REMOVING CLEAR COAT AND PAINT FROM NECK

shadow1 · 2010-01-07T15:20:10+00:00

OKay so the guitar in question is my BELOVED 7 string RG, im not a fan of playing 7 strings (im still trying to master the 6) BUT i love this things tone......

REMOVING CLEAR COAT AND PAINT FROM NECK

Wizard

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Careful with stripper on a fingerboard - dots and binding are usually plastic and don't take kindly to the stuff.

+1
Have firsthand experience of this.
Paint stripper "melted" the dots and plastic nut of an old cheap neck I acquired for experimentation.

Also tricky to get the coating off next to the frets without scratching the fingerboard.
Especially higher up the neck where the gaps get a little small.

Sean

Goodness, why would someone want to spray a fretboard ? For all the trouble you need to go through now, I hope you got the guitar at an insanely knocked down price ?

singemonkey

Wow. What madness. But I guess you'll learn a whole lot by correcting this insane mistake. That's going to be a lot of careful scraping without taking the frets off. But hopefully it'll all work out alright and you'll have a great guitar. Should be easy to do the body too - then you could refinish it to look really good - after getting advice from the gurus on the forum of course, unlike the last guy ?

21Fretter

BUMP! I bought this guitar from shadow and I've also gotten sick of the paintjob, he obviously didn't get around to it ?, so I have decided to take on the task of fixing it up while on my break from work. Now that you guys know what the guitar looks like and what I've got to deal with it should help the process ? I only saw this thread now when i decided to go a on a search-a-thon to find out where i can get paint at what not for the body so forgive my other threads where i was just talking about an almost theoretical guitar if you know what i mean.

I've read the entire thread twice but I'm not 100% on which conclusion you guys came to in regards to removing the paint on the fretboard. I would prefer to not remove the frets so was it just slaving away very carefully at it with a scraper?

AlanRatcliffe

Yep, that's it.

21Fretter

It was suggested i should use a Stanley knife blade and it so happened that i had a surgical knife blade lying around (lol wtf) so i thought that was pretty much the same thing and decided to give it a try. Only been trying on biggish fret just so i have maneuvering room but i seem to be taking off a bit of wood here and there when i actually do manage to get any paint off (it just doesn't want to come off). The "Paint God" on UG said i should still use paint stripper with all the info laid out i.e. knows it's on the fretboard, seen the pictures etc etc. This feels like it will take an eternity (if it is even possible). Is my "technique" flawed maybe. I don't mind having to sand the wood and what not to get it back to a decent state if the chemicals are going to damage the wood a bit if it's going to make my life a lot easier. What do you homies think?

Gearhead

NO. That's what this bro thinks.
If your lacquer is too hard for scraping you will battle with chemicals anyway imho. The next thing is to have a go at it with a heat gun. You heat up a part of the paint with the gun, so it will become either brittle or flexible. Either way, it then scrapes off much more easily. Don't heat up more than you can scrape when hot and don't heat bare wood until it is black.
The downside to all this is you will heat up frets, too. If you are lucky this will not matter, but any one of them might pull. This would leave you with no other option than to refret at least part of the board - pretty inevitable anyway if you want to sand and get a flat board.

21Fretter

☹ Why did this guy possibly paint his fretboard. I'm seriously just thinking of buying a new neck or just getting someone else to do it since the possibility of me screwing this up badly and ending the same result, getting a new neck or getting someone to do it, has just increased greatly. I'll try find out what a heat gun costs, where i can find it, what's entailed in refretting etc (saw someone posted a supposedly awesome Youtube channel on refretting, thanks for that and will check it out) and then weigh the options. Maybe will leave the neck for now and just do the body over the my holiday break and then come back to the fretboard when i have a bit more experience.

guitarboy2828

Is it unplayable with paint on it? Does it just look rubbish? If it's just looks, leave it! Seriously! It's not worth the hassel and the risk in my mind!

21Fretter

Ja, I'm starting to sway towards that decision as well. It's completely playable. Just looks stupid imo. Was keen to do it just as a "fun" guitar project but this just seems it's definitely the wrong place to start if i want to ease myself into this type of stuff. Like i said, i think I might just go for the body refinish and then come back to this in the future.

Okay..so for bodies which route do you guys like? I've tried sanding on an old body before, wasn't bad but I'm keen to give chemical strip a try http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/chem.htm.

AlanRatcliffe

Chemical stripper will eat most fret position dots too (unless they are shell). As GH said, heat may well pop the frets (especially if they are glued, which is common).

Is your blade flat? A curved blade is a gouge waiting to happen. You will lose a little wood scraping, but not too much done properly and it does work on even the hardest finish.

Gearhead

If you like the idea of buying a new neck, then do it after you are sure you f'ed up the neck stripping and refretting. This will give you the ease of mind to pull those frets out and scrape and sand the neck properly. With most jobs, the fear of stuffing it up is worse than the problems you might run into.

AndrewD

Gearhead wrote: If you like the idea of buying a new neck, then do it after you are sure you f'ed up the neck stripping and refretting. This will give you the ease of mind to pull those frets out and scrape and sand the neck properly. With most jobs, the fear of stuffing it up is worse than the problems you might run into.

21Fretter

@Alan, i don't think I'm using a curved blade.

Just a good ol' stanley knife blade. I gave it another go today (just finished up the fret i started on). It isn't THAT bad and I don't think I'm not taking out like chunks of wood, you can see colour differences sometimes but i don't know what that means. Regardless if you're a pro or an amateur though, would you need to touch up the board once your finished with some sand paper?

P.S. Once I get a bit further I'll upload a photo trying to get as close as possible just so you guys can see what is going down and let me know if i raping the fretboard ?

guitarboy2828

I'm sensing a scalloped fretboard coming along! ?

AlanRatcliffe

21Fretter wrote: Regardless if you're a pro or an amateur though, would you need to touch up the board once your finished with some sand paper?

Yeah that's the right kind of thing. No need to touch up with paper - scraping leaves a nice smooth surface.

Quite honestly, even if you take off a lot of wood from the board, it's OK - the frets will still have the right radius.

21Fretter

lololo guitarboy. That wouldn't be THAT bad, would actually be awesome ? I've scalloped a neck in the past but i didn't finish fixing the guitar and what not because the wood turned out to be MDF so everyone started it would just be a write off and just sound like kak no matter what.

guitarboy2828

21Fretter wrote: lololo guitarboy. That wouldn't be THAT bad, would actually be awesome ? I've scalloped a neck in the past but i didn't finish fixing the guitar and what not because the wood turned out to be MDF so everyone started it would just be a write off and just sound like kak no matter what.

7 string scalloped fretboard, that'd be hot! ? As long as it doesn't turn out like this:

21Fretter

I wish it turned out that well! ? Nah I kid. I'll post up a picture just for hell of it a bit later, actually turned out quite decently.

21Fretter

This is where i am so far. Like i was saying, as you can see there are differences in the wood i.e. i've taken different layers off but there are no significant changes in level except where i circled. I don't know how i managed to do that but it happened. Obviously this is pretty rough so far hence some paint is still spattered around the frets but i just wanted to get the bulk off and then get some opinions from you guys.

So how am i doing so far, ballsing this up completely or doing okay? Be honest, I'm a big boy and I don't want to screw it up more if i am ?