I acquired this lovely Tele recently from
@JerkMoans and I did/do have his permission to refin so I'll get that in first It's been a bit of a forum guitar actually. I think I'm the 4th owner on the FB. It was the subject of this previous FS thread: (SOLD ‘99 American Tele), 1991 Natural American Tele 2019 now £775, (SOLD Mex Tele) - Guitars £ Discussions on theFretBoard
It is/was rather beat up as a result of a relic attempt (from what I can gather) but as we all know, trying to do that on a polyester/urethane finish doesn't look the same as it does with nitro.
Anyway, on to the refin. After removing the topcoat with heat, I encountered the dreaded sealer. Man, it was hard to remove. Unlike any previous Fender I've done, but I eventually succeeded. At this stage, I quickly decided that I wasn't a lover of the alder grain and wasn't too bothered to do a burst. I've covered the cavities in order to show the original finish.
So, the process so far has been:
1. Heat gun to remove finish 2. Rub down with P180/P320/P600 to bare wood 3. Sanding sealer coats 4. High build primer (with guide coat to assist flatting and revealing flaws) 5. Wet flat (P600 with white spirit) 6. Surf green nitro 7. Nitro lacquer.
I'll leave it to harden for about 3 weeks and then flat and polish.
Apologies for the multiple image posts, it's the only way I know how.
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Also, I couldn't live with the 90's Fender lacquer all cracking/peeling so the neck has been refinished in a tinted sander sealer then overcoated with 2 pack polyurethane matt varnish. It feels silky smooth now. It was quite straight forward to flat back to bare wood up to the edges of the head and heel contours then blend in with the gun. I also got rid of the irritating air pockets that develop in the fretboard dots.
Reconstruction will begin next week hopefully.