Okay so first off i've always been obsessed with the gibson grabber bass. I bought this Mike Dirnt signature bass for 65 bucks off some guy a town over from me with the means to supe it up. I finally have some free time and i wanted to know, how do i take the paint off of it. All i want is the plain wood color thats under the paint, and make the pick guard black. I think some of you now understand my love for the grabber bass. I love the color scheme and the sound and this is basically like a shooting for the moon and landing on the stars type deal. I know its not possible to completely mimic the sound but i figured i try my hardest to get that grabber sound out of the fender precision and i'll end up a somewhat unique awesome sound. So yeah now that you've read my life story any easy/fast/inexpensive ways to get this done? Btw i am new to this site and forums in general, so if someone here is trying to help me out and notices i'm not responding feel free to shoot me an email [email protected]
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Stripping Paint
- Thread starter KdaddyGMAN
- Start date
If I understand you, you want to strip this bass:::
Invalid Link Removed
Right?
You may not like what you see underneath that paint job.
If you want sealed or clear-coated wood or to let the wood show through - beware that this isn't a piecemeal bass made of a few different woods that are not at all photogenic - or ANY-genic at all - maybe.
PS ::: it's not a good idea to put your E-mail address in a forum - there are slurp spiders just looking for someone to spam - but I see you use AOL, so you're used to that.
Gee - AOL still exists?
Invalid Link Removed
Right?
You may not like what you see underneath that paint job.
If you want sealed or clear-coated wood or to let the wood show through - beware that this isn't a piecemeal bass made of a few different woods that are not at all photogenic - or ANY-genic at all - maybe.
PS ::: it's not a good idea to put your E-mail address in a forum - there are slurp spiders just looking for someone to spam - but I see you use AOL, so you're used to that.
Gee - AOL still exists?
I'm a recent refinishing newb myself & don't really feel comfortable offering too much on the subject, but I can tell you that if you opt to go the chemical stripper route, you might want to use something a bit stronger than Citristrip for that kind of job. I'm in the process of stripping a blue Squier jazz bass - I started out using some Citristrip I had around the house to see if it would cut through the paint. Pretty much what I thought - the paint just kinda laughed it off - zero progress. I went down to my local Walmart and bought Link Removed Works pretty darn good - especially if you leave it on for a couple of hours or more.
One thing I wanted to mention - under the paint finish there will be a very tough transparent sealer coat (polyurethane I'm guessing)? Well, on my bass this (poly?) coat looked a milky white color but that could have been caused by the chemical stripper eating away at it. If left on long enough, the Klean Strip will eat through that as well and take it down to complete & bare wood. At which point you have options of staining the wood and/or re-finishing with a wipe or spray-on poly, or other such similar protective finish coat.
P.S. - I agree with SurferJoe - no guarantees with what's hiding underneath, wood-wise. I'm glad to say that the Affinity Jazz I'm stripping at the moment has a beautiful, defect-free piece of Alder under all that paint & poly that should be quite nice - if I don't manage to botch up the staining/finishing process.
One thing I wanted to mention - under the paint finish there will be a very tough transparent sealer coat (polyurethane I'm guessing)? Well, on my bass this (poly?) coat looked a milky white color but that could have been caused by the chemical stripper eating away at it. If left on long enough, the Klean Strip will eat through that as well and take it down to complete & bare wood. At which point you have options of staining the wood and/or re-finishing with a wipe or spray-on poly, or other such similar protective finish coat.
P.S. - I agree with SurferJoe - no guarantees with what's hiding underneath, wood-wise. I'm glad to say that the Affinity Jazz I'm stripping at the moment has a beautiful, defect-free piece of Alder under all that paint & poly that should be quite nice - if I don't manage to botch up the staining/finishing process.
P.s surfer joe, you still haven't helped, and I don't appreciate your trolling. Yeah that's the bass and I used that email so spammers don't spam my gmail account.
Gee-being smart still exists?
To everyone else thank you.
Gee-being smart still exists?
To everyone else thank you.
Wow.
Just wow.
There are a bunch of great folks here on TB, and they've got a lot of knowledge to share, but I think you're going to find that your attitude is not going to get you very far. You've got a grand total of two posts, and one of them is this?
I'm not going to speak for Joe, but IMO he wasn't trolling.
ghostdog93 said:Wow.
Just wow.
There are a bunch of great folks here on TB, and they've got a lot of knowledge to share, but I think you're going to find that your attitude is not going to get you very far. You've got a grand total of two posts, and one of them is this?
I'm not going to speak for Joe, but IMO he wasn't trolling.
He was being unnecessarily condescending and I didn't appreciate that. I'm not really an *******. I just asked a simple question and got an attitude filled response in return.
