Guitar Finishing. N/C versus PU. Who's side are you on?

I've just had a bit of a rant about peoples preconceptions about the type of lacquer used on a guitar, and I'm interested to see what other people think. For my part I do not believe that the type of lacquer makes any hint of a perceivable difference in tone on a solid body electric guitar. But those of you who do, please tell me what you hear!!
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there are people who wouldn't consider a gold top because the colour makes the guitar sound all wrong, I just don't know, please tell me what you think.
I know that this is a really dull question, but I have a vested interest.

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No arguments there. Yeah I agree that acoustics and semis need a certain amount of flexibilty which the coating can affect but that's just not true with solids as the mass of wood far outweighs any influence the paint might have on tone.
Just to clarify though I work with resins and stuff and have made no special effort to research this beyond my every day job!

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Well from what I've heard on this board and from Gibson purists (aka snobs), the lacquer allows the wood to breathe and dry out properly-supposedly this will make the guitar sound better with age. I think this is true as I compared a 1981 Les Paul to a brand new one, and the old one definitely sounded more "mature" and ballsy-think of the guitar tone on "Bad to the Bone".

The poly finish on most Tokai's I guess prevents the wood from aging and thus the guitar will sound the same 20 years from now as it does today-to me that's not necessarily a bad thing if the guit sounds great now!!

Hmmm, not bad, certainly the most convincing argument I've heard yet but not without flaws. I mean, check out your pickup and control cavities which don't have the most perfect covering of lacquer. There are still plenty of places for moisture / air exchange on a PU coated axe, so worst case scenario they'll age a bit slower. Also if the coating is breathable then stuff can get in too. This means those sweaty palms are going to make a mess of your neck eventually. Still not believing.
Now I'm on a mission though. There must be somebody out there who believes their pink strat sounds better than their blue strat because it's pink, I've just got to find them.

Cornelius,you're probably right..Anyway the Tokais with the poly finish are applied very thinly, especially compared to Korean and Fender guitars, so in Tokai's case the PU probably doesn't affect tone.

I know this is a very old thread, but I have something relevant to add:

I recently spoke at great length about my Love Rock with the luthier who modded it, and this subject came up. He used to be a very important chap at Patrick Eggle guitars before they went crap, and at their factory he once tested some identical guitars with different finishes - Nothing, N/C, PU and polyester/polythene/whatever, I can't remember that one.

He said that the unfinished guitar sounded by far the best, by far the most open and resonant. There's some famous guitarist who has no finish on his guitar because of this effect, but his name escapes me.

Second place went to the N/C, which is closest thing you can get to unfinished because it's natural and derived from trees anyway.

The others apparently sounded horrible after seeing the others in action. Unnatural and restricted, 'deadened'.

This guy really knows his stuff, so I'm inclined to believe him. I don't know how the finish can have such an effect on tone but apparently it does.

The thing I always have trouble with on this argument is the fact that two different guitars are always being compared.

Given that the instruments are made of wood and that the make up of the wood will be different depending on which part of the trunk the cut has come from (let alone a completely different tree!) then how can we be sure that tonal differences have anything to do with the finish?

Also these judgements are usualy just someones oppinion and not based on accurate measurements.

I think I'll go away and design a test bed based on an impulse response and see if we can't get some proper results.

Oh and I think it was Jeff Beck stripped the finish off his Les Paul in the 60's - I wonder how many '59 bursts got stripped following his lead

GB

To round off the argument:

Which is better, the apple or the orange?

:lol: :lol: :lol:

8) It is the superiority of the Tangerine that renders this discussion mute, Grasshopper :wink:

I present, for your consideration, the Granny Smith.

I await your surrender. 8)

I think the poly finish is popular with makers now because it can be done fast and give a nice gloss finish. Nitro has a lower solids content, so it goes on thinner and requires more applications to build up the finish properly.
Whether the type of finish would impact the sound of a solidbody is beyond me. Maybe dogs or humpback whales could hear a difference. On an acoustic box, the finish characteristics can be the whole ballgame.
I do know that nitro is very forgiving when it requires repair. I don't know if the same can be said for PU.

BTW, I continue my search for the perfect pink Stratocaster. If there is one absolute in the guitar universe, it is that pink guitars sound the best.

CM

My experience is that nitro finishes do indeed sound better as a general rule. I have stripped and refinished many Poly finished Fenders and they always sound better afterwards. My comparision here is not based on different guitars, but rather is of the same guitar/wood/hardware etc., with only the finish changed.

