Help! My guitar look like a raw beef steak.

[Thestripper]

You'll be fine! Matte or satin black is dead easy. Gloss black, not so much...

Yeah it should be fairly easy once I find a good paint. Satin probably looks better than matt and the matt will probaly start to shine from wear much sooner than satin. Maybe it would be best to go over with a 2k satin clear even?

 

[stratisfied]

Only one rule … gloss needs a perfect surface so you would have to grain fill. Semigloss/matte/flat looks fine with grain texture.

I am with you on a refinish. That guitar looks like a Mayan sacrificial “heart transplant” with grains for veins.

Of all your doctored pics, the natural ash is my favorite. A can of lacquer thinner, a stiff bristle brush (maybe even a brass one), and a small can of either Watco Danish Oil or Min-wax Wipe-on on Satin Poly gets you there. No need for exotica. The worst that can happen is the red remains in the open grain and you have to pore-fill with medium brown before your finish coats.

I do more guns than guitars these days so here’s one I stripped with a razor blade to remove some goob’s varnish job and finished with Danish oil. The difference is quite dramatic.

Before

After:

View attachment 1383901

 

[msalama]

That #5 Shoreline Gold with black looks real nice, IMO.

 

[Thestripper]

Only one rule … gloss needs a perfect surface so you would have to grain fill. Semigloss/matte/flat looks fine with grain texture.

I am with you on a refinish. That guitar looks like a Mayan sacrificial “heart transplant” with grains for veins.

Of all your doctored pics, the natural ash is my favorite. A can of lacquer thinner, a stiff bristle brush (maybe even a brass one), and a small can of either Watco Danish Oil or Min-wax Wipe-on on Satin Poly gets you there. No need for exotica. The worst that can happen is the red remains in the open grain and you have to pore-fill with medium brown before your finish coats.

I do more guns than guitars these days so here’s one I stripped with a razor blade to remove some goob’s varnish job and finished with Danish oil. The difference is quite dramatic.

Hi Stratisfied.

Yes, it needs a refinish for sure. I'm not sure about not-going with a gloss finish though. The "valleys" where the grain is will of course not get the same buff and glossy surface as the flat areas in between the grain but it could look good either way. A satin or a matt will always get shiny in high wear areas. This could also look good but it can also look a little half ass after a while. I will have to investigate some more to understand what kind of paint (or paint/clear coat combination) to go with.

The natural ash? You are probably thinking of the one that is supposed to look like "shoreline gold". It looks all right but I also though that it looked more like natural ash. The pictures are named though.

The gun stock looks great. Is that a M77? I've finished some gun stocks myself and done some checkering. I have even done some with boiled linseed oil but honestly, I think it's too much work for what you get in the end. One stock can easily take a year before you have a good foundation and then you have to tend to it every month or so after that and it really isn't that nice to look at either after a while in the rain and muck. It feels good to hold though. When it's newly finished it looks great and you have time to get a picture of it in it's glory days and then it's all down hill from there.

 

[maxvintage]

My feeling on this is that ash is declining badly here in the US due to the emerald ash borer, and I would not cover it up for that reason and also filling is a PITA. Stripping it would be a PITA as well, even more so--who knows what finish Fender actually used? I once stripped a Mexican J-bass and the finish was utterly impervious to every stripper I tried, so eventually I had to get it off with a heat gun, which was also really hard and I vowed never again.

I'd try to shift the tone as mentioned with tinted shellac, but i don;t really u8nderstand how color works very well and I'd need to do a lot of experimenting. I might just buy a new body

 

[Thestripper]

My feeling on this is that ash is declining badly here in the US due to the emerald ash borer, and I would not cover it up for that reason and also filling is a PITA. Stripping it would be a PITA as well, even more so--who knows what finish Fender actually used? I once stripped a Mexican J-bass and the finish was utterly impervious to every stripper I tried, so eventually I had to get it off with a heat gun, which was also really hard and I vowed never again.

I'd try to shift the tone as mentioned with tinted shellac, but i don;t really u8nderstand how color works very well and I'd need to do a lot of experimenting. I might just buy a new body

Yes I know about the Ash borer. It's a tragic story thus far. I don't see a reason to keep an ugly finish on my guitar because of the emerald ash borer though.

 

[Thestripper]

Honorable mentions(not really, but just for fun)
That renaissance one is pretty sick.

 

[Alamo]

OMG, I like the Edvard Munch one

 

[guitarbuilder]

I didn't go though all the comments but it's a strat.... buy a replacement Strat body made by Fender and reassemble it. Keep the meat in storage for later assembly when you want a Les Paul.

 

[tfarny]

if the color of the guitar bothers you, you’re unlikely to be happy with the results of your first ever refinish (or tenth, possibly). if that guitar is otherwise peachy, seek out a new body in the color you prefer and swap the rest of the parts onto it. you can get all sorts of new and used bodies online, just work out the bridge dimensions to make sure yours fits.

fwiw that is one of the few open pore finishes i’ve liked the looks of. personally i would keep it, but its you that needs to like it not me!

 

[Thestripper]

I get the impression that this thread might have become too long to read through before posting.
But that's ok. I think I have landed on something I will be happy with, at least for now. I'll let it brew for a while before proceeding.

If you have had the stamina to read through the thread, please contribute. I'd love to hear about ways to refinish this. There's no way this guitar will not be re-finished. Unless you, yes you, feel the urgency to save this original finish and will buy this body off me for some ridiculous amount of money, this piece of meat will hit the grinder moahahaha!

 

[misterdontmove]

Try a white pick guard?

I'm with you! That guitar would look great with a cream colored guard!

 

[Jupiter]

I like the flat black/cream pg plan the best

 

[Gardo]

Try a white pick guard?

