Official Luthiers Forum!

I've enjoyed the OLF and gained a lot of knowledge from it over the past few months, but this is only my first post. A friend of mine saw my work with French Polish and asked if I could re-finish his classical guitar. I feel comfortable with putting on a new finish, but I've never removed one. I am not sure of the finish that is currently on the guitar, other than it is not FP. Any suggestions as to how to proceed?

My guess is if it is a hand crafted Classical it will be French Polished. You know how you can test this I assume. If it is French polished the rather than remove you would recondition.

If it is an American factory made classical the odds are it is a Catalyzed Polyurethane. If this is the case the scraping off is your only option. The solvents to remove this stuff requires specialized safety equipment and is not available to the general public.

There is a possibility that it could be nitrocellulose lacquer as well if it is factory made, depending on when it was built and by whom.MichaelP39037.434375

Craig,
If it is not french polish or nitro, it is going to be a bear to take off. I used to have to strip catalyzed lacquer guitars every now and then and it took forever. You can use finish and paint strippers that are available at wal-mart sometimes if you are lucky. Good luck.

Homeboy