Would The Great God Fender Really DO This To Us???

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toobalicious said:
upon reflection, i see that you were indeed referring to the article writer, so disregard the "in defense of myself" stuff in the post above. the other stuff is pertinent though.
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It was me that at first responded to your posts not Light so don't get on his back just because he concurred with my statement.

Having said that, after your last few posts I'm not really sure what your driving at? The author of the OP's original citation is talking bollox. I called you out for possibly substantiating some of it. Thats as far as we got before I lost you.

I could take your subsequent posts and dissect them and point out where factually you are incorrect but I'm not sure that you are entirely comfortable with the facts of the matter. Lets just say that the author of the article in question is full of shit and leave it at that.

Sound good?;)
 
Actually, I am not sure the author really IS full of it.

An abstract of his article might say "Fender has used a propritory, liquid-applied plastic filler on all of it's guitars since 1963, in spite of the incorrect myth that so-called vintage, and American-Made Fender guitars are finished in only nitrocellulose lacquer." He does not say that Fenders are, or sound like, crap- he does not even say they sound bad for having Fullerplast under the lacquer. He only points out a (possibly true, possibly incorrect- no one here has actually disproved it) fact that the base coat on Fender solid-bodies is Fullerplast.

My interpetation is to be aware of that fact, and to NOT pay whatever premium might be attached to the price of a guitar because it has a "100% Nitrocellous lacquer" finish, when, in fact, it does not. I don't hear anyone (at least not yet) taking issue with my assertion that Fender is out to make as much profit on each guitar as they can- and I can certainly believe that Fullerplast is an effective means to that end.
 
So is this why I've seen some guitarists (John Frusciante is fresh in my mind) with fenders that look like they've worn down to the wood? It's actually worn down to this Fullerplast stuff?

That's pretty cool.

If Fender does it, I may do it too!
 
toobalicious said:
again, i will not reference what may or may not be in the writer's agenda.

but fullerplast IS a coating, and sometimes a thick one. anything that coats something else in this way is bound to change its resonant characteristics. think about a little moon gel on a 16" floor tom, or a piece of dynamat on a trunk lid. i know apples to oranges, but it sort of illustrates my point, albeit in an exaggerated manner.

does it completely change the character of the guitar? maybe, maybe not.

am i saying that fender (or any instrument that uses a similar process) sucks because of it?
absolutely not. i even love the stuff from the 70's with finishes so thick that you couldnt scratch to the wood with the edge of a quarter.

does the characteristics of the wood really matter that much to the amplified tone?
depends on who you ask. IMHO, it absolutely does.

FWIW.
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OK. So, IF every strat since 1963 is coated this way AND removing the coating changes the sound, then a strat is only a strat IF it is coated this way.

So, the article is irrelevent to a Fender guitar. A Fender guitar is only a genuine Fender guitar if fullerplast is used in it's manufacture.:D
 
I don't know fact from fiction in this debate. What I took from the article is that all the bull about nitro & breathing and such making a better guitar is moot at best if they've been sealed 1st.
Now, is that part of it correct?
 
Dudes.

Seriously.

I play a Gibson LP baritone with .14 strings. If I was to record a clip mic'd through the amp, and another where the damn guitar is wrapped in fricken bubblewrap. NONE of you could tell the difference. OR a clip with the paint as it is and then sanded to wood, you wouldn't know. Not after the Mesa-preamp overdriven and the bazillion tone-controls on my Fender amp.

On an acoustic, difference could be audible, on a bolt-on-neck solid plank through amps tone-controls, nah, they could coat guits with toilet-paper if it'd look cool and last for years.
The coating on solid guitars, is for the looks only.

I can record DI, every guitar I have, and none of you can probably tell the make, model nevertheless, finish, from the sound.

...carry on..
 
rayc said:
I don't know fact from fiction in this debate. What I took from the article is that all the bull about nitro & breathing and such making a better guitar is moot at best if they've been sealed 1st.
Now, is that part of it correct?
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No, you've got to seal the wood before you start finishing, or you will never get a great finish. All that stuff is bull because it is bull. I use nitro for a variety of reasons. None of them are related to how it sounds. How it looks, how easy it is to repair, and my person experience with using it, yes; sound, no.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
rayc said:
I don't know fact from fiction in this debate. What I took from the article is that all the bull about nitro & breathing and such making a better guitar is moot at best if they've been sealed 1st.
Now, is that part of it correct?
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Partly, right partly wrong.. I've said this before but evrything you do to a guitar makes a difference. Some you will hear some you wont. On the sealer thing first. Every guitar maker seals the grain. Some do it as a two part process some as a one part process. That doesn't matter the point is that everyone does it. Many, many different materials are used form Mica or pumice and shellac in french polish to polyester on some production guitars. I've seen and used tried loads of methods myself, from pure shellac to epoxy resin. That is not the point. The point is that everyone does it. They are just filling the grain and then sealing the wood because it needs protection. On a nitro finish I still fill the grain and seal as required and I don't do it with nitro, I don't know anyone that does.

