Removing botched paint job

[littlebobby]

Hi folks. Found what looks like an early 20th century Italian parlour in a junk shop for £5 yesterday. Beautiful workmanship inside and brass tuners the like of which I’ve never seen. Tail piece intact but no floating bridge there. Grain looks spectacular on the back and not dissimilar to Brazilian, but I’m no expert.
Potentially a little gem with a straight neck and no top movement.
Some plank has painted it though and I’m seeking advice on getting rid of paint without doing further damage to this lovely old thing.
Thanks in advance.

[oldduc]

It depends on what kind of paint the "plank" used. If it's lacquer, I wipe it off with lacquer thinner or acetone. If it's shellac, you can wipe it off with denatured alcohol. If it's a modern enamel or some kind of poly, you will probably need paint remover. I have stripped about a dozen instruments and they usually come out ok with just light sanding, after the finish removal.

[H165]

A hard lesson I learned about 45 years ago:

If it's painted over lacquer, and you are VERY careful, some thinners will remove the paint and not the lacquer.

I learned this the hard way by diving right in and scraping the ugly thick black brushed-on paint off a perfectly beautiful old Epihone sunburst. About a quarter of the way through my procedure, one of my furniture-restorer friends saw it, dampened a rag with some thinner, and wiped the paint right off down to the nearly perfect old sunburst underneath.

[phavriluk]

There are so many unknowns in this question. We don't know what the paint overcoating is, we don't know what the finish under the paint it, we don't know how well adhered the paint is to the original finish. Besides that, no problem. If OP is not an expert in finish restoration, the results will be unpredictable. Better that OP gets someone who knows what to do to inspect the guitar and diagnose its problems. None of us are going to be of any constructive help at this distance, except for advising to do nothing (no experimenting on the instrument) until what to do is defined.

[littlebobby]

Thanks folks. Sage words. The guitar is also scratched to hell like it got stuck in a bag with a porcupine having an apoplexy so it’s going to need a complete refinish therefore not worried about what lies beneath as it were. Next issue to working out how to place and size a floating bridge.

[phavriluk]

A floating bridge just 'floats', no? Moves around? Never had the pleasure. Like a banjo bridge? If so, it can be put wherever it needs to go or be repositioned to deal with intonation.