Whoops

I sprayed the lacquer on to the guitar body (several thin coats). It looked good and it really made the metallic flakes twinkle. I let it dry completely, then I sanded back with very fine wet and dry paper, ready for the last coat. I kept noticing this thin 'skin' forming as I sanded. Then I realised it was the entire layer of lacquer coming off. Whoops. Apparently there are more than one sort of lacquer available, and I obviously used completely the wrong one. I've had to peel off all the lacquer and there are still little flakes of it all over. When I got sick of peeling off bits of lacquer, I hung the guitar body back in its wire, where it usually resides. The wire promptly broke and the guitar body smashed into the floor of my shed. Now there's big chips of paint missing on the base and the back. Whoops, again. So some serious respraying is needed, then some lacquering with the correct sort of lacquer (which I have already purchased).

Having forgotten why this project started, I asked Gav the other day if there was actually anything wrong with the guitar (I can remember now that there must have been, as this is how it ended up in bits - not everyone takes things that work fine to bits to see how they work, like I do, although those that do usually observe well enough to put things back together fine, like I do not). He told me that the guitar just didn't work (electrically). I can see that some of the wires to the selector switch are disconnected and I hope that this is the extent of the problems and that the pickups are OK. The pickups, which you may remember have been covered in all sorts of pen and paint combinations, are now (and hopefully will remain) flat white (first coat done, so far). I know painting pickups it seriously wrong, but nothing will get them clean, and replacements aren't an option.

And the switch tip still hasn't arrived from All Parts.

Body paint

I painted the body of Gav's guitar! Halfords don't sell pink paint off the shelf, so I just chose the daftest colour they had instead.T Gav's guitar is now the same colour as this little bit of motoring history:



Which is, in fact "Rover Tara Green". Metallic green. Nice.

The scratchplate, knobs, screws, etc came from Allparts! All I'm missing now is one switch tip.

Now I'm off to go and spray some clear lacquer all over!1!

Primed

I primed the guitar, sanded it back and then primed again. Now it's primer gray. Now I need to pick out some colour for it. Then comes the painting and clear coat. Then I need to salvage the replacement hot rail humbucker off my old guitar -an Encore Coaster (pointy headstock, locking nut and metallic red body made of chipboard, nasty, but I played it in FMW)). I'll probably slavage some of the other hardware off it too.

The Coaster is in bits in my loft. I'm not overly keen to go and get it because of the wasp's nest up there. I guess all the wasps are dead by now (I hope, anyway), but I hate wasps and there's always one or two dopey looking wasps up there, no matter what time of year. There are something like 5000 species of mammals (including humans, cats, dogs, bears, wales, etc), but there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of species of wasps. And the ones that don't chase you round the garden or drown themselves in your drink, are parisitic wasps (not nice for the host). I'm not against biodiversity or anything, but I'm sure that we could do without a few thousand species of wasps, animals no better than a bee with an ASBO.

Guitar designs

Hastily photoshopped possibilities for Gav's guitar.

Pink!

This is the approximate colour that Gav wants his guitar to be:

Bridge cleaned

I got most of the paint of the front of the body. A few dents still have emulsion embedded in them.








Those tricky horns.










Bridge before cleaning.










Bridge after cleaning. Better than it was anyway.

Began sanding

I sanded most of the paint off the back of the body, but this was only one layer of emulsion thick. The front has at least two layers of emulsion. Inside the 'horns' is going to be tricky too.







And not forgetting Gav's doodle in permanent marker.









These scratches were underneath the emulsion; they might even have been underneath the tobacco sunburst finish.








I put the bridge with its seized up saddles into a bath of release agent. I'll leave it overnight. Hopefully it will dissolve some of the emulsion and the various other crap too.







Nasty rusty stuff. The Union flag must have been painted in crimson acrylic paint because that's what's embedded in the lettering on the bridge saddles and on the springs and bolts. This is never going to be like new, but it's got to look better than this.

The guitar

Bandmate Gav's guitar is knackered. It was bought about thirteen years ago by Gav's bro, and for many years served as his main guitar. Then he got an Epiphone Les Paul and this one eventually got passed to Gav.







It's a Vester 'Tradition Series', with an 'Original Concept Body'. Basically, it's a Strat copy. It used to look like the guitar on this page. Except it has a white scratchplate. Over the years the guitar got several custom paint jobs. It's been covered in stickers, sellotape and pictures from magazines. It was completely coated in yellow eggshell emulsion paint, and finally a coat of matt white emulsion. The scratchplate (I think) was painted with a Union flag at some point. The neck only had a bit of emulsion where it bolts on to the body. The headstock had a few stickers and the tuners were badly tarnished/rusted. In this photo I've already given the tuners and neck a good clean.


The guitar is in bits because when Gav painted it white, he realised that it didn't work any more. He completely dismantled it. It's in a bad way. The bridge part is rusted and the screws have seized up. The switch and pots are very dodgy. The pickups might work but they have been painted too at some point. All of the white knobs and the switch tip are missing. Half the screws are missing. The pickups screws and springs seem to be too few.





The output jack is covered in white emulsion.









I am going to do the body first. Then the hardware. Then the electrics. After sanding the multiple layers of paint off I will do a new paint job.