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stripping a paper covered box

Posted by Ben Reed on May 6, 2014 at 5:06am in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

Hi guys

What is the best method for stripping a paper covered box. Ive got a few of the large boxes with white backgrounds and it makes the Cigar box guitar look a bit clean and new. What I really want is a dirty lived-in box with dents and scrapes. So I'm going to dry to distress the wood.

First things first - what would you guys do to remove the paper

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Replies

  • Clarky May 16, 2014 at 6:51am

    I've removed the paper on a lot of builds, because I like to burn designs onto the box.  I never wet the paper, just peel off what I can and use a mouse sander to remove the rest.

    For distressing the box you can use a wood burner, take matches to it, chip it with chisels, use tea to stain it, all sorts of stuff.

  • Ben Reed May 16, 2014 at 4:30am

    I stripped the paper using a warm wet sponge and a scraper. When it was dried i knocked/carved in some imperfections using a screwdriver as a chisel - i then smeared boot polish in the imperfections and all around - then sanded it down and added some varnish. I'm very pleased with the outcome - Ive posted a pic

    20140515_203108.jpg

  • Marcus Darwell May 9, 2014 at 8:29am

    cigarette burns!

  • Rand Moore May 8, 2014 at 8:13pm

    Hi Ben,

    I prefer Cigar Boxes without paper, but in the past have built with wooden boxes that had some paper on it, especially inside under the lid. As I thought the paper would only tend to mute the sound box, I'd take a wet sponge with a scouring pad and use the water to dampen the paper to make it softer and then scour it off with the scouring pad. Just try to keep the wood from soaking up too much water as this may warp the lid. As this task is a bit of a hassle, these days I choose only wooden cigar boxes w/o the paper; or I build my own sound boxes, which tend to sound better than most cigar boxes. For more info on doing that, check out this CBN discussion group: Home Made Resonator Boxes 101, v.2.0

    -Rand.

    • Ben Reed > Rand Moore May 9, 2014 at 4:17am

      thanks for advice everyone - i love this forum!

  • Cause the Blue rat May 8, 2014 at 6:40am

    Awesome Ben! Looking forward to seeing your build.

  • Ben Reed May 8, 2014 at 4:44am

    So last night i decided, I'd keep the paper on but sand it and distress it with a screwdriver and a hammer... then drop some water colours on it to make it look stained... and THEN i noticed that adding the water colour paint to the papers actually makes it very simple to peel the paper off in no time - so I have a wooden top for me to distress as per the original plan now!

    The youtube videos look awesome - that was what made me want to do it this way!

  • Cause the Blue rat May 7, 2014 at 6:17pm

    I Youtube'd 'distressing wood finishes'. Lots of cool ideas there. Might even try some myself.

  • Marc Brode May 7, 2014 at 11:04am
    It may not be wood underneath.

    For distressed, why not leave the paper on? Then you can use some extremely black tea solutions to put stains on it. Maybe some dilute watercolours would work well too. You could probably come up with some cool effects... Like a rat rod guitar.
  • robert jones May 7, 2014 at 6:46am

    Leave the paper on and play the hell out of the thing. The distressing will take care of itself. :)

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