fronobulax said:
riverwork said:
I've been trying to pin this down. I've "heard" that sometime in the 80's finishes went from nitrocellulose to poly. Anything specific? Were there exceptions in later years?
Thanks
Three posts so I guess I can say "welcome".
80's would have been Westerly and I thought there was a discussion of acoustic finishes that said that Westerly lacked the equipment to do a poly finish. If my memory is correct then what you "heard" was wrong but don't go correcting anyone until someone else agrees with me.
Welcome aboard from here, too!!
For sure Westerly acoustics were nitro-finished all the way through the end of Westerly production, end of 2001. A couple of exceptions were the hand-rubbed models, but I forget exactly what that material was, some kind of gel.
We have a memeber, Hideglue, who actually worked at Westerly, and my memory is pretty close to Frono's that he said poly lacquer was considered in Westerly but never implemented. However I seem to recall reports of poly actually being used on some of the Westerly electrics. Maybe they tried it on some solidbodies?
I'm pretty sure member AlohaJoe reports his X150 Savoy is poly, but it's a Corona CA build ('01-'04) and another member, Yettoblaster reported on his Savoys:
yettoblaster said:
My Corona made Savoy is a great guitar and equal to the single pickup Westerly version I had before it. Used they go for about half what the retail new was (A new Godin 5th Ave Kingpin II is slightly less than a used X-150D around here). My Westerly made Savoy was FMIC before the move, and lacquer. This one is poly.
There has been speculation that one of the reasons Corona Guild production was moved to Tacoma was that California air quality laws made nitrocellulose lacquer prohibitively expensive.