Well, attempts to clean the grung failed. In fact, I found that the finish was soft pretty much everywhere, was highly soluble in alcohol and absorbed water easily. The guitar is not super valuable, which may be a good thing, but was bought new by the client in the early 70s and in otherwise excellent condition.
So, the decision was made to refinish with nitro. Sanding produced nothing more than sticky balls of soft finish, so I resorted to furniture stripper. Not fun, but the dirty work is done. The original headstock decal was melting into the finish as well, so it’s gone, leaving a space for some custom inlay. The client is considering.
I hope I never have to use stripper again on a guitar!
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