What is up with Japanese nitro?

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Koubayashi

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Why is it that Japanese nitro never crackelate? Is it so mixed up with plastic?

I have never seen this on a Japanese guitar:
P1080729.jpg
 
Huh? I've seen lots of MIJ with finish cracks like that. My seymour duncan has one or two lines like that.

Personally I think finishes are where MIJ guitars absolutely slay made in the USA. People pay obscene amounts for candy coated poly PRS's, Suhrs and Andersons, and those are suppose to be the "best of the best". You're average high end MIJ blows all of them out of the water.

Gibson does pretty thin nitro but their nitro is rumored to be full of plastics. Van Zandt's, Navigators, Moons, etc....all amazing full nitro finishes. Some of them unsealed even.

And don't forget....unless that fender is really early 50's...it's sealed with poly too. Something the majority of high end MIJ DON'T do.
 
soundcreation said:
Huh? I've seen lots of MIJ with finish cracks like that. My seymour duncan has one or two lines like that.

Personally I think finishes are where MIJ guitars absolutely slay made in the USA. People pay obscene amounts for candy coated poly PRS's, Suhrs and Andersons, and those are suppose to be the "best of the best". You're average high end MIJ blows all of them out of the water.

Gibson does pretty thin nitro but their nitro is rumored to be full of plastics. Van Zandt's, Navigators, Moons, etc....all amazing full nitro finishes. Some of them unsealed even.

And don't forget....unless that fender is really early 50's...it's sealed with poly too. Something the majority of high end MIJ DON'T do.

Strangly enough, I have tried to apply acetone to both Navigators and for example Greco Super Real 850's , JV-62-115 etc and my conclusion is that they are not always finished in nitro despite the specs say so cause there is no reaction what so ever with the acetone on many of those I tested (app 30-40% fails the test).
 
bluejeannot said:
I think a black light is a more reliable test for nitro.Gabe.

Acetone and nitro solvent works fine on real nitro.
Just won't do it on many Japanese though.
My conclusion is that they are poly.
 
i think you are rather jumping to that conclusion...

just because acetone does not melt the finish is not conclusive proof that the finish is poly...

many nitro sprayed guitars have varying amounts of catalyser in them, this will affect the acetone test in varying degrees as the chemical composition of the nitro is changed, a very small change in composition can have a large effect chemically, and furthermore, i have seen many MIJ with finish checking, to varying degrees, also remember that the batches of nitro sprayed in th early days may not have had all the same makeup concentration or consistancy, i have seen most tokai's with little or no crazing, but a few with extreme crazing, greco and OBG its very rare to see, old navigators 50/50 new navigators it seems the 580's all have checking nitro whereas the 380/480 dont,

my conclusion is that there are different mixes and various charicteristics of nitrocellulose which may not always be consistantly evident ie crazing and reacting with acetone, heh i bet theres a huge variation in the consistancy of the acetone as well!!
 
I think it also has to do with the age of the guitar (how old is that Tele), the contraction and expansion of the wood due to climate and temp variances, the nitro formulations used years ago versus now, etc.....

I have a couple poly guitars that have finish cracks in them.... not to that extent but certainly there.
 
Most modern era nitro finished guitars do not check either. Like Villager says, the finish is stabilized chemically to avoid this "flaw".
 
Cali Girl said:
Most modern era nitro finished guitars do not check either. Like Villager says, the finish is stabilized chemically to avoid this "flaw".

Not only that, it is also in general very thick, especially on Fujigen made guitars.
 
On the other side, who here is gigging his MIJ guitar a lot? Are owners of the old MIJ Tokai/Burny/Greco collectors or players? And if they get gigged they are likely not the only guitars they use on stage... if you take for instance the old Les Pauls of Snowy White and Peter Green/Gary Moore, these guitars aged a lot because they are/were the only instruments these players gigged with for hundreds of concerts, year after year. Nowadays people use multiple guitars on stage, I've seen enough small (pub)bands who have like 6-8 standing on stage. I guess any guitar won't get much visible wear then, if it is nitro, poly or sheep cloth.
 
Cali Girl said:
Most modern era nitro finished guitars do not check either. Like Villager says, the finish is stabilized chemically to avoid this "flaw".

Ah, the marketing hype of nitro; there are probably hardly any guitars made today that have nitro anything like what was used in the 50s.

I could also put it this way:

There have probably been hardly any guitars made since the 50s that have nitro finishes anything like what was used in the 50s. :lol:

Makers do NOT like using it, not because it is dangerous (all of the finishes are dangerous to human health) but because it is a pain in the arse to use it. Lots of waiting time between coats, and even longer before you can case them up and send them out.

They all use modified nitro these days, and probably have been since at least the 70s. That's modern life!
 
Once clue is that the catalogs list "lacquer" in Katakana rather than "Nitrocellulose Lacquer". I know the 1990 Grecos have 2 finishes: Poly or Urethane lacquer. It could be that they were using lacquer, but not nitro.

The only Greco guitar I have had that behaved like what I expect a nitro-finished guitar is a Greco 1990 real flametop that had lacquer damage from being in contact with vinyl and passed the acetone test.
 
I agree with Fredrik for I have the same experience.
Every nitro coated guitar should react with 100% acetone, only sometimes you have to be persistent and the reaction can be small, especially with the Super Reals.
One of your EGF1800s isn't nitro Mark for I acetoned the hell out of it & I have a blacklight.. Maybe you should try for yourself?
 
well.....believe what you want. All I know is the finish on my ESP SD tele is about the thinnest gloss finish I've ever seen.

DSC05364.jpg


It's nitro. It's thin, and it's a crazy resonant guitar.

US manufactures don't come anywhere close to the quality of finish of most MIJ. Most of the big companies don't even offer nitro. Suhr, Anderson, PRS...all poly. Fender....no full nitro finished models. Gibson and boutique builders like Hahn are about the only ones.
 
Koubayashi said:
Not only that, it is also in general very thick, especially on Fujigen made guitars.

Let's see some measurements compared to industry standard practices...
 
Cali Girl said:
Koubayashi said:
Not only that, it is also in general very thick, especially on Fujigen made guitars.

Let's see some measurements compared to industry standard practices...

Well...Any guitar I use as a player will be stripped from all coating, no matter origin or thickness.

But in general, the Fujigen staff must have used a fire hose when they finished the guitars:)
 
Koubayashi said:
Well...Any guitar I use as a player will be stripped from all coating, no matter origin or thickness.

But in general, the Fujigen staff must have used a fire hose when they finished the guitars:)

So, you have no data then.

If you spray nitro on thick you get orange peel and a bad finish. Spray unnecessary extra coats and you need extra labor, time, and cost. Which also makes no sense.

Stripping the finish off a guitar is not the same as measuring the thickness of the finish.

Can we just put an end to this clown show?
 
Cali Girl said:
Koubayashi said:
Well...Any guitar I use as a player will be stripped from all coating, no matter origin or thickness.

But in general, the Fujigen staff must have used a fire hose when they finished the guitars:)

So, you have no data then.

If you spray nitro on thick you get orange peel and a bad finish. Spray unnecessary extra coats and you need extra labor, time, and cost. Which also makes no sense.

Stripping the finish off a guitar is not the same as measuring the thickness of the finish.

Can we just put an end to this clown show?

I chip of the finish so I have seen quite a few Fujigen made guitars' finish in detail. One JV62-85 I stripped had so thick finish I could have used it as armor in a medieval battle. I also took chips of that finish and put i nitro solvent fluid over night without any reaction.
 
So chip your Gibsons and Fenders and then get out some calipers and let us know, ok?
 

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