Project guitar refinish finished! Red *SPARKLE* strat copy~

[Composer of Requiems]

I did a Strat style guitar refinish in red sparkle for a special friend for christmas who's just starting out on guitar. Thought I might as well post photos of it up here.

It started off as a Silvertone Revolver body that I picked up from someone on this forum. Condition wasn't too good, but since I was redoing the finish from scratch it didn't matter too much. Had to repair the electronics and replace the hardware too, but considering the price I guess that's fine with me.

The photos I'm posting here are direct-linked from my facebook. I *think* they should be visable. If they're not, let me know and I'll rehost them on my photobucket (was hoping to avoid that since it'll be a hassle)

First thing I did after removing as much of the old finish as I could was to give it a base coat. I used Nippon spraypaint, always had good results with them. Put a coat of flat black as a backing first, then silver, then metallic red. Some trial and error previously made me realize that starting off with several coats of metallic red is harder to look good.

Same for the headstock, but between the silver and red coats, I taped off the edge so that I could get a silver lining.

Now that the base coat was done, it's time to start putting on the glitter coats. On my last project (http://soft.com.sg/forum/gear-bass/152125-new-project-bass-finished.html), I didn't use a base coat and it took forever to get enough glitter to cover up the wood.

Started building up the coats. You can see from the reflection that it's starting to smooth out, but still very orangepeel-y. That's why I really hate doing glitter finishes, but the final result is almost always worth the trouble.

The bass in the photo was a request from someone on this forum, the design was inspired by this ESP Artist Series- http://www.espguitars.co.jp/artist/aiji/index.html

However, that's not the important thing here!

 

[Composer of Requiems]

After over a week of lacquer and a few hours of sanding to smoothen out the orange peel a little....

A few days (and much more sanding) later...

When the light reflects off it, you can see it's still not perfectly smooth yet.

Same for the headstock, still needs work.

 

[Composer of Requiems]

Some photos of the sanding process-

It looks like soap and a sponge, but that's actually lacquer, and the sponge is a sanding block so that the pressure is spread out equally. When doing wet sanding, a layer of water is used to reduce friction so the sandpaper can "glide" over the surface and cut only the protruding parts. The dust from sanding mixes with the water to form a milky soapy pastey liquid that solidifies into a miso-ish lump if you don't clean it up.

So I'll polish like crazy for maybe 15 mins or so, then clean off the residue and hold it up against the sun (which is why I'm doing it on top of a washing machine rather than indoors at a table). The deeper grooves will be shiny since they're deeper and the sandpaper can't get to them. Basically what I need to do is to keep sanding until there's no more grooves (although when I first started sanding, rather than a flat surface and grooves, I just have something that looks like a road surface or a granite rock)

And so after an afternoon of sanding (started after lunch and ended around 4 or so) it's flat, but this sanding process left it covered with thousands of small scratches.

So what I'll do next is to go with finer and finer and finer grit sandpaper, then end off with polishing solutions like the kind used to polish cars. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo between that and fixing up the electronics and stuff.

 

[Composer of Requiems]

First up is shielding the cavity to try to reduce electronic noise. Especially since these are single-coils, it's really obvious when you're using it in an area with lots of electromagnetic signals.

The cavity is copper-foiled, and the foil is connected to the ground wire.

Urgh, look at the sanding residue that was left on the sides of the tremelo cavity! That was a pain to clean off. And I really hate these springs, hooking them up isn't easy. I'm glad as a bassist and drummer I don't have to deal with tremelos!

And put the cover on.

I wanted to make everything I post here in chronological order, but since I'm posting this photo here I might as well side-track a little- screwing in the plate for the neck bolts was so tight that when I took it off later, it actually left a rectangular indent in the lacquer.

 

[Composer of Requiems]

Installed tuning machines... I used to call them knobs, heh. Tuning machines sounds like some automated thing that tunes your guitar for you.

And almost done!

Strings and trem bar and guitarist installed!

And that's it. This is my 6th or 7th project, you can see some of my other stuff here if you want.
http://soft.com.sg/forum/gear-drums...umset-getting-awesome-natural-finish-diy.html
http://soft.com.sg/forum/gear-bass/152125-new-project-bass-finished.html

 

[Composer of Requiems]

Ah I found another photo of it! Orange micro amp and cable and basic beginner lessons also included in this christmas present package.

 

[junhao405]

Sparkling looks fantastic !! XDD

 

[van_halen]

made for your gf? hehe. nice project. can you explain more about the glitter coat please? is it some kinda spray paint, from nippon paint perhaps?

 

[taypeng81]

nice job!!

had the same experience with my project strat. sanding the finish is a real pain.

 

[satch]

dude, how much do u charge for a job like that?

it's amazing, would love to have u work on a guitar I have, if u would like to of course!

 

[reez_rock]

fantastic work man.....salute!

 

[cool-beans]

Wow, that's fantastic work. I'd love a purple sparkle bass! haha.

 

[RyanZ]

What type of spray did you use to get the sparkle?

 

[Composer of Requiems]

Thanks for all the compliments!

made for your gf? hehe. nice project. can you explain more about the glitter coat please? is it some kinda spray paint, from nippon paint perhaps?

