horrible "sticky" black paint

makepeace

i've just embarked on a semi-restoration project on my harmony h1215. i'm going to be refinishing the neck and fingerboard and doing a refret. the guitar is a fair few decades old, and quite a bit has been done to it in the past wrt "customization". one of the previous owners took the fingerboard off and reglued it in the most horrible manner, and it was actually caved in towards the center and completely unplayable when i got it. whoever did this, and i'm assuming by the quality of that job that was the same person, also sprayed over the faux flame maple sides and neck with a really horrible black paint >☹ i'm trying to identify what it is so i can take it off properly.

i've tried sanding it, but this is not really possible as it feels like the paint is still wet, and it gums up the sandpaper really quickly. :-\

1. its really glossy
2. its really thick
3. it feels sort of rubbery
4. you can scrape it off with your fingernails
5. if you get sweaty hands while playing the paint seems to stick to you, which is the main reason why i'm refinishing

hopefully someone can help identify it. at the moment i'm using a paint scraper to take it off, but its also not working perfectly and i'm damaging the wood a little.

cheers ?

chris77

Sounds like fun. Enjoy! ? I once bought black heat resistant spray (only black they had) and srayed a shelf with it. What. A. Disaster. Exactly what you described. Didn't dry properly and when I sanded it off it was as sticky as toffee and messy as hell. I recall scraping most of it off with a blade and scraper and then sanding it. Way too much effort at the end of the day... Not sure what the best way to remove it would be.

guidothepimmp

haha,

I had that exact problem on an eye gouger I redone... sanding just stuffed it up further... eventually i tried chemical paint stripper and that worked like a charm..

It bubbled up and slid right off.

Dont know whatthe paint was though :-[

AlanRatcliffe

guidothepimmp wrote eventually i tried chemical paint stripper and that worked like a charm..

+1. Chemical stripper works on most paints, especially the softer ones.

makepeace

thanks for the replies guys ? i'll go get some stripper tomorrow as it seems to be the way to go. (i realise that might sound a bit dodgy if not reading in context ???)

made a little bit of progress today:

pulled all of the frets and sanded the fingerboard

trial fitted a fret

(by the way chris, one of those retrotrons you gave me is hiding under that piece of newspaper ?)

here's the horrible paint situation :-\

guidothepimmp

let us know how that stripper works out (err.. the paint stripper..)