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Yeah sorry if I sounded heavy handed, guv. It is your guitar at the end of the day. I think the analogy of getting a car or clock working again is a bit unfitting though - seeing as the paint refin is nowt to do with the functionality of the instrument. It's more like stripping and revarnishing an antique wardrobe or some such other thing. At which point you have to ask yourself, "how much am I putting this guitar before or after my own stylistic requirements". Whether it actually makes the guitar better is for you to decide.

If you could pack up or bottle that kind of Mustang agedness I'd have bought some. It's certainly not something you see every day.

SINKHOLE STANG

i know it's not about money, but i'd have given you more than you paid for the whole guitar just for the body, with which you could have easily sourced another 60s one in need of a refinish, or a brand new reissue body, of which there are about a dozen on ebay.com

i'm just so gutted for the guitar. yeah, it's yours and you can do what you like with it, but in my eyes it's been ruined to a degree- it might not be what you want, and you got it for fuck-all so what's the big deal, right? but someone who loves that kind of condition on a guitar would have chewed your left hand off for it, and now it's one less original vintage fender in the world.

AND i think you should at least have organised how you were going to go about refinishing it before stripping the paint off.

That guitar was lovely before. I'm desperate to find something in such an ill state. Each to his own though. I just hope you don't end up regretting it like I did when I decided to start tinkering with my old strat before I knew anything about modifying guitars... (ramble)

That Manchester guitar tech recommended earlier seems pretty good, I've never actually used him for a refin but I buy lacquer from him. He's a sound bloke too, helps out as best he can with everything.

£250 for a refin. That's a spicy meatball!

manchester guitar tech wrote:Destroying an original finish will harm the guitar's value in the vintage market.

Lole.

http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/finish.html

Damn that body was gnarly goodness!

I've offered to do refins before but I'll be honest it's a pretty onerous task with a lot of effort to do totally proffessionally (others may think otherwise but it is to me!). I remember scoping out the basic cost of materials alone to around 70 quid alone (if you want Nitro, tack cloths, mask filters so as not to die from Nitro... sandpaper, shellac sealer, grain filler etc etc) and its a LOT of man hours on top for a pristine finish. Not to mention the task of making a spray booth out of my shower

I will be finishing off my own refinishes this december so will be converting my shower into a spray booth again - could squeeze in another body but I'm not really up for doing it on the bro cheap as it's a lot of effort and I've got the experience now. Sure i can do better than 250 though.

To be fair its worth doing yourself for the experience and there's tons of good advice over at the reranch site however.