Paint Removal Machine

Weighed the body tonight, it's ~2.9kg with everything now stripped out of it. That'll be an interesting checkpoint for me to refer back to once I'm trying to trim some weight off it. I already have some ideas for that, but no concrete decisions yet as I have other things to do first.

Which leads me onto the other point of tonight's post - the subject of paint removal.

I ummed and ahhed about how to do this, and did some research online to help me decide between the two possibilities, either sanding or using some sort of chemical paint stripper. Both would be messy and have their own particular drawbacks, but in the end I've gone for sanding, largely because I wouldn't have known where to start with buying paint stripper. I have no idea what type of lacquer/paint was used on the Marlin, so choosing which type to get would've been pure guesswork - and I read a forum post online somewhere in which someone described the experience of trying 5 or 6 different kinds before anything made the slightest impression on his guitar, which didn't appeal to me! I figured sandpaper would work on anything :-)

Hand-sanding it would be time-consuming and doesn't really appeal though, so I've bought myself a Bosch hand-held sander which should make the job even easier. There might be one or two awkward bits that I need to do by hand but it should take care of the bulk of it, and I'm not bothering to do the insides of the pickup and electrics cavities as I don't really see the point.

I'm hoping to have some time to make a start this weekend, obviously any progress (and photos) will be on here as soon as I'm done!