Mmm....strippers

[kennyhowes]

I'm proud of you boys.

I went looking for a pic of Carol Doda to put up, but they're all...er, inappropriate.

[jingle_jangle]

Carol runs a lingerie store a few blocks from here on Union St...

[cjj]

Ah, who needs scantily clad women when we've got scantily clad ricks???

Let's see some pictures of those strippers in action!

[jingle_jangle]

OK, you asked for it.

This was Russ Rubman's Union Jack 340, stripping the Burgundyglo finish:




...and finished...

[kiramdear]

From Eeeeeeeew! to Oooooooh!

[Tarrbot]

That is an awesome pic Paul.

Seriously. It's so awful it screams art.

[cjj]

OOh YEAH! Take it off, take it ALL off!

And that brings us to a serious question...

With these strippers, do they take the finish off all the way to bare wood or is there some sanding/wood removal needed? I've heard that RIC does a sealer coat before the color coats, but does that keep all of the color coat from leaching into the wood?

[jingle_jangle]

OOh YEAH! Take it off, take it ALL off!

And that brings us to a serious question...

With these strippers, do they take the finish off all the way to bare wood or is there some sanding/wood removal needed? I've heard that RIC does a sealer coat before the color coats, but does that keep all of the color coat from leaching into the wood?

Most of the time. Exceptions are some JGs and the Burgundyglo (2002) as seen above.

Usually the JG cleans up pretty nice, but sometimes the finish gets into the grain and serious sanding and scrubbing with acetone is required. The BG above took a fair amount of sanding before it was clean enough to apply the new finish onto.

Because the main color of this UJ was Ruby, and the slightest imperfection shows with these high-toned, pearlescent glamour colors, I elected to use a coat of light gray polyester primer surfacer, instead of sealer (which is transparent and has minimal filling capabilities). The PPS will fill anything up to about a millimeter deep, including sand scratches and some nicks.



When doing multi-layered finishes like this one, I usually work light-to-dark, as dark colors cover light better than vice-versa. So, the first coat on this was pure white, followed by a white pearl coat. This was the "ground" coat--the foundation for all of the other colors.

Then I began to lay out the flag graphic using special tapes. The blue tape most painters are familiar with. What can't be easily seen in this photo is the Fine Line tape that's used to get a sharp edge.



Here it is, with both white and blue areas masked off, after having been sprayed Ruby. I mask off the blue because it's a bit transparent and I wanted white under it instead of Ruby for maximum brightness. The whole back , sides, and neck and headstock are ruby, too. What's not obvious is the shading with a darker pearl red around the edges and on the tip of the headstock. This is so subtle that I'm not sure anyone would notice without it being pointed out, but it's one of those details that helps to "pop" the color edges for more contrast.



Here it is while the masking is being peeled off after the last color--blue--which has a bit of copper spatter to relieve the solid color. This spatter does not show well in photos, either:



Last thing is clearcoat. There were a total of seven separate paint operations before clearcoating, and the body was masked five separate times to keep things clean. Lots of time was involved.

Brian Simer's MMT was a similarly involved process, too.

Now back to Stripper Talk, with your host...erm...

[kiramdear]

Paul, what did you put on the fretboard? Is it dyed or painted, and varnished?

[Tarrbot]

It looks taped with overspray on the tape.

[kiramdear]

Sorry, I meant the trans red color on the board in the second photo above.

But the overspray rainbow is kinda neat, too.

[Tarrbot]

Here's a better question. Why isn't that one in the Register Gallery?

[jingle_jangle]

Kira: That's the unretouched, untinted color of the boo-binga fretboard, with only some new CV on it. Some are lighter, some darker. This one was a very rich red/copper color.

Re: register...ask its owner, Mr. Rubman...

[Clint]

Oh man! Someone has GOT to change the name of this thread.