[Falcatarius]

Hey folks,

Alright so I've decided I'm going to be building my own strat using official Fender parts to make my dream guitar.

I've also decided that I absolutely want my guitar to have a body with a real nitro finish for a two reasons...
-I prefer the tonal qualities over poly finishes
-I love the concept of my strat aging and getting worn along with me

Now to my understanding the "Thin-Skinned" nitro finish strats have absolutely no other types of finish on them. Other "nitro finish" strat bodies will have a poly base and then the layers of nitro but the thin-skinned are nothing but nitro. Is this correct?

Also, which Fender strat models have the official "thin skinned" nitro finish on the body? I know the Vintage Hot Rod series does but other then that I'm unsure.

Thank you for any and all help!

Cheers
-Falcatarius

Edit: I've confirmed that the "thin-skinned" finish is just nitro. I've also found that the Eric Johnson strat has it and possibly the Highway One series. Can anyone confirm whether or not the Highway One series is "thin skinned"?

 

[NIK0]

Fender thin nitro finished

To answer your question on the highway one strats, they are thin skinned finishes with only nitro. In fact they are super super thin so that the guitar will wear down much faster than say a Eric Johnson. Which explains the very dull matte finish as they never gave it many coat.

To add though, the Highway One strat is made in the U.S. but they have all Mexican manufactured components.

 

[fraser]

hi
id do a little poking around the net on this- from some accounts by refinishers the thin skin nitro does have a poly coat underneath as the sealer coat-
ive seen highway ones with dings in them and its just bare wood under there- so i dont know-
the american vintage series is nitro- but ive seen some colours are actually listed as acrylic lacquer on the fender website- browsing the models here you can click on the specs link on each model and itll tell you.
http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?section=guitars&cat=stratocaster&subcat=americanvintage

if you browse this forum
http://www.reranch.com/reranch/index.php?sid=7c311af8c1ec7d9655003fa7b82177f8

there is talk of all this, and these guys are actually stripping these bodies, so you will have surer infos - many folks are saying that what they are calling nitro now is nothing like the nitro of old-
i dont own any of these models so my knowledge on them is based solely on the research ive done- nothing more, and so dont take my word for it please

of course the highway one, the ej, or any of the thin skin models will age and wear much nicer than any poly finished guitars and i would not hesitate to own any of them, ifn i had the cash- the ej strat feels like a living thing in my hands

 

[bRian]

The matte finish on lacquer bodies has nothing to do with the thickness of the finish; it's just a property of the finish itself. You can also vary the sheen on lacquer depending on how wet you get each coat. The Highway bodies are matte because they aren't buffed.