The problem is that this usually becomes evident only when there's a major damage. So I'd be curious what the responses are, from people with noteworthy dings on their 1980/81 LS50s and pretty please with pics!
However, I have a working theory, based on a quick survey of LS50s still in the cache on Reverb.com, alas since the Tokais tend to have been treated nice, the sample size is way too small.
But first things first:
know that polyester and polyurethane can be applied thin to thick.
For all I've ever heard, read and seen - no. Here's a rundown I wrote for a different post/article (basically a rant about misnomers):
Polywhatnow?
Shortening polyester and polyurethane to just "poly" has done a lot of confusion and harmed the reputation of both:
Polyester (PE) is the "bad" stuff that became so popular for all kinds of applications in the 70s that some call it the "polyester decade". It was happily worn as shirts and applied to cheap guitars and not much better guitars sold for a lot more, because it was simple to spray on in often a single layer. It forms a thick, hard armor layer (great for light and soft woods!) and is extremely durable and eternally shiny. It is what people mean by "that thick plastic coat not letting mah woodz breathe", Fender started using it in the 70s and does to this day on the lower tier products. If I understood this stuff right, both PE and PUR are technically urethanes, the chemical difference to polyurethane is that polyester consists of "more solids" and different polyols (I don't know jack $%/! about the chemistry!).
Polyurethane (PUR) on the other hand has "best of both worlds" properties, it can be applied as thin as nitro yet it's more durable and chemically stable - it's the finish guitar makers were dreaming of when they started looking for a better, more resistant finish to replace the work-intensive nitro lacquer and the late 50s thermoplastic acrylic lacquer ("Lucite") stuff. I'm not going to open the "breathing" can of worms, let's just say "them polys are not the same"!
By the way, polyurethane is - just like NC lacquer - not a single recipe, there are plenty of ways both could be composed, and some (I think oil-based) polyurethane clear coats are almost as much subject to yellowing as nitro.
To demonstrate the above, let's have a look at typical damages. This is an extreme but typical example of polyester (
Fender Baja Tele, not mine
):
Now here's a Tokai polyurethane finish (Breezysound, mine):
Zoomed in (so you can behold the actual chipped layer):
Another characteristic of thin polyurethane is that it eventually sinks into the wood similar to NC lacquer, polyester doesn't do that:
Finally, here's a tiny chip in nitrocellulose finish (Strat, mine):
A bit closer:
OK, now that we know what to expect, let's get back to the LS50. I could only
find one guitar that actually looks like polyester - this is a 1980 LS50BB, an Inkie:
The pic isn't great, so I wouldn't wager any money on it but it looks like there is a lot of depth in the dings, and a whole lot of material chipped off the rounded corner to expose the wood. Here's the headstock:
That still looks thick, but not
that thick. Of the other LS50s, none had really unambiguously PE looking damages, and those that had actual damages looked like polyurethane so I didn't copy any pictures, we know how that looks.
. So a "working theory" could be that polyester was used, but either 1) not by Tokai (only Inkies, so Fujig...that Nagano supplier) and/or 2) only with black or at least only specific colors. What I'm pretty sure of is that not all (if any) 1980/81 LS50s had a polyester finish.
Looking forward to what (literally, no pun intended but quite welcome!) hard evidence this thread will bring up!
