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Does anyone know if Gretsch sprays lacquer over the drum wrap they use on the Silver Jet? I am just finishing up construction of a drum wrap topped guitar and didn't know if there were any incompatibility issues with nitrocellulose lacquer.

Nitro is pretty caustic stuff. The solvents eat away a lot of different plastics. I have decals I use on my head stocks and I have to make sure I properly seal them with shellac before I can put nitro over them. If they are not sealed, the color begins to bleed, and then the whole decal starts to ripple and the edges begin peel up without being touched. I would suspect that the wrap is some sort of plastic. The best person to speak with would be Gretsch. Or, if you have some scrap wrap, you can test for nitro compatibility on that.

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PMoMC

Hopefully you've got scraps of the drum material to experiment with. Even then, you are in dangerous territory. Let's say that you spray nitro over the drum and it doesn't wrinkle up the plastic or have some other reaction. How do you know that months later it won't separate or chip? Does the drum stuff look good already, so you can leave its finish as is?
If I was determined to finish over it I would:
1. put some finish on a scrap piece, using much lacquer and little reducer.
2. Let that cure a few weeks.
3. Run it through some temperature cycles, between say 32 F and 110 F.
4. bang on it with some hardwood chunks to see if it will chip or flake more than any other finish.
Good Luck. Situations like this are what cause every book on finishing to say "stick with one manufacturer for all your supplies, then you can call the help line."

Thank you for the responses.

This is the material that Gretsch uses, actually it is an original Silverjet top plate. I wrote to Gretsch, but never heard back. I am sure Steven Stern from the Gretsch Custom Shop would know, but I don't know how to get in contact with him. I did put some lacquer on a scrap a month ago and so far no reaction of any kind. Certainly one of those situations that once you do it there is no turning back, as you can't sand off the finish.