However, with that said, I have found it is the thickness of the finish and base coats, rather than the type of finish used that really screws with the tone. I own many Tokai Fender Clones with Poly finishes that sound fantastic. The reason is, Tokai finishes are extremely thin, and Tokai had a knack of finding great tone woods for their bodies/necks. My Tokais are all Japanese pre 84' so I don't know about newer models. I never refinish them because they are great as is.

In contrast, Fender reissues have an extremely thick basecoat/grain filler of some type of resin that is extermely hard and completely impervious to paint stripper. It forms, in essence an exo-skeleton around the wood. It basically prevents the expansion/contaction of the wood from causing finish cracks. Over this is applied an extremely thick top coat. I had a 52' Tele reissue with a top coat alone of nearly 1/16 of an inch thick. Fender obviously does this to prevernt warranty claims for finish defects. This makes sense in that most guitar buyers are really more concerned with the way the guitar looks than with tone.

Thin Nitro finishes are harder to apply, and they crack and wear through very easily. Vintage Fenders had very thin nitro finishes on them, 5-10 coats, which is why they now look-- vintage. In contrast post 68' Fenders with poly don't age the same way at all. The finish doesn't sink into the wood like nitro, and when it cracks the cracks are big long and ugly, not the fine lines of nitro.

Tone-wise, thick poly finishes impart a very brittle high end, and attenuate the low mids. In contrast a nitro finish (or no finish, or a thin poly) gives a much smoother high end, rounder and sweet, with much better low mids and warmth.

I refinished a natural Schecter Tele body which had a plastic finish that laughed at the paint stripper I tried on it. It took many days with No. 80 grit sandpaper to blast it off.

I learned by mistake (the only way I ever learn anything ) that despite the progressively finer sandpaper and steel wool I used, the ash could have used some wood filler, as the open grain did not show until I had finished the guitar body, or perhaps it did and I didn't know any better!

On the other hand, it looks really nice now, stripped down to the bare wood with a few coats of furniture cherry stain, covered over with multiple coats of tung oil. It is smooth and pretty, although the grain needs some filler. I think it sounded better than the nuclear-proof poly, though, after using my left ear test (with the guitar unplugged, resting my left ear on the upper bout as I pluck up and down the neck, checking harmonics, etc. Whatever resonance is in there really jumps out. The left ear test gets you some odd looks at the guitar shop, though.)

The most resonant Strats I've ever heard this way are the Tokais, BTW, which might just be explained by the steel trem block they use.

But does this mean that less finish equals more tone? I'm not convinced either, because my Silver Star, which looks like it uses the CBS-era Fender thick finish, rings like a gong on steroids using my left ear test. And my LET is, of course, hopelessly subjective, isn't it? But it works for me.

There must be some other criteria involved other than finish and perhaps some engineer somewhere will solve this. Either that or I need to find that elusive Hondo Coyote in hot pink ...

Steve

Tokai geezer makes an excellent observation about the Tokai steel tremelo blocks on their early Japanese Fender clones. Unlike Zinc composites these blocks give much stronger tone, better sustain, and also smooth out brittleness. Callaham replacement blocks are great for non-Tokais.

The effect of a guitars finish on tone is simply one of many components of a guitars overall tone. The finish is neither the largest contributor nor detractor from an instruments tone. A guitars tone is primarily a function of the neck and body wood. Some pieces of wood simply sound better regardless of finish. Moreover, it is the neck, far more than the body, that is responsible for good tone. If you have the luxury of owning and playing many guitars you'll discover that if you have a great sounding neck it will sound good even on a crappy body, but a crappy neck won't sound good on anything.

Ultimately, good tone is getting a guitar with good sounding wood. A factory run of Strats/Pauls etc will have the same type of finish, same hardware, same pickups, same strings etc., but each and every guitar will sound very different. The reason being that each is made from unique pieces of wood. Everything else is identical. That's why a $200 Poly Fernandes Strat may sound better than a $2,000 Fender Nitro Custom shop. Paying $2000 simply doesn't guarantee you'll get a great sounding hunk of wood. I think the reason Tokais are consistently good sounding instruments is that Tokai, apparently, had a knack of picking great sounding/lightweight woods.

Where can you get a new sustain block from? Bear in mind I'm in the UK. I think the bridge I'm using is a gotoh part, so will it fit?

I've finally decided that I prefer Nitro to other finishes for one reason alone, and it ain't nothin' to do with tone. Nitro ages quicker and IMHO better than other finishes.

Glad to see a few people nailing the finish argument though. Nitro finishes generally lay down less resin. A comparitively thick wet spray dries very thin since most nitro finishes are VERY low solids (all thinners no lacquer) whereas more modern lacquers acheive sprayability with much higher solids contents, so the film dries out thicker.