Refinishing A PRS Custom 24 Part 2 | The Final Reveal

In our last article, Refinishing A PRS Custom 24 Part 1, we detailed the removal of the guitar's cloudy green lacquer and extensive prep work for the big refinish -- entirely in nitrocellulose lacquer -- by luthier Luca Quacquarella.

In my humble opinion, our Italian friend really outdid himself on this particular job.

The following pics were taken by Reggie Tan at Luca's workshop on the day he went to pick up his newly refinished PRS.

As always, click on the pictures to enlarge. Enjoy!

PRS Custom 24 refinished top. This guitar was finished entirely in nitrocellulose

Stunning flame maple top on this PRS Custom 24 Artist model

Artist models like this one also feature choice abalone mother of pearl bird inlays

Another view of the top and 'scraped' maple binding

Inlaid abalone PRS logo and Indian rosewood headstock veneer

Back and neck also refinished in nitrocellulose lacquer

A view of the back of the headstock. Note distinctive quarter sawn grain pattern

PRS's distinctive neck joint

Final view of the top. Note light shading of violet mixed in with blue on the edges

Happy owner, happy luthier! Luca (on the left) with Reggie

(Photographs of this PRS Custom 24 courtesy of Reggie Tan. All rights reserved)

Refinishing A PRS Custom 24 | Part 1

If you read my previous two posts about my good friend Reggie Tan's Music Man Luke guitar, what I didn't mention was that Reggie had also sent in his PRS Custom 24 for a refinish at the same time.

His PRS, built in 2004, had developed a strange cloudiness in the finish and the turquoise was slowly fading from the original blue to a faded green for some reason.

PRS Custom 24 in 2008 before the finish started to cloud

PRS uses both acrylic urethane and polyester in their guitar finishes, laying down the poly basecoat before spraying it over with the acrylic. The acrylic urethane is supposed to give the guitar the look and feel of nitrocellulose, without having to deal with the labor intensive application of nitro in a factory setting.

I strongly suspect that PRS's layering of the two kinds of finishes -- combined with Singapore's crazy humidity -- caused the finish to go cloudy over time. And unlike Reggie's Music Man Luke where the finish was literally flaking and falling off the body like potato chips, I have seen quite a number of PRS guitars with cloudy finishes. 

PRS Custom 24 before refinishing. Note cloudy, green finish

When Reggie mentioned he wanted to get his Music Man Luke refinished, I recommended Luca Quacquarella. 

Reggie wasn't familiar with Luca's work but meeting our Italian friend and seeing the quality of some of his other refinishing projects convinced Reggie enough to entrust both his Music Man Luke and his PRS to him.

Finish clouding is apparent. Could it be humidity?

I remember that Luca's initial reaction to being asked to refinish the PRS was one trepidation. 

He explained that with the guitar's carved top and tough polyester finish, it would take considerable time to strip the guitar down to bare wood. He also mentioned that he couldn't be certain if he could strip off the original turquoise stain entirely -- too much wood would need to be shaved off. Wood stain goes deep into the pores of the wood and now the turquoise had turned a sickly shade of green! To be fair, he asked for a couple of days to consider taking on the project.

Reggie had a specific finish in mind -- a transparent light blue stain to show off the flame maple in the center and a darker shade of blue on the outer edges, sprayed in a sunburst fashion.

Needless to say, Luca had his work cut out for him, if he agreed to take on the project.

The Big Refinish

The first major task was stripping the poly finish off the body's top and back, the headstock, as well as the back of the neck.

There was some discussion about just refinishing the guitar's top only. But given that the finish was also starting to get cloudy on the back, neck and headstock, a complete refinish of the entire guitar was decided.

A major overhaul. 

Even the clear finish on the neck and back weren't spared

Luca spent the most time sanding the finish off the carved top by hand, being careful not to flatten out the original contours. Once the poly finish was completely sanded off, the original turquoise stain was finally visible. Which tells me that the cloudy clear polyester topcoat was yellowing as well, causing the finish to take on the green hue. Yellow and blue equals green.

PRS body stripped revealing turquoise stain underneath

There was still a good amount of the original turquoise stain in the wood after he was done, but rather than try to take off more wood, he decided he would apply a blue stain over it. 

