Guitar Mod
From Mod Mania
Alan's go at turning a crap guitar, into something slightly less crap...
I'm sorry for writing so much
If anyone cares, I'm uploading a lot more photo's to Flickr so if you think this is the best thing ever, feel free to see some more photos...
Contents |
References
My Dad has had this Guitar Repair book for a few years, and I've never really paid attention to it. But I pulled it out and read it, and it's very good, so alot of my referencing will come from this book.
Dan Erlewine, Guitar Player Repair Guide
http://www.jimfogarty.co.uk/Sabbath%20Guitar%20Project.htm An incredible online reference, a project using an airbrush and far more sophisticated then mine
Also, a friend I made in the year below me during High School is knowledgeable on guitar repairs, and as such I bounce nearly every idea I have off him.
History
I actually got this guitar off a friend for doing him a favour, it cost him $50 at some market in Laverton, it had dints in it, and 4 strings and it had no springs to hold the bridge in place, and the electronics were somewhere between crap useless.
So with $20 I bought some pickups out of his old guitar, an Ibanez Rg120? and learnt how to wire them as a dual humbucker setup. The original guitar had two humbucker's and one single coil.
I also "sanded" the guitar down. Emphasis on the quotation marks. I had no clue what I was doing, so I modeled myself after Eddie Van Halen... He painted his guitar with spray paint and over the last 20 years the paint has peeled off and the guitar looks appalling yet incredibly cool.
Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein, everything about this guitar has been experimental and his own modding project, the guitar having taken numerous hack jobs over the last 30 years, and EVH has also created loads of other similiar guitars
There are several forums dedicated to making a replica of this guitar, each one focus on doing it to the finest detail (even the year of the Quarter drilled into the guitar and more) but that wasn't for me, I liked the style so I made it up as I went.
Then a few months later a family friend who is a welder suggested a stainless steel pickguard and offered to make it for me, it came out equally as rough as the guitar, which looks great :)
The guitar is so rough I take it anywhere and I'm not scared if I drop it or anything. But the original design has worn thin on me, and I want something fresh and a lil better.
The original guitar, After some sanding, Black Paint, White layer
Orange (Terracota) as opposed to the red EVH used, My reconfigured pickguard (note holes), Stainless steel pickguard
My Goals
- New Acyrlic Pickguard (Made using the laser cutter)
- Potentially two or three different colours since I change my mind often
- New Paintjob that looks semi professional
- The painting will be my primary objective as it will take up most of my time.
- And anything else I think up along the way
- Changing the Tone Pot into a Push/Poll Pot to "Coil Tap" my humbuckers into a single coil pickup temporarily
- Change Mono Jack to a Stereo Jack
- learn to play with my teeth
- No, that's not a goal of mine
What I've already Done (and may redo)
- Repainted with rough industrial feeling paintscheme
- Reshaped original pickguard (but had a whole left from the old electronics and the single coil I took out, but it worked...)
- Family friend made a Stainless Steel pickguard which had no extra holes, but since it was done by hand and not a machine nor a professional alot of the square lines weren't so square
- Replaced the neck with one of a similiar crappy guitar but was thinner and had a better feel and most importantly, level frets
- With my dads help created a Trem-Stoppper which basically stopped the bridge from moving
- Replaced the bridge with a near identical piece but that allowed the bridge movement
- Adjusted bridge saddles
- Roughed it up by using it.
- Set up for Drop B tuning for playing Hardcore + Deathcore
- Played with pickup heights
The guitar actually sounds alright for a guitar that set me back $50. The pickups are only out of a $350 Ibanez electric.
The Work
Sanding
Sunday 29th March I was re-thinkin this entire project, but to force myself into it, I grabbed some steel wool and scraped a nice portion of the clear coat off, so now I have to :)
Dismantled guitar (nothing new here, done that what feels like a trillion times) bagged all the parts
When I changed the neck of the guitar, the 'new' neck was about 1mm longer, So with my father's advice, I grabbed a drill and widened too off the holes that were having the most trouble lining up with the already-drilled holes in the new neck. The neck went on wonderfully and was better than the previous one. The Right hand side photo, is of the back guitar at the bottom, where it rubs against your leg as you play, so obviously this spot cops alot of contact and as such has a dirty stain like mark on it, and bubbles under the clear coat.. which probably had a lot to do with my lack of knowledge at the time
Monday 30th March
After school went and bought some sandpaper, 60 Grit and 120 Grit. Did my first sanding 'session' just a bit over 1 hr. Got the paint down to the wood in most places, It's still pretty dirty from the black paint. The 'horns' of the guitar are a little bit harder, I'll figure them out tomorrow.
The air compressor I found is a sander's best friend. The paper kept clogging up very fast, a couple of squirts cleaned it up, but eventually the build up hardened and I grabbed a new piece. I kept all my used pieces, and used the sides that were unused as finger sand paper to sand difficult places where a block couldn't get in. Spraying down the body was a good idea, it blew off any paint dust that was still on the body, so the paper didn't clog up as fast.
