Removing finish from maple neck.

[SnoMan97]

I want to refinish the maple neck on my JD Tele. What is the best way to strip the old finish off?

[WRGKMC]

You need to know if its a poly or a laquer finish. If its laquer, I'd use paint remover and steel wool and rubber gloves. If its poly you're Fuc#ed, its not coming off willingly without heat, scraping and major sanding. All of that will either destroy your frets and you wint be able to sand with the grain fo refretting is the only good way to go.

 

I'm going to be refinishing and refretting my Squier Tele neck too. The Affinity has a great neck but the finish was paper thin and the frets are cheap metal too so I'm going to remove the frets, sand it, apply the laquer, then refret.

 

If your neck is laquerd, you can have that finish off there in minuites, then use a littel fine sandpaper to get rid of the grayed areas, then respray the neck right over the frets. The laquer that gets on the frets can be removed after it dries, then polish the frets and apply paster wax to the neck after its fully dried.

 

Oh, and use naphia (lighter fluid on the wood before appluong a new finish. Thing like fret ease and waxes have silicone in them and will prevent the new finish from sticking.

[infralife]

Remove the neck before proceeding, then the tuners. Protect the nut. Get progressively finer wet/dry sandpaper.

[Tomm Williams]

I've had great success with Jasco stripper but I will also tell you that I'm not 100% sure what the original finish always was. However, everytime I used it, the finish came off. I suspect that many of the strips where some sort of a Poly as that seems to see a lot of use with less expensive guitars. Test a spot and find out. You're going to strip it anyway, so if it dosn't work, you havn't ruined anything. TW

[mike42]

I haven't stripped enough stuff recently to recommend any specific stripper. But, over the years my wife and I have stripped and refinished a boatload of old and new furniture. I don't think folks realize how much difference there is in different stripper brands. This is one place where you really do get for you pay for most of time.

 

Some of the cheaper ones have a hard time even softening latex. The good one's, which usually specify "epoxy" stripping ability on the label will cut just about anything. I think Tomm's on the right track, and if Jasco's one of the good one's I'd give it a try. We always bought stripper by the gallon because the unit price drops so much. But, stripper has gotten so expensive it may not make sense to buy a gallon just to do a neck.

[Belva]

Aircraft stripper. Go to your local auto paint store. It'll take anything off. Use rubber gloves, eye protection, a plastic apron and a butt load of common sense regardless of what you use!