The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #130328   Message #2934330
Posted By: Gurney
24-Jun-10 - 09:04 PM
Thread Name: Guitar: Removing glossy finish
Subject: RE: BS: Removing glossy finish
No Melissa. A cabinet scraper, in the simplist form, is just a rectangular piece of thinnish flat steel. Google it, and you'll see. You use it as I said above, sliding your little fingers along the surface of the wood and holding the scraper between thumbs and first two fingers.   There are other ways to use them, of course.
You use all four edges until they are blunt, put it in the vise, resharpen it.... edges don't like being used 'sideways.'
You also have to have a 'fixed' job, because you don't have a hand to hold the guitar with.

Anything with a handle, I wouldn't use without something to soften the varnish. Heat or stripper. Too easy to gouge the wood. And with heat, too easy to char the wood.
You CAN use a Stanley-knife blade as an impromptu scraper for small areas, but best to blunt or tape over the two acute cutting points.

If you decide to sand off the varnish, the best (and cheapest) power sander is a quarter-sheet finishing sander, which leaves the finest finish.
All the others are harsher/more aggressive.
Enjoy yourself. Chris.