Best way to restore original finish under poly?

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HH1978
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Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Thu May 19, 2016 1:18 pm

Hello,

I'm starting to restore a 1965 Magnatone Zephyr, that obviously has the original metallic red finish under the ugly, really badly done navy blue refin.
I'd like to get rid of the refin without destroying the original finish, but I've never done that, so I'm not sure what technique I should use. Any piece of advice is welcome :)

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Hopefully, at the end it would loook like my Tornado :

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Thanks in advance :)

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by øøøøøøø » Thu May 19, 2016 8:48 pm

your best hope is a lot of patience, 800 grit sandpaper, and lots of time.

You could start with 400 to try and get some of the thickness down, VERY carefully, but do NOT go through the red at this stage. When you've got enough thickness down that you're starting to get scared you might break through, switch to 600 until you just barely begin to break through on the corners, and then move up to 800, stopping when you break through for real, and then moving up to 1000, 1200, etc as high as you need to go to get all the blue off. Then polish.

There will probably be some collateral damage. Start your experiments under the guard. When you've learned a bit and gotten a feel, move on to the back and finally the top. Save the most visible parts for last. Stay away from the edges-- chances are they will 'take care of themselves. Edges are where 80% of sandthroughs happen at least.

Good luck!

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by PixMix » Fri May 20, 2016 4:33 am

^Good advice there. Get a pink eraser and use it as a sanding block and start working by sanding larger flat areas, like back. When you start seeing signs of the finish below, don't get hung up on the same spot, move on the adjacent areas. Your goal is to remove the navy blue as evenly as you can, even if the layer of paint itself is not even. Picture a cross section of the body: you have the red-orange, and then the blue on top, you're trying to sand the blue while working parallel with the orange layer.

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by mcjt » Fri May 20, 2016 7:14 am

BTW is this wet sanding we're talking about?

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by PixMix » Fri May 20, 2016 10:52 am

I think it can be either, personally I would wet sand as I find it easier to control and it eliminates dust.

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by daCod » Fri May 20, 2016 11:19 am

looks like a fun project! if you follow øøøøøøø's instructions you'll do just fine. i had a similar party with my 69 mustang. turned out pretty damn nice if i do say so myself.

http://www.offsetguitars.com/forums/vie ... 8&start=15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

good luck with the 'unwrapping' and please Please PLEASE post progress pics along the way. or, at least take them along the way and share when you're done.

now, GET TO WORK! ;D
your paranoia must be weapons-grade.
“I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.” ~ PT

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Fri May 20, 2016 10:52 pm

Thank you all :)
Wow, that Mustang!!! Really nice job! I hope It will turn as good for mine...
I think I'll start with 800. The navy blue doesn't seem thick, and I think there's no clear coat above it.
Please PLEASE post progress pics along the way.
Sure! :)

Stripping the refin will be the most exciting (and difficult I guess) part of the restoration, but there's a lot of other ork to do on this guitar.
The back of the neck has been stripped and refinished with poly. Good news though, whoever did this was clever enough to leave the headstock untouched, so the original decal is still there.

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For some reason that I don't understand, the rosewood board has received a clear coat (these guitars were designed by Paul Barth, who was one of Rickenbacker's founders, but these Magnatone never came with a finished fretboard). Not sure if I'll try to get rid of it, But there are also a couple of glue stains that impede playability, so I'll have to scrap them.

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The original guard is gone, but I sourced one NOS :

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Pickups are of course not original, they are mini hums marked "Lollar 2010". I've never seen Lollars in person, so I don't know if they are genuine. If so, I paid less than the value of the pu for the whole guitar.
Finding Magnatone pickups (especially the fenderish design with magnetic polepieces that came on Zephyr and were also used on the middle position on Typhoon, vs the P90 style of the Tornado and neck and bridge position on Typhoon) will take years if it happens, so the plan for now is either to build repros or find some pickups that will fit in without routing the pickguard, probably goldfoils.

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The same goes for the bridge : very hard to find. Good news though : there was no aditionnal routing when previous owner put some roller bridge on it, and he used the original mounting plate and the original adjustment plate as well (though reverse-mounted). So the only missing part is the V-shaped rocking bridge itself.
Not sure what I'll do for the tremolo. An original unit will be very hard to source, and it was a very poor design anyway (the opposite goes for Tornado and Typhoon's trem, which are the best floating tremolo units that I ever played). The body is very thin, so the best will probably to find some surface mounting trem unit.

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I think that's all for the diagnostic ;D
I'll start sanding the body as soon as I find some time.

