but I could have done with moving the gun more frequently and holding it a good 15-20cm away from the body - at times I was practically holding it nearly directly on the paint. That’s a negative folks :) 

Photo 3 - Stripped and sanded back. As I’m intending on a “natural” stained finish, I couldn’t really leave the char marks like they were. Thankfully the heat gun had done such a great job that it really was only burn marks to take care of and quick work was made of them. There are faint remains of some marks, but I’m really not too bothered by them and doubt they will be visible (in fact as I type this I already know they won’t because I’ve started staining but haven’t gotten around to uploading the photo’s yet). Sanded to 220 and ready to go. Being Basswood (super soft) it could pay to start with a sealer coat, as stains can appear blotchy, and there is tonnes of advice out there to read through on that. For me, a really simple wipe with Danish Oil, and then onto the stain. 

Results soon.