As to the sound aspect, To preserve any tone inherent to the wood you want to use as little finish as possible to achieve a good protective finish. There is nothing to say that loading up finish may not improve the tone in some cases. It is just not predictable even in a small workshop like mine let alone a big production line.

On electrics it is less critical. because of the manner in which the sound is generated and produced. On acoustic instruments it becomes a thing of quite a bit of concern for the same reason.

The guy who wrote the article is an idiot because he has an agenda that is anti fender but doesn't say why. He has no knowledge of finishing techniques in general let alone how instruments are finished and beyond that he is just plain wrong in many instances.

Don't worry about it guys your tone is safe with a fender if that is what you have/like.:)
 
muttley600 said:
It was me that at first responded to your posts not Light so don't get on his back just because he concurred with my statement.

Having said that, after your last few posts I'm not really sure what your driving at? The author of the OP's original citation is talking bollox. I called you out for possibly substantiating some of it. Thats as far as we got before I lost you.

I could take your subsequent posts and dissect them and point out where factually you are incorrect but I'm not sure that you are entirely comfortable with the facts of the matter. Lets just say that the author of the article in question is full of shit and leave it at that.

Sound good?;)
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heh, ive been away for a minute...

firstly, i am not on anyones back. i absolved "light" of any misunderstanding immediately following my rebuttal.

secondly, the *only* real point that *i* was trying to make is about how impermeable that sort of coating can be. if you feel it is the same as, say, nitrocellulose sand and seal, then we are definitely going to have to agree to disagree. they do the same things, i guess, but the end result is NOT the same, and the words of this thread are not going to dissuade my beliefs on the matter. i have refinished perhaps 20 instruments in my life (including a set of drum shells) which certainly does not qualify me as an expert, and i mentioned that straight away in my first post.

thirdly, my remarks about what it may or may not do to resonance were from a hypothetical and observatory stance. the "apples to oranges" examples i proposed were merely meant to be thought provoking, and not a statement of scientific law.

i never wrote that anyone or anything was wrong or right, but i did participate in a discussion *about* someone else's opinion--- one that was supported at least in part by something i have experienced personally. nothing more, and nothing less.

i thought i summed up my stance pretty well with:
of course, you mightve meant the the article writer was an idiot, and frankly, i did little more than skim it. so, maybe he is/was an idiot. besides WHO really bases any sort of decision making on an EBAY article, for fecks sake? i mean, really.
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the rest of it are words that were put in to my mouth, so to speak.

i am not cross. i am not being condescending. i am not offended. i currently am not arguing anything except that i am actually *not* an idiot. feel free to re-read what i have posted here.
 
MCI2424 said:
OK. So, IF every strat since 1963 is coated this way AND removing the coating changes the sound, then a strat is only a strat IF it is coated this way.

So, the article is irrelevent to a Fender guitar. A Fender guitar is only a genuine Fender guitar if fullerplast is used in it's manufacture.:D
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if you believe that, more power to you. i dont think i read that statement anywhere in this thread. especially not in anything i typed, even though you quoted me.......
 
toobalicious said:
heh, ive been away for a minute...

firstly, i am not on anyones back. i absolved "light" of any misunderstanding immediately following my rebuttal.

secondly, the *only* real point that *i* was trying to make is about how impermeable that sort of coating can be. if you feel it is the same as, say, nitrocellulose sand and seal, then we are definitely going to have to agree to disagree. they do the same things, i guess, but the end result is NOT the same, and the words of this thread are not going to dissuade my beliefs on the matter. i have refinished perhaps 20 instruments in my life (including a set of drum shells) which certainly does not qualify me as an expert, and i mentioned that straight away in my first post.

thirdly, my remarks about what it may or may not do to resonance were from a hypothetical and observatory stance. the "apples to oranges" examples i proposed were merely meant to be thought provoking, and not a statement of scientific law.

i never wrote that anyone or anything was wrong or right, but i did participate in a discussion *about* someone else's opinion--- one that was supported at least in part by something i have experienced personally. nothing more, and nothing less.

i thought i summed up my stance pretty well with:


the rest of it are words that were put in to my mouth, so to speak.

i am not cross. i am not being condescending. i am not offended. i currently am not arguing anything except that i am actually *not* an idiot. feel free to re-read what i have posted here.
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The reason I couched my post as I did was because I wasn't sure where you were coming from. To be frank they seemed a little muddled.