I would try Citi-strip to knock that poly off. It's super toxic, but works wonders. There's even some youtube videos of people showing how to use it. I think it can melt the poly off wood in about 30 minutes or so...
Read into it what you will. Maybe I just have thick skin, or a very different opinion about what constitutes "attitude".
Nevertheless, Joe made two points, one of which is very relevant to your project. If you are going to strip that Squier Dirnt, and you plan to finish the bare body in a clear or tint, be aware that the wood underneath may not be as nice as you wish. It may be poorly matched, if matched at all, or it may have streaks, stains or other surface imperfections that will certainly show up in the finished product. Then again, it may be fine, but the point is...you never know until you get the paint off. And at that point, you're committed.
Ummmm...Citri-strip doesn't contain any caustic chemicals and is biodegradable, so it's generally considered a safer alternative to other paint removers. I wouldn't call it super toxic.
Perhaps you were thinking of Klean Strip? Both their KS-3 Stripper and Klean Kutter are considerably more effective on poly than Citri-Strip.
I stripped a Fender Prodigy bass once, and learned that I will never, ever, strip a guitar again. It's a miserable job and I will happily pay a professional next time.
The only thing I found that would even make a dent in the finish was this -
Good luck and I sincerely hope it works out
The only thing I found that would even make a dent in the finish was this -
Good luck and I sincerely hope it works out
+1
I let a very thick, generous layer of Citristrip lay on my bass body for 8hrs in 86-degree temperature & the top coat of paint wasn't even phased one bit. It was effective as tap water, essentially. If it couldn't phase the top layer of paint, I can't imagine it could even begin to work on the poly undercoat. I would not recommend CitriStrip for that kind of job.
+1 on not using Citri-strip for trying to remove poly. I tried it a while ago on a Squier strat and it did NOTHING after hours of sitting on there. I've had pretty good success removing finish on Fender bodies with a heat gun. The heat gun method is definitely easier to clean up, but make sure you wear a respirator because of the fumes it makes. The same is recommended for chemical strippers too, actually, and don't do either one indoors! If the heat gun doesn't work well, Klean Strip is my usual choice. Make sure you put in on thick and let it work for a while, or you'll have to repeat the process a few times to get everything.
I don't think I've found one method that works well for every single bass/guitar body I've stripped the paint off. I usually have to try a couple before I figure out which one will make the job take less than a week.
Yeah, I'm probably thinking of Klean Strip.
+1 to the Heat Gun idea though. There's some good vids on youtube of someone stripping an MIM P bass body with a heat gun. The paint literally peels off in sheets.
i appreciate all your help. i tried clean strip, left a nice thick layer on top of it for a couple hours and got the same result, might as well have left tap water on it. now im in the process of using klean strip. i've seen klean strip work before on a motorcycle, i'm not expecting the same result but i know its strong so i'll let you know how this goes. if not i just might have to invest in a heat gun.
The heat gun works really well on poly, and the softened finish will peel off the bass body like magic.
However, you've got to be very careful in working with one, especially if you've never used one for stripping paint. Too little heat means it won't work, and too much heat can mean a burned body (or worse).
Chemical strippers, while messier and more time consuming, are a little safer for the wood underneath. I would suggest multiple applications of a chemical stripper and some elbow grease over a heat gun for a first-timer.
I would also avoid using a heat gun after a chemical stripper has been used on a body.
Do a search on TB for "Dirnt". Someone on here just stripped and refinished one. I think he used a heat gun to raise the finish and it came off in strips.
Thank you for forwarding me to that thread his method had the perfect outcome except he used a 15"x16 printing lamp, which I have no money for :-(. Oh by the way mine is a fender I'm using the mobile app for My responses and I couldn't see the name on the headstock. But good news klean strip did the trick "flawlessly", I gave it a nice thick coat on the back of the body left it sit for about 9 hours and came back to find it ridiculously easy to take off. I ran out of klean strip due to the fact that there wasn't much in the can to begin with so the back isn't entirely stripped of all the paint it's still a tad blotchy. The wood doesn't seem to be damaged or bad at all. Just a FYI to all the people helping me out here I just wanted to remind you that this isn't my only bass, I have other good basses and this is merely a project. I'd love for this to turn out awesome but if not then it's not that big of a loss. But all the support/tips/tricks you've all given are still very much appreciated.
I want some of that. I have a few aircraft I want to remove. They keep leaving scorch marks everywhere and when they show up at my place the TSA dudes are all over the deck fumbling and groping within 10 minutes. Its pretty sickening.
On a serious note, I would be wary stripping a solid colour bass. You don't know what is lurking under there. I stripped a Squire Bronco and really wish I had not bothered, the wood was so mismatched it was horrible.
