Bloggy: Samick Superstrap Strip and Refinish

[RadioElectric]

It was the first full-size guitar I ever owned. My dad bought it for me from a second hand store when I was 12 (8 years ago). I think it was on the wall for £75 but he got it for £50.



And now you can see why I'm refinishing it, the guitar plays really well but I don't like the colour. While I have it apart I'm also going to replace the bridge humbucker and take a dent out of one of the frets.



Here it is in pieces. I used to be really averse to taking guitars apart, I always felt like there was some "magic" in them that I might let out.



I'm attacking the finish with a "heat gun" (apparently they get used a lot for decorating). I'm doing the scraping with a paint scraper that's had its sharp edges rounded off. I've made a start on the back here and can now see that the wood underneath is pretty.



More pictures and some questions to follow, uploading them now.

Edit: Apparently they have to go in another post.

[RadioElectric]

Here's most of the back done. My plan was to take the paint off across the grain to make a belt of bare wood and then take the rest off along the grain. The guitar seems to have been dipped or painted with a resin and then finished in dark blue. There's no clear coat over it from what I can see. I heated the paint until it turned slightly green and then scraped it at quite a shallow angle to avoid damaging the wood. The resin was a similar colour to the wood so I did think I'd damaged it at some points.



Here I am starting on the front of the guitar, I tackled the edges last. I tried to start in an inconspicuous place again though in retrospect it looks a little like a Hitler moustache.



A few times I made the mistake of leaving the paint scraper next to the guitar while I heated it with the heat gun. The metal blade of the scraper absorbed the heat a lot more readily than the wood and paint of the guitar did, leading to a few choice words from me when I picked it up.



I started on the sides after I finished the two faces of the guitar. This was a LOT more fiddly. I took a couple of small chips out of the edge between the side and back of the guitar. I also did a bit of damage when I tried using a tool that looks like an industrial potato peeler. The best way for the fiddly bits seemed to be holding the scraper perpendicular to the wood and scraping at the hot paint with the edge of it.

[RadioElectric]

This is where I am now. The finish is off except for a little of the resin that has soaked into the grain of the wood.

Here's the back, I was surprised to see that the wood is lighter where the backplate sits.



The front, there's a little scorching around where the selector switch goes. It's the only damage I did with the heat gun though. The wood (I think it's maple) was surprisingly resilient, unlike the surface I had it on at the beginning which burnt a little.



And an angle shot...



The next step is to sand the resin off. Then I have to paint it with sanding sealant, sand again, and repeat a few times. (I'm getting advice on this from my Dad who's also letting me work on it in/outside his shed with his tools).

I was originally going to refinish it in solid white or orange but the quality of the wood has made me decide to do it in a transparent colour. I'm going to order a can of "Clear Amber Yellow" from here...

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

I also need to get a clear coat from there to go on top but I'm not sure whether to go for satin or gloss. I'm leaning towards satin because I don't like highly reflective finishes, you usually see more of the rest of the room than of the guitar.

I also plan to replace the bridge humbucker with one of these...

http://axetec.co.uk/axetec%20guitar%...ickups_032.htm

With the black cover. I'm going to keep all of the hardware on the guitar as it was, though I might spruce up the electronics.

My questions are...

Does it look like the guitar is made out of maple to you?
How typical does the way it was originally finished sound?
Would it be a mistake to go for a satin top coat rather than gloss?
Anybody got any experience with the pickup I linked to?

[ghill84]

Hi there, looks like alder to me, which is in keeping with the general Strattiness of the guitar. The grain pattern looks a little wayward for maple and too wide for ash, but a good tonewood nonetheless. The finish seems like the sort of 'gosh look at me' shiny shiny that a lor of moderately priced guitars go for, they just don't age well, just get sad any lonely looking. The worst part is that the heavy finish acts like an anchor on resonance and the wood just tries to vibrate in this suit of armour, won't sound great. Your satin thin finish sounds good, but you may find that the wear rate is quite high (I refinished a very sick SG a few years ago and ended wearing a hole in the back in about a year), but I just think that it adds character. For me the key would be to keep the finish as thin as poss and let the guitar sing (then I happen to think that the BFG looks mighty fine :-) ).
Not encountered the pickups before, they certainly look butch, just be careful that the polepiece spacing is right for a Fender style bridge (generally 52mm rather than Gibson 48mm). If they don't offer the wider spacing you'll lose one or both of your e's. If they don't have something to fit try Kent Armstrongs from WD. You should be able to get something for around the same money, but wider spacing. A great deal depends on the sound that you're looking for, magnet type and resonant peak will make a great deal of difference to the overall sound, rather than just raw output. It might be worth looking at some Bill Lawrence blades, cracking pickups and if you order direct from the States stupidly cheap for a real Pro quality pickup. Might be worth a look.

Good luck :-)

Graham

[RadioElectric]

Originally Posted by ghill84

Your satin thin finish sounds good, but you may find that the wear rate is quite high (I refinished a very sick SG a few years ago and ended wearing a hole in the back in about a year), but I just think that it adds character.

I was worried that would be the case. I ordered satin last night but I emailed this morning to ask if I could switch for gloss. I like worn finishes on "classic" guitars but I don't think it'd fit with the look of this one.

Originally Posted by ghill84

Not encountered the pickups before, they certainly look butch, just be careful that the polepiece spacing is right for a Fender style bridge (generally 52mm rather than Gibson 48mm). If they don't offer the wider spacing you'll lose one or both of your e's.

I'd completely forgotten about that. I went on the irongear site just now, I couldn't find that measurement but I saw that the polepieces of the bridge pickup are 10.4mm apart. 10.4 x 5 = 52mm, so that will be fine.

I've also gone for their "Jailhouse Rail" pickup to go in the neck. It's a SC-sized ceramic humbucker. So, I'll have a hot alnico humbucker in the bridge, a strat single coil in the middle and a ceramic humbucker in the neck. I'm putting push-pull pots in so that both of the humbuckers can be tapped. I'm also wiring the 5-way switch out of order so it'll give...

5: Neck Humbucker
4: Neck and Bridge Humbuckers in parallel
3: Bridge Humbucker
2: Bridge Humbucker with Middle Singlecoil
1: Middle Singlecoil

I was never fond of the "4" position on a strat and this way I get to try having the two humbuckers in parallel, which might sound interesting. I'll need to pay attention to which coil is going to be active when I split the bridge humbucker as that'll no doubt have a large effect on the sound of setting "2".

[ghill84]

Sounds good. I can't see the point of the stock position 3, but I guess that that's just me.

I've got a ceramic blade in the neck of my Squier (an OBL), and that still sounds 'Stratty' but with a bit more smoothness in mid-drive.

Keep up the blog :-)

[RadioElectric]

Originally Posted by ghill84

Sounds good. I can't see the point of the stock position 3, but I guess that that's just me.

I've got a ceramic blade in the neck of my Squier (an OBL), and that still sounds 'Stratty' but with a bit more smoothness in mid-drive.

Keep up the blog :-)

Thanks, I'll probably put a few more pictures up later but I'll mostly just be sanding and sealing today while I wait for the Nitrocellulose sprays. Apparently I'm going to need to pick up a respirator before I start painting anyway.

[ghill84]

Either that or hold your breath real well :-)

[guitargeek62]

Id say its more likely to be agathis or basswood because of the origin and price tbh........

Cool project btw, looking forward to see the end product

[sam_m]

It's certainly looking less blue - always a good start!

Should be ace when finished.