Whats the Best Way to Remove Finish?

[Charlie Blue]

Whats the best way and options to remove the poly finish on my bass? I have a white poly finish on swamp ash.

I plan on leaving it natural, with a gloss laquar(sp?) sprayed on by a luthier.

 

[bholder]

I've read here that using a heat gun to soften it and then peel it off with a putty knife is the way to go. I wish I'd known that when stripping my old musicmaster body - sanding it off takes forever on the flat surfaces. Subbed though, lots of folks here know more than (luthier wannabe) I.

 

[Arie X]

now there's a heat gun for you.

were it mine i'd try some sort of eco-friendly paint stripper. otoh, why not have the luthier strip it? they'll have to prep the body anyway.

fwiw, sometimes on a stripped body you'll find ugly, mismatched wood underneath or big pockets of body filler or plugs. mfg's generally don't put the good looking stuff under paint. you may have a surprise waiting for you.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

None of the commonly available strippers will touch poly in my experience. I've tried most of the "eco-friendly" ones like citru-strip, they just don't work. I've stripped one bass, did it with a heat gun and the plastic scrapers you can get at any hardware store. They dull very quickly, but you just re -sharpen with sandpaper. It takes a while, but the plastic scrapers don't seem to gouge like metal. I used a cheap Harbor Freight heat gun, plenty hot for that job. On the one i stripped, the black poly and clearcoat came right off in sheets, but the primer was a bitch, ended up sanding about half of it off.