JVSeller wrote: ↑Fri Jun 02, 2023 11:24 pm
I have a 2008 thin skin Jaguar in Fiesta Red. I’m the second owner and have to admit I bought it on a whim thinking it would probably be a good investment. Being that it appears unplayed, it lives in its case and I virtually never take it out. But I took it out the other day because I was contemplating a trade. I noticed that the paint looks a bit odd, almost pitted although it feels completely smooth. I haven’t been able to see any other FR thin skins with good up close pictures of the finish so not sure if it’s normal...
Hey there JVSeller,
My name is Brett. I worked at a shop called Music Machine Guitars back when we created the Thin Skin guitars and was particularly involved with the Jazzmasters and Jaguars. The original run of these was a joint project between three guitar shops... Music Machine Guitars, Wildwood Guitars and Dave's Guitar Shop. I can shed some light on exactly what you are seeing.
Now I am not a chemical engineer and I can't give you the exact scientific explanation or chemistry involved with what you are seeing, but I can give you a layman's explanation. Or at least how we had it explained to us and subsequently educated our customers who also experienced this issue.
They were finished and put away wet.
OK, maybe that is a great oversimplification, so I'll share a bit more info. I remember seeing this phenomenon fairly frequently, particularly on the Jazzmasters and Jaguars. It seemed to be caused by the fuzz in the case sticking to the finish. Kinda.
The popularity of the Jazzmasters and Jaguars caught everybody involved somewhat by surprise (except me, because they had been me and my friends guitar obsession since the 80s when we all wanted to be Robert Smith, lol). So as soon as Fender would produce these, man we wanted them shipped ASAP. I literally had butcher paper stapled to my office wall with the names and numbers of people waiting for them. And OSG was incredibly badass by letting me poll members here about colors we wanted to see and give advanced notice of what colors were coming.
So anyway, When these arrived into our shop, they smelled REAL freshly painted. And sometimes we would pull them out and, while not "glued" to the case interior, you could tell there was JUST starting to be some adhesion between the nitro and the case fuzz. On my sonic blue Jazzmaster from that run, I have the exact same phenomenon you do (though after years of playing you'd be hard pressed to see it anymore). Granted it was not as noticeable on a non-metallic, opaque finish like Fiesta or Sonic Blue. BUT, if you caught it early enough, before the finish fully cured (roughly within the first year) you could actually make the finish heal itself.
LITERALLY freakin' heal itself. You took it and hung it all day in the direct sun behind a glass window. Next day? Like magic, it looked like new. We even did this on a Jaguar that had the lacquer crack all over it from the cold during shipping... Hung it in our shop window and the next day,
*POOF*, finish checks we GONE. So long story short, when these arrived to us the finishes were VERY fresh and VERY soft because it takes a while for nitro to fully cure and harden after you shoot it. And I do remember a couple of returns because the finish had slightly adhered to the fuzzy case lining and looked exactly like what your photo shows. So into the window they would go, next day they would look like new again, and the customer next on the waiting list was happy to buy it.
It was known in our shop as "the window fix". "Oh no, another one... Time for another window fix!" Did the window trick "melt" the flaw away? Did the UV light add a mirror like sheen back to the spotted area? Like I said, scientifically WHO KNOWS, but it worked 99% of the time, seemed to cure the finish enough to prevent it from happening again, so all was good in our eyes.
So that is what you are seeing. It is probably from being stored away in the case and not moving for some time during the first year or two. With this many years having passed, I'm sure the finish is WELL cured by now and the window fix isn't an option any longer. But what the hell, give it a try!
Hope this shed some light on that for you or anybody else who may have experienced the same thing and couldn't figure out what it was.
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