el84ster
Well-known member
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2001
- Messages
- 1,420
I have an '01 R8 and the finish has always been soft. After 8 years is still hadn't hardened up! 2 years ago I had to refinish the neck, I used some stew mac nitro and that stuff was hard as a rock in a year! The change in tone after just redoing the neck was pretty amazing too.
So I decided to get serious about getting the rest of the finish nice and hard like it should be. I had been putting it out in the sun, and that helped a little, but not a whole lot.
But I found the answer and almost have the thing rock-hard after only 2 days! I've just been parking my axe by the wood stove...keeping an eye on it so it doesn't get too hot of course. After 2 days the finish has shrunk a little so I can see the grain, it's much harder to the touch and rings very differently when I tap it.
But most importantly, it sounds like a whole new guitar! There is a lot more harmonic content coming out of it now (I guess that was previously supressed by the soft finish). It has more high end and more zing. I have a pair of 1962 Pat # pickups in there and they are able to feed a lot more information to the amp now. Huge improvement. Like I said you can hear the difference when tapping on the guitar. Also now when playing it acoustically, it's much louder!
I'm going to keep curing it; the tone keeps improving. I'd think the same results could be had with a hair dryer...but it's easier to let it sit for a length of time near a stove, etc.
Anyway, thought I'd help out my historic brothers and sisters. :hippy
So I decided to get serious about getting the rest of the finish nice and hard like it should be. I had been putting it out in the sun, and that helped a little, but not a whole lot.
But I found the answer and almost have the thing rock-hard after only 2 days! I've just been parking my axe by the wood stove...keeping an eye on it so it doesn't get too hot of course. After 2 days the finish has shrunk a little so I can see the grain, it's much harder to the touch and rings very differently when I tap it.
But most importantly, it sounds like a whole new guitar! There is a lot more harmonic content coming out of it now (I guess that was previously supressed by the soft finish). It has more high end and more zing. I have a pair of 1962 Pat # pickups in there and they are able to feed a lot more information to the amp now. Huge improvement. Like I said you can hear the difference when tapping on the guitar. Also now when playing it acoustically, it's much louder!
I'm going to keep curing it; the tone keeps improving. I'd think the same results could be had with a hair dryer...but it's easier to let it sit for a length of time near a stove, etc.
Anyway, thought I'd help out my historic brothers and sisters. :hippy