Progress on Rebuilding my Black Daion Rockson MDL

In a previous post I put up some pics and info on the second Daion Rockson MDL I bought, another "Strat" style guitar, this time in black. Info on that guitar can be found in the following link: http://daionguitarsdownunder/my-second-daion-another-rockson-mdl.htm

I mentioned in that post that unlike my first Daion, which is just the most lovely playing and sounding guitar, this one would be more of a work in progress and one that may get fiddled with from time to time.

I mentioned that I'm not personally a big fan of black guitars, and being that the finish was a little knocked around anyway, I have no problems whatsoever in making the decision to do a re-finish and change the colour.

A few weeks ago I had a bit of spare time, and with a lovely sunny winters day presenting itself it seemed a good time to sit out in the sun in front of the aviary and do some sanding. I did the flat front and rear of the body with a belt sander, as this quickly got the majority of the paint off with very little effort.

The original paint is very hard, and whilst I wouldn't call it thick, it is clinging on tenaciously and the curved and rounded surface that need to be hand sanded were a bit more of a challenge. As it now sits the majority of the original paint is gone from the front and back, but the edge still needs a fair bit of work in getting rid of the paint.

Part of the reason it's a slow job is that I don't want to sand away a lot of the dings and scratches that show that this is an older guitar, as these do add character. I'm keeping it in mind that the re-finish will not be representing an "as new" guitar, but one that has been around and been used, certainly not a "closet classic". I guess what I'll be trying to achieve is a colour change, but keeping the original look and feel, including the dings, nicks and scratches.

Upon stripping off the paint a few things became apparent. Firstly this body is made of solid wood, which is always nice to see. It appears to be clearly made up of four pieces, with three pieces making up the majority of the body, the fourth piece only making up the lower rear curved section and not being part of the lower front horn.

The wood itself is a tight straight grain type, with nothing in the way of a swirly patterned grain showing, is very light/pale in colour, and feels quite soft to the touch. These attributes are somewhat like basswood, but I'm no expert in this so it could something else.

Weight wise, the bare and almost stripped of paint body weighs in at 1.315kg (2.9lb or 2lb 14.39oz) on the wife's kitchen scales, which is on the lighter end of the spectrum for a "Strat" style body.

Here's some pics of the body as it was starting to be stripped and as it now sits. The spots on the body are from the rain that began to spit just as I was taking the pics!