A different pickgaurd would definitely be an easier option

 

[perttime]

Send it to me for proper disposal.

Really, that body wood looks too nice to cover with paint.

 

[PCollen]

Hi.

I've gotten back to playing some guitar after many years of dormancy. I first bought a 2011 Fender Squire J Mascis Jazzmaster about a year ago and have been playing that up to now. It's a very nice guitar but I sold it recently and bought a 2012 Fender FSR American Stratocaster. It's a good specimen with rosewood fretboard, decent weight (6.99lbs to be exact) but it is hideous! At first I though that it might grow on me. I wanted to like it and had it been the same finish but some other color, like translucent white, or black, maybe even a translucent moss green then I might have liked it. But this red is just not to my liking. The other day when I was grilling some meat I started thinking that my guitar looks like a piece of raw meat. I don't want a meat guitar. I want to look at it and like it and get the urge to pick it up and look at it and play it. You know, it's important to like your guitar. Since the finish on this body is a bit unusual with the grain structure both visible and tactile, I'm not sure how to approach a refinish. I would love to hear your thoughts. There is a chance to do something a bit unusal from this starting point. Or, one could of course go a more traditional route and sand down the lacquer (the stain is probably not going away though), fill the grain, paint, clear coat, buff and then be back to playing.

Some of the ideas I've had thus far include sanding down and repainting the guitar without filling in the grain. But would that work with a glossy finish, like a shoreline gold for example? Maybe it would just look bad? Please let me hear any ideas.


This is what Fender says about the finish and color. "For this sleekly special model, we've given our time-honored American Standard Stratocaster an ash body with a gorgeous hand-rubbed stain beneath a satin-lacquer finish. Availbale as a rosewood-fretboard model in elegant Wine Red"

I think that the finish was referred to as "sandblasted" by Fender..google that. I like it and many others might also. So you might consider reselling it , or perhaps just the body and getting a new replacement body, rather than trying to refinish it and maybe f-ing it up.

 

[Gardo]

My fix all is to wipe it down with Orange Glo . It increases the gloss and may give a slight tint to change the hue.
If you plan to strip it anyway there’s nothing to lose in trying

 

[slabhappie]

Hi.

I've gotten back to playing some guitar after many years of dormancy. I first bought a 2011 Fender Squire J Mascis Jazzmaster about a year ago and have been playing that up to now. It's a very nice guitar but I sold it recently and bought a 2012 Fender FSR American Stratocaster. It's a good specimen with rosewood fretboard, decent weight (6.99lbs to be exact) but it is hideous! At first I though that it might grow on me. I wanted to like it and had it been the same finish but some other color, like translucent white, or black, maybe even a translucent moss green then I might have liked it. But this red is just not to my liking. The other day when I was grilling some meat I started thinking that my guitar looks like a piece of raw meat. I don't want a meat guitar. I want to look at it and like it and get the urge to pick it up and look at it and play it. You know, it's important to like your guitar. Since the finish on this body is a bit unusual with the grain structure both visible and tactile, I'm not sure how to approach a refinish. I would love to hear your thoughts. There is a chance to do something a bit unusal from this starting point. Or, one could of course go a more traditional route and sand down the lacquer (the stain is probably not going away though), fill the grain, paint, clear coat, buff and then be back to playing.

Some of the ideas I've had thus far include sanding down and repainting the guitar without filling in the grain. But would that work with a glossy finish, like a shoreline gold for example? Maybe it would just look bad? Please let me hear any ideas.


This is what Fender says about the finish and color. "For this sleekly special model, we've given our time-honored American Standard Stratocaster an ash body with a gorgeous hand-rubbed stain beneath a satin-lacquer finish. Availbale as a rosewood-fretboard model in elegant Wine Red"

Hi.

I've gotten back to playing some guitar after many years of dormancy. I first bought a 2011 Fender Squire J Mascis Jazzmaster about a year ago and have been playing that up to now. It's a very nice guitar but I sold it recently and bought a 2012 Fender FSR American Stratocaster. It's a good specimen with rosewood fretboard, decent weight (6.99lbs to be exact) but it is hideous! At first I though that it might grow on me. I wanted to like it and had it been the same finish but some other color, like translucent white, or black, maybe even a translucent moss green then I might have liked it. But this red is just not to my liking. The other day when I was grilling some meat I started thinking that my guitar looks like a piece of raw meat. I don't want a meat guitar. I want to look at it and like it and get the urge to pick it up and look at it and play it. You know, it's important to like your guitar. Since the finish on this body is a bit unusual with the grain structure both visible and tactile, I'm not sure how to approach a refinish. I would love to hear your thoughts. There is a chance to do something a bit unusal from this starting point. Or, one could of course go a more traditional route and sand down the lacquer (the stain is probably not going away though), fill the grain, paint, clear coat, buff and then be back to playing.

Some of the ideas I've had thus far include sanding down and repainting the guitar without filling in the grain. But would that work with a glossy finish, like a shoreline gold for example? Maybe it would just look bad? Please let me hear any ideas.


This is what Fender says about the finish and color. "For this sleekly special model, we've given our time-honored American Standard Stratocaster an ash body with a gorgeous hand-rubbed stain beneath a satin-lacquer finish. Availbale as a rosewood-fretboard model in elegant Wine Red"

Your Stratocaster is beautiful. I looked at the pictures before reading your post fully---that specimen is astonishing.

 

[kilroy6262]

That guitar is beautiful. Dont f*** it up. If you have a compulsion that you have to do something, just change the pickguard. Better yet, sell it to someone who will appreciate it, and then go buy a guitar you enjoy..... looking at.

 

[sammy1974]

Try a white pick guard?

Steak sandwich