Incoming - 1980s E serial Jag

[NickD]

Was tune-o-matic a stock thing on these MIJ Jags?

No, not on the JM/Jags I had. It looks like its in the stock thimbles too, I wonder how stable it is?

[MattK]

Well, if I ever get the paint off the top of the original finish, I can put it back together and give it a try.

[MattK]

Well I got the paint off the top of the original finish but I think I'm going to take a break before setting it up!
This was about 6 hours of work in 20 pics, if you look closely you can see the 7 layers I had to tackle with chemical stripper and a scraper. The final layer (primer) is off-white so it made it easy to know when I'd got to the original CAR, which wasn't affected by the stripper. The refinisher had scuffed it up with heavy sandpaper, so I had to wet-sand it with 800/1200/2000 grit, then a medium cutting compound.


And then a fine cutting compound (both auto products since this is just polyurethane) and a wool pad on my handheld random-orbit buffer. Then I wiped off the residue ...



Now I'm too tired to wire it up so here's a mockup:


Not too bad huh. You can see there are some remaining scratches which didn't buff out but it just looks aged to me.

[sunshiner]

That's one hell of a job, both the hard work and result wise. I got tired just looking at the photos of the process, and it turned really beautiful in the end

[NickD]

Wow, what a difference. You must be really pleased with the result - it looks great!

[NickS]

Very impressed.

[benecol]

Very good work.

Screenshot 2022-08-18 at 10.07.39.png (3.17 MiB) Viewed 4226 times

[NickS]

^ Reminds me of those failed-mail-merge spamshots: "Congratulations, Recipient Name Here!"

[MattK]

You guys! I’m not worthy. Actually I have time off work at the moment so it’s probably the most satisfying day’s effort I’ve had in a long time …

[Bacchus]

Like I said, just a wee bit of T-Cut...

That looks incredible. Better than the "CAR" that was on there. Must be nice knowing that it's fresh, old CAR (although I suppose poly doesn't really change colour as it ages?).

This was very much my dream Jag when I was about 18 or 19. Well done!

[Thom]

Incredible, great job!

[dots]

hlysht!

i cannot believe that is the same body. well done, sir!

[plopswagon]

Amazing, yes!

Certainly upped my covering that beauty.

[rahbro]

This thing is sick

[taylornutt]

That's amazing that you could keep the original color and still remove the top layer.

Phenomenal.

[MattK]

I have no idea how you would get the original colour OFF the body to be honest. There was even epoxy putty in a few places and I scraped it back, sanded it out and you would never know. You could probably hammer nails in using the body.

[dots]

I have no idea how you would get the original colour OFF the body to be honest. There was even epoxy putty in a few places and I scraped it back, sanded it out and you would never know. You could probably hammer nails in using the body.

yeah, i am stunned by the sheen and shine on that red now after all that. the fact the original paint wasn't damaged by what the previous owner did and could be re-polished after removal speaks very highly of fender japan's process. shit's built to last.

[MattK]

by the way this is the stuff I used, probably no use to non Australians but it was water based, no methylene chloride, smelled a little bit citrus and looked like white mucus.

[MattK]

yeah, i am stunned by the sheen and shine on that red now after all that. the fact the original paint wasn't damaged by what the previous owner did and could be re-polished after removal speaks very highly of fender japan's process. shit's built to last.

What's weird is that it's not all that thick, there were a few tiny spots round the edge where the red sanded thru to the silver layer, and a few dings where the paint edge was super thin. Shit's just super hard I guess. I went at it pretty thoroughly with the wet sanding (in fact the sanding block "sucked down" harder than I intended quite a few times).

[dots]

brilliant.