Shot of the guitar before sanding, note face mask :)
Bit of progress
Quick shot of each side
The 'horns' of the guitar, the last remaining paint areas
Update: Friday Night 1st May Sanded all the paint of one horn and the last remaining part on the side in about 1 hr. Hopefully in about 30 mins ill get the remaining horn completed. Then I'm ready to start painting.
Painting
Undercoat
Monday May 4th
Today I went down to Bunnings and asked some paint advice, a woman kindly mixed up the right paints for me, and i walked out with 3 one litre paints and half a litre of Gloss Clear Coat and a nice Spray Gun..... and my wallet $180 lighter.. sigh
I painted a piece of wood to try and get the hang of it
Wednesday 6th May
I sprayed one coat of the Grey tinted undercoat, and around 30 minutes later I sprayed another quick coat. You may also be able to notice how rough and bumpy the surface of the paint is.
After about another 30 minutes when the paint was touch dry, I gave it a quick sand to remove all the roughness (i did take off a little too much in some places). The general idea here is to use the paint to fill up any holes in the wood to create a smooth surface. Hopefully by the time I've done a few undercoats I should have a relatively smooth surface to paint on. I painted a total of 4 coats, the third one was particularly thick. I waited 2.5 hours between the 2nd and 3rd coats, and 1 hr till I did the 4th. Since Friday is a day off I will paint the orange, or possibly more undercoat.
Orange
Friday 8th May Last night I did some final sanding of the undercoat, and in one spot went a little too far, so this morning I did a quick re-spray of the undercoat and another sand.
I was looking forward today, cos its Orange Day :) Look at the pretty colour ...
I've included this photo of just the front face painted for a specific reason. Since I have a litre of black paint, painting only the stencil seems like a waste (even though I have another guitar in pieces under my bed waiting for a similiar mod to happen to it). I am toying with the idea of painting the back and sides black. At the moment you can see the matte grey undercoat. (The Orange is a gloss)
Here I need to thank my mum for a few reasons,
1/ taking this dorky photo of me painting my guitar,
2/ for donating her gloves (though they are rather tight)
3/ For putting up with paint smells coming from the shed into the house.
Here is the guitar after the first (heavy) coat of Gloss Orange, you can already see the gloss doing its thing. I'll leave it an hour or so, then paint another lighter layer. Leave it 2 or 3 hours then paint another light layer and leave it till later on tonight and give it a soft sanding. Tommorow morning I will sand it as well as I can before giving it another heavy coat.
Thursday 14th May
I would like to say that Wetsanding is incredible
At first the idea of dipping my sand paper in water and sanding the guitar and leaving water on it seemed absurd, but it was recommended on practically every site I went to.
So today Ben showed me a hardware store in the city, saving me a trip to Bunnings, I picked up some 800 + 1200 Grit sandpapers. I spent maybe 30 mins sanding normally, using the paper 'dry' and after about four strokes the paper was clogged. Eventually I figured I'd try this wet sanding idea, I got some water and woah, instead of cloggin the paper, the paint dust collects in little balls pretty similar to what you get when you use an eraser, which I then wipe off with a rag.
Right now, the guitar is glassy smooth, your hands run over it so smoothly, but it isn't visually smooth yet, and I did sand down to the primer in some places, mainly in the back. So I will give it another coat of orange, and re-sand again:)
Please check out this link, it's a diary of one of the most incredible guitar re-finishing jobs I have ever seen, what's best is that it is very detailed and answers most of the questions I have, and I will reference of this one.
http://www.jimfogarty.co.uk/Sabbath%20Guitar%20Project.htm
Somewhere he says The time spent actually painting a guitar like this is only probably at most, 30% of the of the time taken to custom paint and finish the guitar, the other 70% is taken preparing, rubbing down, basecoating, lacquering, rubbing down between lacquer coats and finally polishing. The final rubbing down and polishing stages taking up to two days to complete.
I agree with this man. I also want to buy an airbrush now haha
Black Stencil
Thursday 14th May Laser cut stencil our of cardboard
Friday 15th May Today After spraying another coat of orange, and wet sanding it down again. I decided to try and nut out how my stenciling will work. I first tried masking my test piece of wood with what else, but masking tape, and also resting the cardboard stencil over the top and painting with my gun.
That was a bit of a failure, particularly the Stencil part, the masking tape is better
My next thought was to use double sided tape and stick the stencil down.
I used a bit of cardboard as my test piece for this, I sprayed it with a can of black spray paint. The line was mildly better but still not perfect.
Saturday 16th May Whilst my parents were out having dinner, I painted in the kitchen. Using the stencil I drew out my pattern on the card, then using masking tape masked out a small portion of it,( I never knew how flexible this stuff was), I painted over that using a nasty old paint brush.
I also tried drawing by hand, but that was even worse.
Monday 18th May I decided to give another crack at the masking tape idea. So i traced out half of my stencil onto my test card. Then using masking tape I masked around my shape, it took maybe 30 mins to do it.
