OK, so the good news. I picked up the Vic VI that was for sale recently on here. The bad news, it had been re finished with poly. It looked like someone used brown deck stain, I was surprised to see it "hide" so much of the original wood tone. The lid was exceptionally thick, which caused for this look I'm assuming. Anyway, I thought I would share my process, and along the way, gain insight on how many of you have done this, in order to stop me from having to "do it over". I have read many articles, been perusing "The Compleate Talking Machine" among other threads on here. The horn seems to be original and will only be fixing a small crack on a seam at some point.(feel free to chime in on what has worked for you on this) I hope to show this step by step, as of now, only the lid has been stripped. Obviously this is a great candidate to try and bring back to its original state. It took me 3 or 4 applications to remove the layers but I'm happy with how it looks so far. It's great to see the natural wood tone rather than what it had become.
1) removed all hardware
2) apply stripping agent, let sit for 15 minutes
3) use plastic scraper to remove softened poly
4) repeat until all poly is removed and used 0000 steel wool after scraping
(this was done in the garage in order to have good ventilation)
any and all constructive criticism is welcomed. This should be a fun project.
I hope you all are having a great holiday weekend! Cheers!
In short, is not liberty the freedom of every person to make full use of his faculties, so long as he does not harm other persons while doing so?
Frederic Bastiat