King Lacquer

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Bluesfish
Posts: 5
Joined: Jul 10, 2019

by Bluesfish »

I have two old 2Bs from the early 40s. Been reading old posts here and the general wisdom is they used epoxy type lacquer making them a bear to strip. The question is, do we know when they started using epoxy or is that all they ever used.

Would like to have one of these stripped and restored like new or...
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tbonesullivan
Posts: 1959
Joined: Jul 02, 2019

by tbonesullivan »

The early 40s would be way too early for epoxy lacquer. At that time it would probably be solvent based lacquer, which is easily removable.

The "King Lacquer" everyone refers to is the 60s-70s orange/yellow lacquer that they used on bell sections for a while. I do not know if it was epoxy though, as I have heard it isn't that hard to remove, and you can use citristrip.
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bigbandbone
Posts: 602
Joined: Jan 17, 2019

by bigbandbone »

Many years ago when I ran the brass department in a high volume repair shop I had a hot lye tank just to strip King horns that were in for overhaul. It used to leave a lot of scale on the brass, but it was the only thing that would strip King lacquer.
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Bluesfish
Posts: 5
Joined: Jul 10, 2019

by Bluesfish »

DB37,

Thanks, I too thought it to be too early for epoxy finishes.

BBB,

So in your experience pretty much all Kings were tougher than other brands to strip? Just curious at this point.