BTW, the website that I cited earlier says that Fullerplast wasn't used until about 1963. I'm not clear on what Fender used for a sealing coat under the finish before that time.
The one full refin I did used acrylic lacquer, and it seems to me that should be the close equivalent of just about any modern lacquer finish.
I didn't catch that you linked to that article earlier. He's full of shit as a Christmas goose. Most of the things he said are flat-out false, and none of the accurate things he said were ever a secret. Fender started using Fullerplast in 1956, and it's not a pore filler or any kind of undercoat. It's a very thin sealer coat. On sunbursts, it was used over yellow stain that was applied to the bare wood. "a self-hardening plastic that wrapped the body in a rock-hard solid coffin"? He's an ignorant, self-serving tool trying to use a con to drum up business.
That article is at least 8 years old. It keeps coming up on various forums year after year.
Two years ago I shot whatever you want to call today's nitro over the headstock lacquer on my EBO that I had shot in '73 over whatever Gisbo used on it in 1960, all with no prep beyond a light scuff sanding and wipe down. That's close enough for me.
When you're paying for materials whether or not they go in the product you're aware how things add up. I remember looking at the hundreds of one inch cutoffs around my $12,000 Holzher edgebander in the 90s and thinking, "Each one of those cost me a penny, how can I get that damn thing to make a closer cut."
I'm not saying that what's used today isn't as good as what was used in 1960 (or whenever). It's likely better, but it isn't the exact same product.
I probably didn't make myself that clear there.
By definition Fender instruments are all lacquered, unless they made one or two oil finishes over the years. To single out those with a thin nitro coat over the poly prep stages as 'lacquer' instruments is perhaps deceitful. I suppose my issue is that Fender is propagating the notion that nitro = lacquer, and then make weird and wonderful claims about what that entails.
More overtly deceitful is the following:
"Gurus of vintage tone have consistently chosen lacquer finished instruments over the years".
"Lacquer lets the wood breathe and vibrate more freely".
Wait... are you implying that dead wood doesn't breathe?
When it comes to creative marketing, Fender doesn't miss a beat.
They're implying that only lacquer "breathes" which is nonsense. All wood finishes exchange moisture with the surrounding atmosphere. Some are more porous than others, but if you put identical pieces of wood in a room, each with a different finish, sooner or later they will all reach equilibrium moisture content.