Look wot I dun!! (Explorer make-over)

[AndyR]

My Explorer has been p1ssing me off for ages...  :(

But for £30 and a week of hard "Trinny & Susannah" work, it is now stunning :D

It was a Dark Cherry (see cr@ppy photo - the only "before" shot I have). In principle, I love this colour, but it wasn't quite right.

That would have been OK, but I've had it for over two years now and it has always been sticky as hell in my hands. I did all the usual rub it back a little & polish it up. It would seem ok, and then next time I picked it up, five minutes in and it was "eeeyurgh  :x".

The finish (bodywise) felt soft and so prone to accidents, kinda fragile - making the thing feel larger and more cumbersome than it actually is. And the thing always reeked of a "hot chocolate" sort of smell, which I liked originally, but I've come to loath.

Either this thing never cured properly or Gibson's current clear coat just does not agree with me (I have no such problems with my Faded SG).

Now, I know a lot of folk would be thinking resale value, and this guitar is the closest I've ever come to considering this factor, but really I don't usually move instruments on (or if I do I sell them for peanuts to nephews and nieces!!). I tend not to regard any guitar I own with any reverence other than "my guitar, doesn't it make nice noises". So, if it's not doing it for me, and I know what's wrong, I am likely to attempt something knowing it might destroy the thing. In this case, although I was starting to think of getting rid of it, I do kinda love this geetar - it plays lovely, it just stank and felt like sh1t all the time! :lol:

Then last weekend, I was watching Judas Priest Live Vengeance (1982) and noticed that one of KK's original Vs had the back of the neck stripped.

So last Saturday afternoon I crossed my fingers and started sanding the neck... Flippin heck - that was LOADS tougher than sanding a poly neck! By the time I gave up (knackered!) I was not sure whether I'd done the right thing... I was through to wood in a small area, and I knew that it would feel right if I could finish without doing damage... That night I did a lot of thinking, looking at the body and its colour, looking at the grain through the finish, deciding to look into doing something more drastic... Sunday morning, while waiting for the shops to open, I did loads of research on here and the interweb in general. Then I went out and got me:

• Nitromors varnish & lacquer remover (cos you guys said it takes nitro off easily)
• A bottle of white spirit (cos I'd forgotten I'm an oil painter and I've got buckets of the stuff :roll:)
• A scr@per thingy
• A tin of "Dark Mahogany" wood dye (cos the blurb on the back of the next item said dye might be wanted)
• A tin of Rustin's Danish Oil (cos I found a post from Wez recommending it to someone months ago, and then when I did the "Tung vs Tru vs Danish vs Snake vs etc Oil" research that morning, I ended up with the information that Danish would give me a flatter, more satin finish)
• A box of they disposable safety gloves (I was thinking nitromors, but actually the wood dye just eats them!)

I already had a selection of Briwax and different gauges of steel wool.

So, a sunday afternoon of "what am I doing?!" lacquer stripping out in the back garden, followed by a week of early mornings and late evenings "doing stuff"... and now I absolutely love it. :D  8)

It's still not a strat, obviously (:lol:). But my most expensive guitar, the one that stayed in its case all the time, the one that was distinctly unloved, now feels like a new girlfriend...

(I nearly called this a NGD, I'm that chuffed/excited by it!)

[99_not_out]

Gorgeous! A victory for hard graft and Judas Priest ;-)
Congrats on the "NGD", always wanted an explorer ...

[gordiji]

beautiful job, good wood needs not covering, n'est pas?

[WezV]

looks good


it may need some maintenance if its just danish and wax on mahogany - maybe a re-wax in 6 months or so - but it will be worth it.  the more you do and handle it the more it develops a patina like an old banister and feels great

[Gizmo]

you made the right decision. it looks very nice. big fan of the mahogany finish.

[AndyR]

looks good

i am just doing a similar finish on a firebird I clone(ish) at the moment

it may need some maintenance if its just danish and wax on mahogany - maybe a re-wax in 6 months or so - but it will be worth it.  the more you do and handle it the more it develops a patina like an old banister and feels great

:D thanks for that... but I'm way ahead of you...

