Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Bringing your older offset back to life.
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FenderBob
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Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by FenderBob » Tue Apr 18, 2017 6:31 pm

Yes, Gather round...It's everyone's favorite guitar, The lovable Swinger.

Recently bought this refinned body.

Image

Image

My original plan was to restore the body and use a 24" scale neck. I Initially thought the red was original and it just had black overspray, but further investigation shows a white basecoat under the red (which Fender didn't use on Swingers) and only wood underneath that. Sad to say the Original paint is long long gone. :fp: Oh well, Time to take apart and get the Citristrip going.

The body has some original parts on it. The original pearloid pickguard is covered in many layers of thick paint and clear top coat. Don't know how I'll get down to the pearloid, the CitrStrip people said the remover would eat (melt) plastic. So I asked for some advice and tried a little pinesol w/o much luck. However, I am putting that aside for now, am concentrating on the body first. Stay tuned. :)

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frelonvert
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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by frelonvert » Tue Apr 18, 2017 10:48 pm

I am not sure that it will work in your case. But I have used nail polish remover (acetone free) with succes on some bad respay bodies.
It is very cheap, it is worth a try.
Take care the skons is evrywhere !

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by mgeek » Wed Apr 19, 2017 3:24 am

Ooh! Cool project.

Don't use any kind of chemicals on the scratchplate, go old school- if it doesn't flake/peel off easily, then try a spot of wetsanding then buff it out

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by Stratelejazzuar » Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:27 am

I think I've seen a few threads on here where people have slowly wet sanded through painted pickguards to get back to the original material. If it's really thick and flat enough you could always get thru the first couple layer of paint by razor blade scraping or something.

I can't wait to see more posts on this restoration! :)

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will
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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by will » Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:45 am

Was any of the original finish hiding in the bottom of a rout? There things were finished is soooooo many different colors!

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by FenderBob » Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:04 am

will wrote:Was any of the original finish hiding in the bottom of a rout? There things were finished is soooooo many different colors!

Indeed there was! These were finished in Olympic White, Black, Dakota Red, Lake Placid Blue, LPB w/ Purpleburst, Candy Apple Red, and Sonic Blue.

And the original color appears to have been Lake Placid Blue!! (pics coming). So bummed the color was removed.

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by mcjt » Wed Apr 19, 2017 10:24 am

Soapy water for flat-sanding the guard?
Go GENTLY.
Good luck!

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by FenderBob » Wed Apr 19, 2017 5:53 pm

Hint of Sweet LP Blue in the control cavity.

ImageIMG_9742 by murl99, on Flickr


Hardware off. You can see the spot under the bridge that I sanded / spot checked for original paint. no dice.

ImageIMG_9741 by murl99, on Flickr

Stripping Time!

ImageIMG_9746 by murl99, on Flickr


Stuff eats styrofoam like nothing.... but I was surprised to see very little progress on the finish after a half hour. Almost like I never put it on, guess I need to leave it longer.

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by mcjt » Thu Apr 20, 2017 3:21 am

i was pretty disappointed by citri-strip.

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by PJazzmaster » Thu Apr 20, 2017 4:17 am

subscribed

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by FenderBob » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:16 am

mcjt wrote:i was pretty disappointed by citri-strip.
Me too. 12 hours later and there's still nothing I can scrape off. I ended up wiping the stuff off this morning.

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by mcjt » Thu Apr 20, 2017 5:47 am

i bought it because people on OSG spoke well of it.
I was dismayed by the "apply and scrape off 24 hours later" instructions.
It was mostly ineffective.
i went back to my favourite nasty furniture stripper that says, "Wait 30 minutes then remove excess":

Image

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by terminalvertigo » Thu Apr 20, 2017 10:51 am

use the latter in a well ventilated area :)
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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by FenderBob » Fri Apr 21, 2017 6:20 am

Am probably going to send this to Dave's Guitar Shop in LaCrosse, WI for a nitro LPB refin.

Got 3 small kids in the house and would prefer to avoid the noxious fumes.

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Re: Fender Swinger Restoration Thread

Post by Jaguar018 » Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:16 am

I used heavy duty paint stripper and a heat gun and got like 95% there, but it's all about 100%-- so yeah... send it along and have a pro do it.

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