De fretted!!

[Bassman1Seb]

So I've been looking for a cheap fretless bass to mess around with in order to get used to fretless. I then realized that of the three basses I own, (all fretted) I only use two of them.
The remaining bass, which is the first bass i bought, (blue ibanez gsr-200) hasn't been getting much use lately so I decided to convert it to fretless.
I proceeded to remove the frets which took me about 15 min, buy some sanding paper from homedepot, some wood filler and then rushed home to get to work.
I sanded down the neck, with 100 grit sandpaper, which lightened the color of the already unusually light rosewood and then filled the fret slots with a walnut colored filler. The darkest I could find a home depot. When the filler dried, I sanded the neck again and then began to experiment with sanding the headstock of the bass. i always hated how the headstock had a shiny plastic finish on the front so I sanded that down to a beautiful matte finish with a bit of nice maple showing around the edges of the headstock. I started getting excited at this point and started thinking about stripping the current finish on the body,(a glossy jewel blue) and staining it.
Does anyone know how to do this? Do I use a special paint thinner or something? The bass sounds beautiful right now and I think a stained finish on the body will complete this project? Do you have any tips on how to remove the current finish and get the the wood underneath?

[Bassman1Seb]

Almost forgot!! I also used 220 grit paper to finish the sanding

[Shakin-Slim]

Sorry, no idea about how to strip it, tell us about your defretted beaut though. How does she play? happy with the job you did?

[Bassman1Seb]

Well i had to lower the bridge for everystring now that the frets are gone. But she plays so smooth and has this tone that totally surprised me. She had the modern sounding steely ibanez tone before i changed to flatwounds and thats when i stopped playing her.
Something about the tone didn't excite me. After the conversion however, she now has an earthy, warm, yet growly tone that in many ways reminds me of an upright.

[Shakin-Slim]

Sounds like a dream, man Congrats. I wasn't brave enough to do it myself, so a friend defretted mine and did a good job of it too! Hopefully someone can help you with your stripping question. I would recommend changing to title to something along the lines of How To Strip A Finish, so that people who know what they're on about can read it and come in. Also, luthiers corner could be a better place for that, although this works too

[Bassman1Seb]

Thanks man

[Turnaround]

Forget regular paint strippers - you'll only get a severe case of frustration. If you don't have one, get a heat gun - it's made for stripping all kinds of finish. Get yourself a decent quality putty knife. When you apply the heat gun to the finish, lay the putty knife in the blast from the heat gun so that you are heating both the finish and the putty knife at the same time. When it gets hot enough, the putty knife will push through the finish and peel it off in nice long strips. You just have to keep the heat gun pointed at the point where the knife blade meets the finish on the bass as you advance.

When all the finish is removed, do a proper sanding and proceed with stain and finish.