The bottom line is this, everyone seals the grain. Fender have never made a secret of doing so, they couldn't even if they wanted to, it is a part of the process of getting a flat finish. We all do it and Fender have done it in different ways over the years and have used different materials in different places.

I wasn't calling you out at all in that regard. I would take issue with the original article because there is clearly another agenda going on. As I have said the guy just doesn't know the facts of the matter and thats coming from someone who has not built as many guitars as Fender either.;)
 
So what exactly is Fender supposed to be doing to us??? (disregarding the elevation of Leo Fender to godhood, an issue I raised that has yet to be addressed).

When I pick up a guitar or bass, I expect that, given my understanding that wood has certain characteristics that need attending to before they can be used in instruments, the builder will have done due diligence in smoothing, sealing, and coloring it.

I mean, is this some sort of secret pixie dust club I don't know about? -- like the skin effect on guitar cables, or the directionality of lengths of copper, or other well-known urban legends...
 
lpdeluxe said:
So what exactly is Fender supposed to be doing to us??? (disregarding the elevation of Leo Fender to godhood, an issue I raised that has yet to be addressed).

When I pick up a guitar or bass, I expect that, given my understanding that wood has certain characteristics that need attending to before they can be used in instruments, the builder will have done due diligence in smoothing, sealing, and coloring it.

I mean, is this some sort of secret pixie dust club I don't know about? -- like the skin effect on guitar cables, or the directionality of lengths of copper, or other well-known urban legends...
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Good post.:D

Although there are demonstrable properties of timber that are important to tone you have it about right in the grand scheme of this debate.
 
Dirty little secret?
I thought it was pretty much common knowledge, to anyone interested in Fender vintage guitars that Fender Fullerplasted the bodies on many models of the 60's era strats.
I know my '66 is a fullerplast guitar.

A few tidbits on this:
1950 to 1967: Fender used nitrocellulose lacquer for all finishes. Film thickness was very thin, especially in the 1950's. From the beginning, Fender would hammer nails into the face of the guitar body before painting, under the pickguard areas. Then the body was painted on a "lazy susan". First the face of the guitar was painted. Then the body was flipped over onto the nails (which suspended the freshed painted body face), and the back and sides of the body were painted. The nails were then used to suspend the body while the paint fully dried. After all the paint was sprayed, the nails were removed. Hence all original pre-CBS Fender bodies will have "nail holes" (with no paint in them!) under the pickguard or control plates.

1968 to 1980: Fender used a "thick skin" polyester finish. Later "thick skin" finishes got really thick in the 1970's, resembling a bowling ball. But all polyester finishes are very thick and glossy compared to the early lacquer finishes.

When Fender switched to Alder (from Ash) as it's primary body wood in mid 1956, many books and authorities state Femder started using a product called "Fullerplast" This is a very misunderstood product. For example, there is a picture in Tom Wheeler's American Guitars, page 54 (upper left corner), of a man with long rubber gloves dipping bodies into a tank at Fender in the late 1950's. The description incorrectly denotes the man is applying "Fullerplast" to the bodies. Most likely, this man is staining the Alder bodies yellow, a process used on Alder from 1956 and later before spraying the sunburst finish.

Fullerplast is a clear, sprayed chemically curing sealer, unaffected by solvents after it dries. It is made by Fuller O'Brien (1-800-368-2068), hence the name "Fullerplast" (and all this time you though it was named after the city of Fullerton, the home of Fender). Fullerplast soaks into the wood and creates a seal that prevents following coats from soaking into the wood like a sponge. This means spraying the color coats is easier and the coats can be applied thinner (saving material, money and dry time). Even though alder is a "closed pore" wood, the first few coats of lacquer will soak in like a sponge without some type of sealer coat. Fullerplast dries in 15 minutes, and is paintable in one hour. It is also applied very thin.


By the way...
Anyone who is ready to shed themselves of their '63 strat...for little or nothing...because it's a plastic coated guitar and sucks....pm me.
 
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Thanks, muttley600....

jimistone said:
Dirty little secret?
I thought it was pretty much common knowledge, to anyone interested in Fender vintage guitars that Fender Fullerplasted the bodies on many models of the 60's era strats. I think they started that when the switched from ash to alder.
I know my '66 is a fullerplast guitar.

By the way...
Anyone who is ready to shed themselves of their '63 strat...for little or nothing...because it's a plastic coated guitar and sucks....pm me.
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So my book with the Fender factory photo of sometime dipping bodies in Fullerplast isn't worth a couple of $M on the black market? I am SO disappointed.
 
FACT: I drill hole in fender and make love to...till my peepee drip fullerplast

next love I make to you
 
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