Haha she's just special, not my gf

Anyway, nah it's not spray. It's literally glitter embedded in lacquer. For drums there exists a wrap that imitates the look, but not for guitars as far as I know... and anyway, by doing it the hard way you get a "depth". That's because the glitter is suspended at different heights in the lacquer. It's pretty much putting a base coat of background colour, then a layer of lacquer and sprinkle glitter over it (I believe it's possible to mix glitter into the lacquer and spray over, but I personally believe it's better to let the glitter fall naturally onto the surface, looks more random- if you look at Fender glitter finishes, it feels very flat to me), then repeat 4~5 times until the base coat can hardly be seen. So that way, the glitter builds up on several levels. After doing that, the surface is very bumpy. You can't just sand it off to smoothen it out, or you'll be removing the glitter. So that'll be something like 30+ coats of lacquer to "fill out" the low parts, and a lot of sanding to knock off the high parts, until it's perfectly smooth.

There's something called metallic paints, that's paint with tiny metal flakes inside it. So when you look at it, it appears a little glittery. The difference between a metallic finish and a glitter finish is that the glitter flakes are around 2mm wide or so (depends on what size flake you use, but it's around this size usually), while metallic flakes are really tiny and you just see little pinprick sized points of light when the light reflects off. Metallics are much easier to apply, actually.

nice job!!

had the same experience with my project strat. sanding the finish is a real pain.

Thanks! Did you do a glitter project too?

dude, how much do u charge for a job like that?

it's amazing, would love to have u work on a guitar I have, if u would like to of course!

Haha considering the work pumped into it I would definitely charge quite a LOT! At the moment I feel I don't have enough experience doing finishes yet, and I'm pretty busy with NS and practicing music, plus this coming month I've a lot of upcoming projects- you'll see them posted on soft soon! (i.e. in 2~3 months or so depending on how long it takes to finish heh). Do let me know in greater detail what kind of finish you're looking for, if you're really serious about it.

 

[junkiemanxl]

wow, 30+ coats is a lot of laquer. wont tat affecT the resonance of the guitar? none the less, it's pretty nice eye candy. good job TS!

 

[fgl]

a HIGHLY COMMENDABLE EFFORT.

I HAVE BEEN DOING REFINISHING MANY YEARS BUT ONLY EVER DID 2 SPARKLE FINISHES ... ITS NO JOKE

YES METALLIC INISH & SPARKLE FINISH 2 DIFFIRENT BALL GAMES ....

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

 

[Composer of Requiems]

wow, 30+ coats is a lot of laquer. wont tat affecT the resonance of the guitar? none the less, it's pretty nice eye candy. good job TS!

I don't think it affects that much... it's more weight, so I suppose it cuts down highs a little? Not enough to be immediately noticeable to me though. That may either be because

A) I'm not a good enough guitarist to tell

or

B) In this case the body was already pretty heavy to begin with, I think, and more bass/mids balanced than highs. So it didn't really affect much.

Personally I doubt it's A, since I've been spending a lot of time listening for instrument timbre, especially with my orchestra background.

On my own bass I can't tell much where the changes come from, since I defretted, changed pickups, etc. etc. etc.

On the other hand, I always believed that with an electric instrument, it's best if the body moves as little as possible- so the strings have more energy. By that reasoning, it's best to have a very heavy body, and dampened so the strings don't resonate with the body. I guess this makes the tone colouration poorer, but that can always be altered in the effects loop, and a strong sustaining signal would make that easier.

I've heard that Sadowsky once mentioned that he believed that the guitar's body plays very little part in the sound, and it's mostly the neck and the electronics. I don't know if it's true, some people just mentioned it in a discussion on talkbass. I'm pretty sure wood does affect, but not in the way that people put so much faith into.

a HIGHLY COMMENDABLE EFFORT.

I HAVE BEEN DOING REFINISHING MANY YEARS BUT ONLY EVER DID 2 SPARKLE FINISHES ... ITS NO JOKE

YES METALLIC INISH & SPARKLE FINISH 2 DIFFIRENT BALL GAMES ....

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

Heh looks like you know the pain of it too. I've decided in specializing in sparkle finishes, although it's painful the end result is beautiful and pretty special.

Thanks for the compliments!

 

[mudskipper]

hey there. great job, and sorry but i dun mean to dig up old posts, but i just saw this and was also actually thinking of remaking a guitar of mine, but totally dunno how 2 go about doing it. im not thinking of sparkle finish, more of a design on the body and headstock. so what sort of paint and finish would u recommend and how would u go about doing it? and how to install the copper shielding thing? thanks so much! =P

 

[obzervr]

Marvellous!!! I've always envied your finising, first noticed on your drumset.

Lucky for eieio and fgl, if this went up before the 20th, they've got some stiff competition for the project of the month!

 

[funktastic]

hey bro!
AWESOME job!!! looks sexy!

see the pic after ur sading with the soapy mixture, i actually thought i was stripes on the sparkle finish. as in, 2 tones of red sparkle finish.
THAT WOULD BE THE BOMB! unquiely sexy!