Again using the paintbrush I went over it and painted very lightly, taking about 30 mins to paint it, the problem i had was the masking tape letting the paint bleed, so this time I wanted to make sure there wasn't too much paint
Now to wait till the paint dries tommorow
Scrap that last sentence, I couldn't wait, and the paint felt dry. In the shed, where I had this drying I got down and started peeling off the masking tape from the cardboard, and well... Im pretty happy with it, the biggest flaws were from the cardboard tearing as I lifted the tape.
And don't those flames look good, nice and sharp, and the points are very .. pointy :)
I wanted to do this bit in my room, 1/ cos I have a desk and 2/ It's heated, shed is mighty cold, and standing up or kinda crouching on the concrete is shocking.
Those of you who have no lives, may notice the newspaper I'm using is the Ballarat Courier, which is where I moved from 2 years ago, my Grandparents bring it up for my family to read...
So the next logical step is paint the guitar, So I layed my stencil on top of my guitar.
Then traced out my stencil with a thick pencil
Taped it up
Painted a (very) light first coat, infact it wasn't a complete coat, just me brushing very fast
Then over it all again
Now i'm letting it dry (its still in my bedroom, my room smells like paint, looks like I'm not going to bed anytime soon.
Waiting Anxiously to see the results, (I also painted a little face inside, I should think up a name for him??)
Tuesday 9th May With the deadline today I want to at least have something close to finished. I went and felt the paint and it was dry, and then I began peeling back the tape.
Well I am a little bit dissapointed, I had hoped for a better result then this, my practice run on the card worked better then this sadly, but I reason that is because the cardboard absorbed some of the paint, leaving less on the surface, it dried in a few hours, whilst I left the guitar over night. It looks great from a foot or two back haha
Well Im goin to attempt to fix it.
So i went into the shed and picked up some 800 grit paper and started trying to sand off the blemishes, it worked but the paint wasn't coming off right.. Then it hit me, "The paint isn't completely dry" i was leaving smudge marks... So ill leave that for the morning.
There were a few mistakes, like one painting a line where there didnt need to be one and forgetting another, oh well it adds character :)
a quick mockup using the neck and old pickguard
You can almost hear the death metal, My next part of the mod is to grow long hair, and buy lots of leather and lycra.
The black paint is incredibly shiny, and the finish is smooth, but not flat, if you get what I mean. You can feel a distinct bump where the black starts, so all that means is I will have to spray lots of clear before I start sanding, then sand lightly, spray more coats, sand lightly, spray more coats and sand lightly, to try and even out the rise. The clear should also help it look better.
Pickguard
I did this a little while ago but didn't update the wiki.
I went and laser cut a piece of card into the shape of my pickguard, I needed to test the size and wholes.
The electronic parts, two humbucking pickups, two pots, one capacitor, and a 3 way switch. The red and black wire together goes to the jack, and the other black is the ground which is soldered onto the trem claw, more on that later
The white is the original pickguard, when the guitar had one humbucker and two single coil pickups, a 5 way blade selector and a tone and vol pot. When my family friend offered to make a stainless steel pickguard, I taped up the holes i didnt need and gave it to him like that.
That cardboard has been cut with the laser cutter using an illustrator file, i first scanned my original pickup and measured all the sizes
As you can see its a pretty close reproduction, and all the holes match up. The only problem I found was the screw hole for the humbuckers was almost too big, i will bring it in a mm. The other thing I would like to do is countersink the holes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersink
I have an idea of making a clear pickguard and etching some illustration onto it, maybe my name cos that would make it incredibly personal. Anyway, I want to have a battery pack in the trem cavity at the back between the springs, I think I could fit a 9V in there, and then I will glue several leds to the pickguard and put a switch in there, so when you light it up it will look all pretty.
Cue my dad to help with the electronics
Steve Vai has a guitar with a laser pointer in the tip of the headstock, and the circle inlays are lights, its pretty cool. (You can even buy drum sticks with laser pointers in them)
Conclusion
Even though at this point in time the guitar isn't finished, it will most likely be by next Tuesday when I give my presentation.
I set myself a few goals, the main one being to repaint the guitar, which has taken up all of my time. Some of the smaller goals I haven't accomplished, but I will do them in my own time, I have even thought up other things that I will also do. To my modify a guitar isn't a one off thing, it's something I will do for as long as I have the guitar.
When I first painted this guitar I knew nothing, and the result reflected that, but the lessons I learned were invaluable. This time round I have used the things I've learned and produced a better guitar, but I've also learned quite a bit, and the next guitar I do, which I will do when the weather picks up around spring time, I will have knowledge learned from two goes at painting guitars. I'm a guitarist for life and chances are I will be modifying them and even making some, for the rest of my life, even though this project wasn't a factory finish, the product I've got coupled with the knowledge i've learned is incredible and I look forward to the next time I modify my guitar.
After Deadline
Black Paint
Wednesday 20th May Today I taped out where I want to paint the back in black (ACDC hahaha...) I used a plastic bag to cover the front of guitar to stop overspray Friday 22nd May Began spraying the black, after spending an hour fixing the gun
First Pass of black
Second heavier coating of black
Third time round
