Maybe this is why nitro is "better"

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:42 pm

I don't think it has so much to do with the fact that it's poly, as much as it does the unnecessary thickness of it that Fender insists on putting on its guitars. A "thinner skin" would not age so badly.

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:53 pm

Meh, my polyester finished musicman is immaculate while my nitro les paul has finish checking all over it already. In japanese apartments the room gets VERY cold while the heater is off...so theres tons of big temperature changes everyday goin on in my room.

kim · Post by **kim** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:28 pm

yikes ! that looks crap indeed.

eitherway aen, this guitar is just trying to tell you 'please refin me in parple sparklz'

Nick · Post by **Nick** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:43 pm

JJLipton wrote:Meh, my polyester finished musicman is immaculate

Key word there.....I could say the same about my poly finished Rickenbacker, or my vintage Hagstrom. Fender just glops poly finishes on too thick as a general rule

westtexasred · Post by **westtexasred** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:48 pm

JJLipton wrote:Meh, my polyester finished musicman is immaculate while my nitro les paul has finish checking all over it already. In japanese apartments the room gets VERY cold while the heater is off...so theres tons of big temperature changes everyday goin on in my room.

Finish checking

aen · Post by **aen** » Sat Feb 19, 2011 7:53 pm

taylornutt wrote: Are you wanting like a nitro refinish? As long as it's a solid color I might be game to tackle that. Especially for the chance at some Dwarfcraft pedals. Is that a Fender or Squier Telecaster?

Im not super attatched to "nitro" but I would like something that wears a little better. It's a fender 50s calssic. I'm pretty keen on a surf green/seafoam green type color. Grab a mint guard and have a reborn tele...

JJLipton · Post by **JJLipton** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 1:44 am

Nick wrote:
JJLipton wrote:Meh, my polyester finished musicman is immaculate
Key word there.....I could say the same about my poly finished Rickenbacker, or my vintage Hagstrom. Fender just glops poly finishes on too thick as a general rule

True, i did notice my american dlx strat's finish seemed to be very thick. Does fender use polyester these days? or polyurethane? On a side note...nitro smells really good. Ever walk into a poorly ventilated room of vintage gibsons or fenders? Amazing sweet nostalgic nitro smell....(possibly also killing brain cells).

kypdurron · Post by **kypdurron** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 11:24 am

JJLipton wrote:Does fender use polyester these days? or polyurethane?

Both. On most mexican, chinese and japanese models it's polyester, on the US Standards it's urethane. I've never seen anything coleley to this though. Is this a classic vibe tele?

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 2:36 pm

Aen, I just looked it up on Fender's website and the classic 50's teles used polyester finish and the body is made out of Ash. That may explain why it chips the way it does.
Fender Classic 50's Telecaster

benecol · Post by **benecol** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 3:35 pm

You had to check the Fender site to know a non-MIA guitar had a poly finish? n00b. And are you implying that an ash body would cause the finish to chip?

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 4:20 pm

The Ash does not affect the chipping, but that is how polyester chips in those big chunks. I wasn't 100% clear on when Fender switcedh to what finish on what model. My AVRI Jaguar has nitro and I assume my 1978 Musicmaster has either Polyester or Polyurethane. I just wanted to be sure what the finish was because not all Fenders get Polyester.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:17 pm

westtexasred wrote: Finish checking

Damn the rest of them I liked it!

Billy3000 · Post by **Billy3000** » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:49 pm

Is there a difference between polyester and polyurethane? The ash body wouldn't be the reason for it chipping. My Musicman Stingray was poly on Ash, and that thing was a beast! I could smack somebody upside the head with it, kurt cobain style, and not have any damage to the finish.

johnnyseven · Post by **johnnyseven** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:04 pm

If you bought it new are you able to make a claim under warranty?

shae · Post by **shae** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:16 pm

Yeah, it's a poly/ash finish, I had one of those.
Best Fender that can be had consistently for under $1,000 (sometimes less than $500 if you play your cards right).

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 9:57 pm

i seem to remember a guy on offset who had a MIM jazz bass that he took a heat gun to the finish, and it just cracked and was able to be scraped right off. seems like a plus to me.

i don't see what the big deal is. the shit looks gangster.

Mages · Post by **Mages** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 11:42 pm

Billy3000 wrote:Is there a difference between polyester and polyurethane?

polyester is a fiber/textile. polyurethane is paint.

desertan · Post by **desertan** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 7:37 pm

Billy3000 wrote:Is there a difference between polyester and polyurethane? The ash body wouldn't be the reason for it chipping. My Musicman Stingray was poly on Ash, and that thing was a beast! I could smack somebody upside the head with it, kurt cobain style, and not have any damage to the finish.

Of course there's a difference, at least chemically. They're both catalyzing finishes, however, and polyester is less regulated by the EPA. It's also a bit easier to apply and catalyzes quicker. The Fender finish was probably UV-cured, too.

I have a Japanese-made '91 Charvel Surfcaster that I'm restoring. The body was black lacquer, coated with polyester varnish. Though there were no cracks, all it took was a bit of picking at a corner, and pretty soon the finish was coming off the wood in sheets. I used zero sandpaper and no chemicals to strip that body. The body was poplar and maple, incidentally.