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Fri May 20, 2016 10:59 pm

Here are pictures of my other Zephyr, for reference :

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Image

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by raphaël » Sat May 21, 2016 2:18 am

This is such an exciting project Hugues :w00t: !!!

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by daCod » Sat May 21, 2016 4:45 am

These are such cool guitars. Anxious to see things get underway in regards to the finish removal.

Your white one is hawt. Have almost pulled the eBay trigger a few times on ones that ice found up for sale but was unsure about how the neck felt/plays and also how the pickups (stock) sound. Able to shed any insight there?
your paranoia must be weapons-grade.
“I have terrible hearing trouble. I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal proponents deaf.” ~ PT

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Sat May 21, 2016 5:37 am

Sure! I think I'll start a thread soon in the vintage board, but here are the main facts :

Overall, the build quality is quite good, but doesn't compare with Fender's either. The body is Poplar, and is thinner than any Fender's, which make them very lightweight.

The neck feels great if you can find one that is straight (on 7 Magnatone from the era that I own or have owned, only one had an issue with the neck, which had a backbow). Putting a replacement neck on these is challenging, as the body is much thinner than any Fender, the neck pocket is also 55mm instead of 56mm, and the screws are closer to the center, so I would be worried about screwing into the truss rod. A regular Fender neck screws pattern is not possible either.
Personally, I really like the fret zero design. It's very efficient to have a balanced string heigth.
The neck on the zephyr has a 24" scale length, 20 frets. The neck on the Tornado and Typhoon has a 25"5 scale length and 21 fret. I'm almost certain they are interchangeable, but I did not try. I remember having seen a Zephyr with a Typhoon's neck on Ebay last year.


The pickups sound great, they're on the low-output side. The only issue with them is that they don't allow much height adjustment, which may become an issue if you shim the neck.
The neck pickup on the Zephyr is particularly good. Note that the wiring on these is strange : you get either a single pickup, or both out-of-phase.

The bridge (common to all Magnatone's Starstream series) has a bad reputation, but I don't really understand why. I really like it myself. No tuning stability issue, and a good intonation. It doesn't buzz or rattle more than a JM bridge (I would even say less).

The trem unit on zephyr is crappy, as I mentionned before, while it is excellent on Typhoon and Tornado. The same goes for the tuners (6-on-a-plate double line Klusons on the Tornado and Typhoon, crappy unbranded 6-on-a-plate tuners on the Zephyr).

I'll post the wiring diagram for each model when I start the thread, there's a lot to say on Tornado and Typhoon).

If you want to find one, The Tornado would probably be the best value for money. Not sure why, but I constantly note that sellers advertise them as LOUD. I can confirm my Tornado is significantly louder than my two Typhoon.

I didn't observe a real consistency in pricing, but having been looking regularly for at least 3 years, I would say 500-700 $ for an all original Zephyr, 700-900 for a Tornado and 900-1200$ for a Typhoon. More than that would be overpriced in my opinion.

That said, the Zephyr is clearly not in the same quality range than the two others (it was their student model), but it's an impressive little guitar, very fun to play.

Hope this helps...

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Sat May 21, 2016 9:45 pm

First hints of red!

Image

Started to wet sand with 800 grit and a pink eraser as sanding block (thanks øøøøøøø and Pixmix!)
Good news is that it seems to work. Bad news is that, as I expected, the original finish was damaged before the refin took place (should be the reason why the refin was done), so there are areas where there's no red under the blue. Not sure to which extend of course, but at least there was some buckle rash on the back. I started under the guard, but I soon realized that the paint had been damaged when the additional routing was done, so I moved to the back.

I'll report progress, but it sure will be a long process as I want to be very careful.

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by lamf37 » Mon May 23, 2016 1:48 pm

I know it's probably what you don't want to hear, but as you stated, there was probably a damn good reason why it had a refin in the first place.
I'd seriously not waste my time rubbing back, and heat gun it all off and start afresh with a new coat of the original colour, or as close to it as you can get. As it happens I have an Orange metallic here that's near as dammit identical to the pic you posted. I bet a pound to a pinch of shit there's horror beneath that blue finish.

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by mgeek » Mon May 23, 2016 2:14 pm

That doesn't always have to be the case...I had a Fenton Weill which had 3 different coloured layers over the original red/black. Just trial and errored with acetone/wetsanding etc til I got it off and once buffed out you could barely tell

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Re: Best way to restore original finish under poly?

Post by HH1978 » Tue May 24, 2016 7:14 am

Well, I'm not in a hurry, and I think I'll learn a lot while doing it. Refinishing afterwards is always an option, but that's a decision I'll make after I get rid of the blue layer. I don't mind the guitar to be worn, as long as it has at least say 70% of the original finish.

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