When an artist makes a guitar

[muns53]

Starting this thread to show off my 18-year old son Matt's work...

He bought a cheapo no-name strat body & neck for $20 at a local guitar shop. It had a dinged up black finish, not sure what kind of wood (alder maybe?) The neck wasn't bad (maple/rosewood) but was worn, missing some frets and the finish was in bad shape - not worth a refret/refresh, so it will go in the project pile. I've sold him (at a deep discount) my Warmoth goncolo/pau neck, the Kent Armstrong pickups and most of the hardware from my other project.

He first sanded down the front and back of the guitar. He decided to leave the back natural because he liked the look of it.



He painted the front with encaustic paint (like a wax paint) and then carved off the wax to make some really interesting patterns to complement the shape of the guitar and the painting.



Close-up (clear nitrocellulose laquer will go over the front and back - heavier on the front to try to protect the wax paint):

 

[muns53]

He bought a maple pickguard off ebay and then stained it to match the goncolo coloring on the neck/headstock:





Trial fit of the basic parts before applying the laquer:

 

[muns53]

Kent Armstrong pickups (will go into the wood pickguard):

 

[muns53]

Locking tuners, LSR nut, Babicz trem, eBay heelplate, etc.:

 

[bagman67]

That's really beautiful.  It's wonderful to watch your kid demonstrate some vision and artistic creativity, ain't it?

 

[MikeW]

Wow. Very unique. Consider me subscribed.

 

[stratamania]

Looking good so far.

 

[mark1178]

That's flipping awesome! Can't wait for the finished product

 

[muns53]

He wired the pickguard and sprayed some laquer layers. He decided to stain the back to match the pickguard and neck - might be difficult, but we'll see. Waiting on the laquer to dry and the trem to come in, then assembly!

Trial fit of the wired pickguard - looks good to me:

 

[Surf n Music]

Nice guitar! Look at all those switches! What do they all do?

 

[adked]

It's great to see people being creative, especially when it doesn't involve a belt-sander.

Nice!

 

[Vallhagen]

This project is absolutely cool, indeed!

Cheers

 

[muns53]

Well, the thing about living with an artist is you have to be prepared when they decide to chuck it all and start over...





I guess the new plan is to sand down the whole thing, stain it to match the neck, then repaint the entire body. He wasn't happy with the natural wood on the front not matching the other stained parts. He also wasn't happy with the black sides. Stay tuned...

 

[bagman67]

If he's open to input you might advise him to scrape away from himself with that razor, or at least get his hand out of the way - otherwise there's a non-trivial chance that he might slice the ever-loving f*ck out of himself.  Been there, done that, bought the tshirt.

 

[muns53]

Yeah, realized that after I took the picture, also advised him to scrape with the grain to make sanding easier later and to avoid gouging it out. He got it scraped safely and cleanly, fortunately. I like how you said "if he's open to your input" - you must be familiar with parenting teens, ha ha.

 

[muns53]

The switching is unique. The 5-way works like normal. Then the two small switches can be activated to put it in HH mode with the 3rd knob as a blender between neck and bridge pickups. The three colored switches split each pickups. It gives a lot of variety but is unnecessarily complicated, IMO. But the pickups sound great and it's already wired up, so, better to leave as-is than try to do over.

 

[muns53]

Okay, phase 2...

He first scraped and sanded the entire thing down, then stained the body to match the goncolo and pickguard, then repainted it with the encaustic paint.



Now he's working on carving out the paint - he's much happier this go-round. I think it's looking pretty sweet.

 

[Cagey]

Oh, my! The carving against that finish makes the whole thing work! I wasn't that impressed with the finish at first, but now? That's a helluva treatment.

 

[Surf n Music]

I'm siding with KG that thing is looking stellar! Very nice!

 

[muns53]

Thanks guys! He finished the carving so now it's on to lacquer. I tried to help him research methods to cover up the encaustic paint but none of the encaustic paint artists that I came across knew anything. I think most artists just leave the wax paint as-is since it hardens a bit on it's own and typically just hangs in a frame and doesn't get handled.

Since we don't have any sophisticated finishing equipment, we opted for the Stew-Mac rattle cans. One can of "Sanding Sealer" and three cans of "Clear Gloss" - I saw that many people on this board recommended that approach in the finishing section. The paint is really 3D on the guitar, so my guess is that he'll have to be very careful to do a LOT of very thin coats so it doesn't pool up or run. It will have to hang in the garage for ventilation - hopefully it doesn't get any dust in the finish.

On another fun note, I have a friend who knows one of the co-owners of Babicz guitars and he sent him a picture. They said when it's done that they'd like to feature it on their Facebook page. I told Matt and he was like "what's the big deal, why are people interested in my guitar?" Lol.