Stripping finish off natural finished ibanez

[Dentom79]

Hello sevenstring.org,

About a few months ago I bought a second handed sweet Ibanez RG548NTM which I love to brag about and showoff with.

I absolutely love everything about the guitar, except that damn glossy finish.
The guitar would look so much more classy without it, the ash grain is real nice.
It would also get rid of the countless scratches that the previous owner made.

But I was wondering, what gritt of sandpaper should I use in order to get of the finish, but not hurt the wood in any sort of way?

And the guitar also has a few dings, non of them deeper then 1mm but still a noticable reliefchange in the finish, would these dings still be there when I sand the guitar? or is the glossy clear coat pretty thick?

Also, is it okay to keep the guitar unfinished, or would it look better to apply a satin finish coat, or maybe something with oil. Would the oil make it darker? I would prefer keeping it light, and making it look like the RGA121.

Here are some pictures of the RG548NTM itself, the crappy camera makes the damage disappear .

 

[MikeH]

I'd leave it as is. The nicks tell a story. It makes it more unique.

 

[Dentom79]

Yeah, but non of the nicks on it are mine + I don't like the glossyness of the finish

 

[MF_Kitten]

since it´s just a gloss finish, and no primer or anything, i think you could get it down to just the wood fairly easy. try starting with 100 grit to get it off, then use 400 grit or higher to make it smoooooth.

OR, if you just want to turn the gloss into a satin, just use the 400 grit and go over the finish to make it matte/satin. you can´ linger too much on corners and single areas though, as you might hit wood if you do one area for too long.

the awesomest thing would be to strip the finish entirely, bring it to a car painter shop to have it sandblasted lightly, so you get the awesome grain showing off (check out the warwick dark lord bass), and then oil it.

so that´s a couple options right there.

 

[soliloquy]

you can go about doing it using the 'scoth bright' pad way. you know those lil sponges you use to clean your dishes? take the rougher edge of em, and go at it with your guitar. you'll knock out a VERY THIN layer of the finish and it will make it matte. but at the same time, it will protect the wood by not exposing it to the elements as you're not taking off the entire finish to the barewood. plus, it will be cleaner as bare wood attracts a lot of dirt too.

 

[Dentom79]

I think I'm going to try the scotch brite way first and see how that goes, if I'm not happy about the result I might try the gloss to satin conversion with 400 gritt, and if I'm still not happy I'll go all the way down to bare wood and apply a satin finish.

Can you apply a satin finish with a spray-can ?

 

[MF_Kitten]

the sponge trick works really well too, i did it to a strat once. the finish ends up looking nicer than a total gloss IMO

 

[Dentom79]

Okay I attacked the back of the guitar with a moist sponge and the result is pleasing, the finish is less glossy and it feels really smooth, almost satin like.

But I think it did leave marks , when I look at the finish closely I see real small stripes, going in the direction I rubbed with the sponge, is this normal?

 

[soliloquy]

Okay I attacked the back of the guitar with a moist sponge and the result is pleasing, the finish is less glossy and it feels really smooth, almost satin like.

But I think it did leave marks , when I look at the finish closely I see real small stripes, going in the direction I rubbed with the sponge, is this normal?

do it in SMALL pea size circles and move outwards.
once you're done with that, apply a few coats of
guitar wax or scratch removers or whatever and buff
between each coat.

the idea for the sponge is to put TINY lil scratches on
the top layer of the guitar. put one scratch, it will stick
out, put 5000000 scratches, they all blend in with each other.

 

[MF_Kitten]

yeah, you´ve got to do it in smooth circles, so it doesn´t make lots of little stripes, but rather a roughed-up surface that ends up being satin-ish.

 

[Dentom79]

Yeah, it got the sponge back out and started doing circles, I looks way better, too bad I can't show you guys, because my camera doesn't really show the difference