...mainly cos I found similar statements from a bloke with a yellow head playing a banjo/ukelele on this forum :lol:

Many thanks for all the help you've given in the last week or so without even knowing it!! :D

EDIT: Of course, if you ever change your avatar again, this particular post might be a bit mystifying to someone reading it later!

[Philly Q]

Mister you're a better braver man than I!

But gosh that looks good, and I bet it feels like much more of a "player" now.  Did you have to be extra careful not to damage the lacquer on the headstock?

[WezV]

:D thanks for that... but I'm way ahead of you...

...mainly cos I found similar statements from a bloke with a yellow head playing a banjo/ukelele on this forum :lol:

i do tend to repeat myself a lot ;)

[_tom_]

That looks awesome, natural finishes are my favourite :D Love the look of explorers but always think I'd look a right tit playing one!

[LazyNinja]

Natural stain looks great! I'd replace the pickguard with a black one then it'd be perfect.

[d1dsj]

Looks great, well worth the effort. 8)

[MrBump]

Looks so  much better.

Maybe you should take your oil paints and go work for Gibson, Andy?

;)

[AndyR]

Did you have to be extra careful not to damage the lacquer on the headstock?

:roll: :lol:

You can't see it though can you!

Yep, I was being very careful. I nearly didn't strip the back and sides of the headstock, but it looked daft. I considered masking the front, but my experience of masking in paintings made me think that this would be asking for trouble. At least with oil paint, you can slap the paint on and then when you whip the tape off you've still got the chance to wipe any seepage... but with stripper, it would already have started its job.

I'd noticed elsewhere on the guitar that, unimpeded or encouraged by extra stuff like masking tape, the stripper works "downwards" into the lacquer, very little sideways action. So I decided "I can paint in straight lines" - and I can (ish). I got it painted up to the edge perfectly - absolutely perfectly. Then I manouvered the guitar to check out another area...  :? ... next time I looked at the face of the headstock, there were three big drips, right across the front!  :lol: It can only have been like that for a minute or so, but it was enough... I neutralised it immediately with white spirit. I waited for it to reharden and then flattened the front of the headstock with coarse wire wool. Luckily, I already knew the Gibson clear coat on this guitar was extremely thick. Unfortunately the remedial action damaged one of the edges - there seemed to be two distinct clear coat layers on this guitar, the top layer went in a tiny (2mm) area. Stuck out like a sore thumb...

BUT! I found something interesting while dyeing and oiling the body. For "old times sake" I'd left a tiny patch of the original lacquer under the scratchplate between a pickup cavity and the control cavity: and I found that the new finish took to the old lacquer :D

So, I let the dye overspill onto the "chip" on the edge of the headstock face - that removed the white/grey that made it stand out so much. Then I made the original lacquer as uniformly matt as I could manage with wire wool. And then I put one layer of Danish Oil over it to see what would happen. I've ended up leaving it like that - close up you can even see the marks from where I wiped the excess oil, but it looks kinda "rustic" and in keeping with everything else.

Love the look of explorers but always think I'd look a right tit playing one!

That was my take on them for nearly 20 years!!

I'd replace the pickguard with a black one then it'd be perfect.

I have seriously considered that - even when it was dark cherry. But I'm after an "Allen Collins in Lynyrd Skynyrd" or "The Edge" look - those were the Explorer images I fell for originally.

But it does look awfully "white" at the moment. Do Gibson pickguards age like Fender's do? I've got a feeling that they don't, so getting a snot-green one made up might be a bit daft... (it's crying out for it though :lol:)

[Ratrod]

Looks great.

[Philly Q]

I knew there'd be a story about the headstock!  :lol:

I'm not going to try this on my 339 or SG-X, but it has turned out really well.

But it does look awfully "white" at the moment. Do Gibson pickguards age like Fender's do? I've got a feeling that they don't, so getting a snot-green one made up might be a bit daft... (it's crying out for it though :lol:)

No, the old Fender ones age like that because they were made of celluloid.  New ones are made of vinyl which doesn't change colour so much.