Again this was a close judgement call. Too many layers of stain and the top gets too dark.

Beautiful flame soaked up the original turquoise stain

Fortunately, the Custom 24 features an inlaid Paul Reed Smith logo in beautiful abalone on the headstock which meant one less thing to worry about. The headstock could just be stripped and clear coated, unlike the Music Man Luke where the logo had to be painstakingly recreated.

Stripped PRS headstock with inlaid Paul Reed Smith logo

After a couple of coats of stain, the guitar was allowed to dry thoroughly before applying pale blue clear lacquer. Luca is old school and very much a traditionalist when it come to guitar finishes.

He prefers to work with nitrocellulose instead of polyurethane, even though nitro is far more tedious to apply, requiring multiple coats with ample drying time and a thorough wet sanding between coats.

All nitrocellulose finish. Shades of things to come!

(Photo credits: Luca Quacquarella and Reggie Tan)

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Refinishing A PRS Custom 24 for a dose of serious guitar eye-candy! 

Refinishing My Les Paul BFG Part 4 | The Final Reveal!

A last look at the gold top

This installment of Refinishing My Les Paul BFG will finally reveal the completely resprayed guitar top in vermillion nitrocellulose lacquer!

According to Luca Quaquarella, the luthier who did the refinishing job -- and who was also featured in his very own interview in my last post -- the most difficult part of this project was sanding the top of the BFG completely smooth.

He sanded the top entirely by hand and had to ensure that the curvature of the arched maple top stayed true to Les Paul specs. His biggest concern was making sure that there were no flat spots that would ruin the curvature and symmetry of the arch.

In his own words, he sanded off "a hell of a lot of wood!"

After he mixed the right proportions of red and orange nitrocellulose, Luca applied many coats to the top, wet sanding between each coat. Bear in mind that only pure nitrocellulose lacquer was used.

Gibson now uses a nitrocellulose that has a good amount of plasticizer mixed in to give an impeccably shiny surface. Pure nitrocellulose will 'sink' into the pores and surface imperfections, so no matter how many coats you use, the same type of mirror-like nitro-mixed-with-plasticizer shine can never be fully achieved.

Applying the first few coats of nitro

I wanted to keep the back of the BFG in its semi-raw state. I felt that sanding it smooth and filling in the pores of the mahogany back would affect the sound of the instrument too much and suck some of the liveliness out of it. If you read my Larry Corsa article from a while back, he talks about the very same thing, and I'm totally with him on this.

And after all, it is a beautiful one piece mahogany back that is simply gorgeous to touch!

I also didn't want the neck refinished for the same reason but I did ask Luca to roll the edges along the entire length of the fingerboard on both the treble and bass sides. Rolling the fingerboard dulls that sharp 90 degree angle of the edge of the fingerboard so that it feels slightly rounded to the touch.

Again, true to the spirit of the Barely Finished Guitar concept, Gibson had left out this very important step.

As far as guitars, I can get used to almost anything. Set me up with minimal fingerboard relief, get the string height medium-low and the intonation in the ballpark, and the guitar is pretty much ready

to go as far as I'm concerned.

And if the frets don't draw blood, it's a bonus.

Playing the BFG consistently for a long time made me forget how rough the edge of the fingerboard actually is. But when I play one of my other better made Gibsons, and then come back to the BFG, this is when I start noticing how the edge of the fingerboard feels like a piece of firewood.

"The Gibson Firewood. A Few Steps Beyond Aged-Relic. It's Firewood!"  

Perhaps not the best marketing campaign for a new Les Paul model.

Gotta love that flame top!

Luca also thoroughly cleaned and oiled the fingerboard and the back of the neck removing a lot of built-up crud from the fingerboard. He also took a razor blade to that hard-to-clean-spot right next to each fret.

And according to Luca, there was a lot of crud!

During my younger days, I would take all the strings off my guitar every six or seven months, and give the fingerboard a good scrub with a stiff toothbrush and lemon oil to remove every bit of crud. Those days are over. Life is just too short.

Stay tuned to Refinishing My Les Paul BFG Part 5 where we will get a cool custom pickguard by MojoAxe installed, as well as a complete rewiring done to do away with that dang killswitch!

And if you haven't already read the earlier installments, catch up on Refinishing My Les Paul BFG Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3