First step- disassembly to clean and evaluate the present hardware.
Two-piece maple neck with a micro-tilt adjustment feature. A welcome find.
Frets weren't in terribly bad shape. The needed a little re-crowning and a good polishing.
Back together and it doesn't play half-bad. You can see how the stain doesn't hide the underlying grain/staining of the multi-piece body. Good candidate for an opaque paint job.
Doesn't look better stripped of the stain with the dark patches and a go-zillion dents and dings. I decided to steam them out using a soldering iron and damp cotton swabs.
This is my first "guitar workshop" also known as the dining room table in our housing unit Yokota AB, Japan.
The ARIA PRO II project was going on at the same time. One primed/painted and the other not far behind.
Difficulties on translating English ~> Japanese ~> English meant the first attempt at getting wood filler was actually a non-drying type. Had to dig it out and try again.
These are the colors I would be using, acquired from the store on the base. They were an acrylic-ish flat paint. I would strongly advise against using this for instrument work.
Digital camouflage patterns came from a random generator I found at some paintball website. I changed the parameters until I started seeing something I liked then printed them out on regular paper. I then used blue painter's tape on wax paper as my base and laid the pattern on top. TIP: the wider the tape is the less disruptions you'll have in your mask.
A sharp X-acto blade is a must in addition to all of you patience. If you cover the back of your wax paper with tape you'll actually get twice the amount of usable patterns.
Body got primered, imperfections filled/sanded and finally the base coat of grey applied. Block-sanded to remove any imperfections.
Once you remove the mask portions be sure to keep the larger patterns, you can use those in later colors.
Here's an example of what happens when you have a seam in your pattern. Wider tape means you get less of these but they can make for interesting variations. You simply peel the blue tape off of the wax paper then affix it to the body. I used a rubber roller to make sure they were adhered to the paint.
Use a straightedge to keep your lines running parallel to each other.
The edge becomes a hot-mess of decision making as you now have two planes curving and intersecting at numerous points. If the edge were 90-degrees then it would be easy. We don't do easy here.
I applied additional masks over the first color (I did not remove the first layer of masks). Think hard about placement in order to reveal multiple layers of paint in the end.
Peeling off one set of masks revealing a two-color pattern.
Removing the second layer revealing a three-color pattern. Note how flat the paint is. Not good. Flat = rough surface. Rough surfaces are not good for making shiny finishes.
Adding the final layer of masks using the larger sheets cut into smaller sections. You'll cover everything except the final layer of pattern.
Blue tape shielding everything that will not be the final color.
The final four-color digital camouflage pattern. If you look closely you can see the thickness of certain layers because of the type of paint and the application method (heavy). This is how we learn, folks.
There are a couple of boo-boos but that's the way I roll. I embrace the learning moments and see them as a sign of a finish being done by a human and not a machine.
At this point all the color was on and we packed up to move from Japan to California.
It has had a good long time to cure on the trip to California from Japan. Now we have to clear coat it. Many, many many coats of acrylic clear after consulting with the manufacturer. Each coat was made up of three passes and left to dry. Eventually we had 13 coats of clear.
Many many many coats of clear acrylic mean many many many sessions of wet sanding. At this point I began videotaping my work. You can visit this guitar's playlist here.
And here are a few photographs of the final finish.
I hope you have enjoyed learning about my first guitar painting experience. If I could offer you any advise it would be this:
- Learn, learn, learn. It isn't exciting and sexy but knowing a little about types of paints would have saved me a TON of time and effort.
- Be patient for supplies. Shipping to most areas of the world is very reasonable and timely. Don't settle for sub-standard supplies that will cause you a headache later.
- Don't be afraid. Make a reasonable purchase for your first attempt and go for it. If you ruin a $7 guitar, you've learned some things you shouldn't do AND you can strip it off and do it again.
- Don't be shy in asking for help. There are many people who will gladly lend a hand (or an e-mail) to get you headed the right direction.
- Have fun. If you are doing this as a hobby and are miserable, forget about doing it for a living. Life is too short to spend time doing something you hate.
If you want to see more of my adventures in the world of stringed instrument construction, restoration, and repair visit the Rattlecan Guitar Restorations YouTube channel, friend us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and, if you're interested in supporting my projects take a look at the Rattlecan Patreon page.
Have a great weekend. Cheers!
James
No comments:
Post a Comment