In my experience, polyester is brittle, but once a shell is built up, it is virtually bulletproof. The biggest problem is the thickness that it's applied at, which leads to chipping, and its brittleness means that if its expansion limit is crossed, it will crack. Then it's all over. Polyurethane is highly-regulated by the air quality folks due to its concentrations of VOCs, but is a much more flexible and thinner finish, in general.

Rickenbacker has used polyurethane clearcoats since 1959. They are transitioning to polyester varnish, but the polyester-varnished Ricks that I own neither look nor feel like any of the other polyester-finished guitars I have.

I've owned, played, and restored lots of very old Ricks, going back to 1956, and the polyurethane finished ones last and last, and like nitro-finished instruments, age very gracefully. I continue to use polyurethane clearcoats (catyalyzed) on all my refinishes, and have had zero returns in six years now. Polyurethane's average thickness, incidentally, is about .007" after it's sanded and buffed out. The Charvel was about 5X this, and a Mexican Strat that I did had a polyester finish that exceeded .060" in some areas. THAT'S thick.

BTW, the so-called "thin skin" AVRI guitars have a thin nitro color coat over a polyester sealer that's a lot thicker. So don't be fooled by the marketing blather.

aen · Post by **aen** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:53 am

ITS GONNA BE PINK.
Ive got a local guy who might do it, otherwise, I have pink experience:

Right over the CAR. Like a hundred misted coats of pink and then like 50 misted coats of clear.

desertan · Post by **desertan** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:28 pm

Yeah, I love Shell Pink...used to own a (stock) 1955 Chevy Nomad in Coral/Shadow Gray. Same colors to the interior. Spectacular car, but when I decided to sell it, I couldn't find a buyer due to the color...took months to flog, and it was bought by a lady in the end. If it'd been Gypsy Red, it would have gone to the first punter.

Seems that pastels are back "in".

Anyway, that looks pretty nice for a rattle can job--just remember that if rattle cans were so great, manufacturers would be using them, because they sure are more convenient than any spray rig ever invented. Interestingly, the skills developed in rattle-canning translate very well to spray gun technique. Most guys use "expense" as a reason that they've not taken up using a gun. In fact, they're afraid of failure. Rattle-canning, once mastered, gets you more than half the way there in spray gun technique.

How do I know this? Well, I've taught modelmaking--including spray painting--at college level for about 8 years now, and in those eight years I've seen about 950 students--male and female--pass through the program. I've had a chance to do both written and verbal surveys, and have used the results to assist me in writing and filming an online class on the topic. Another hundred or so have completed the class in the last few years.

How else do I know this? From the look of relief and pleasure I see on the faces of the students who have just laid down their first perfect coat of color. Additionally, once a guy learns how to handle a spray gun (and it is a steep learning curve, admittedly), he will almost never go back to rattle cans except in a real pinch. And, this must be a macho-pride thing, because I get less resistance and more open-minded eagerness to learn from the 25% of my classes who are women.

So, I do not want to sound patronizing to anybody, but there is spray painting with a rattle can, and then here is professional spray painting, and although the skills overlap, they are two entirely different animals in terms of the results. If you want to get serious and paint like the pros, you gotta use pro materials, and equipment, and entry level pro equipment is cheaper than you imagine.

ReRanch gets $16.00 a can for their aerosols. There is about 4 ounces of paint in a 16 ounce can. Do the math and you'll see that you're paying $4 per ounce for the already-reduced (thinned) paint, which may or may not be opaque enough to cover in a minimum number of coats. It's not that unusual, therefore, for a ReRanch paint job to cost $60.00 in paint and another $20.00 in sandpaper and polishes.

$60.00 would get you more than halfway toward buying a really nice pro spray gun, or would buy you two cheapy guns from Harbor Freight, which do the job but not very well, in addition to having a nasty "feel" in use and requiring frequent rebuilds--not recommended.

If you are a hobbyist who does three or more guitar refinishes in a year, you should consider a move to a spray rig, on economics alone.

Americans use 40 million gallons of spray paint each year. Although in the '70s, we were weaned from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) like Freon as propellants, due to environmental concerns, there is still the issue of the spray dust and solvents entering our surroundings. Spray cans waste more paint than they apply, and that waste enters the atmosphere and settles out on the ground as toxic dust.

ReRanch is not going to tell you this, because, of course, it's their business to sell these materials, not warn you about environmental consequences, which are becoming more dire with each day.

Many of California's pro painters, initiated by the LA area air quality people, have had waterborne paints forced upon us, in order to reduce VOCs (a major smog component). We can still use polyesters, as they thin with acetone, which does not contribute to photochemical smog. We can still use solvent-borne clear coats (urethanes, mostly), because nobody has come up with a reliable waterborne clear coat in over twenty years of R & D. However, the solvent-borne catalyzing clear coats are constantly being reformulated to reduce VOCs further and further.

Lastly, spray can paint formulas are not the same as spray gun formulas. It's been my experience that spray cans have a greater percentage of pigment (color) than spray gun formulations, and this means less plasticizers which contributes to brittleness of the paint film. Spray can paint jobs scratch and chip very easily.

Apologies for the long post, but there was a lot of information to convey, and this is good food for thought and discussion.