When Did Fender Switch to Poly?

[jackdc100]

Hey guys, I'm interested in buying a 1969 Telecaster through the vintage Guitar Center website. The guitar looks like it might be a nitro finish because it has a good amount of checking and several layers of finish where there is arm wear. Its serial # is 268307 if that helps. Let me know if you can give me any info.

[sonny wolf]

I hear 1968 is the transition year where they started applying a poly undercoat with a nitro topcoat.This continued in the 1970s...many people assume that the Fenders of that era were full poly which is not the case...the top coat and headstock face remained nitro which explains why they aged the way they did.In the early 1980s,they went to full poly except for the U.S. reissues.

[Joefish]

Great question!

… prior to the excellent answer Mr. wolf provided, I went out to Goggle and found a great thread where Mark Davis (… thanks Mr. Davis) covers this.

I still don’t understand how the polly on my 69 can get worn like that if the stuff is indestructible.

(… is it because it’s a thin coat/on as a sealer without a poly top coat)

[StratBluesRock]

Yeah it was 68, and as sonny mentioned, they still used nitro for the topcoats.

[Mark Davis]

From Mark Kendrick at Fender.

By 1968, virtually all Fender guitar products used polyester as an undercoat, including necks. It's a two part product using Methyl Ethyl Ketone(MEK) as a catalyst. The reason the face of the pegheads were not sealed with polyester, is because type 'C' decals (under the finish) would not adhere to the product. While it is true a few guitars may have squeaked by with homoclad, when homoclad wasn't available, they used a Fuller O'Brian product called Ful-O-Plast. PLASTIC!!! It's obvious to me that those necks or bodies were stragglers, having to be reworked for some reason or another and not shipped after the change.

[TC III]

When the people got soft. 8^P