3 replies to this topic

[Bobster]

My first electric guitar, Aster copy of stratocaster, has had its life and it is over now. I disassembled all the electronic parts, neck, tuners, bridge, sanded the body prepared it for paint.
Now I need some help.
I have some questions for the future plans, as I'm not going to finish it soon because of the financial part of the build and my lack of knowledge on these things.

First of all how should I paint it? I have colors and scheme of painting in my mind, I don't know what type of paint should I use, how to prepare the body for paint, do I have to put the clear coat on...? I'm planning to make it look like a relic guitar so it's not going to be glam & shiny.

The second thing are the pickups. I want to get rid of the pickguard (like the Van Halen's red-black-white franken-strat) with just a little part of the pickguard where the volume/tone knobs and switch are. But, what pickups can be screwed directly on the wood, not attached to the pickguard like they usually are? All types of magnets or just specific ones?

That would be it for now, if I have any questions I'll post them later.

[beejaysus]

I think this is probably the best source of information on refinishing guitars: http://reranch.com/index.htm

There's a forum there too. I'm sure there are some conversations about relicing and all that.

Hope that helps

[Bobster]

I thought it'd help, but I can't register...

I was wandering if anybody knows if I could buy those Fender stickers (or whatever they are called) that they put on the headstock??? I'd like to place it on my guitar just so I can make fun with my friends

[untitled#11]

young John Frusciante, on Dec 5 2008, 01:45 PM, said:

My first electric guitar, Aster copy of stratocaster, has had its life and it is over now. I disassembled all the electronic parts, neck, tuners, bridge, sanded the body prepared it for paint.
Now I need some help.
I have some questions for the future plans, as I'm not going to finish it soon because of the financial part of the build and my lack of knowledge on these things.

First of all how should I paint it? I have colors and scheme of painting in my mind, I don't know what type of paint should I use, how to prepare the body for paint, do I have to put the clear coat on...? I'm planning to make it look like a relic guitar so it's not going to be glam & shiny.

The second thing are the pickups. I want to get rid of the pickguard (like the Van Halen's red-black-white franken-strat) with just a little part of the pickguard where the volume/tone knobs and switch are. But, what pickups can be screwed directly on the wood, not attached to the pickguard like they usually are? All types of magnets or just specific ones?

That would be it for now, if I have any questions I'll post them later.

I customized my guitar so heres what I did.

For paint you can Testers or Hobby Paint for model airplanes and things like that. It worked fine on my guitar on both plastic and wood.

But they are small and may not want to do that if you want a solid color for the entire guitar.

For the pick guard on Fender Strats the guard goes over all the electronics and keeps the guts of the guitar inside, so either make a custom cut to contain the electronics and then find a way to keep the pickups in the guitar.

That will proby be tough because the pickups sound is based on how far away from the strings they are. You can check out my Custom Fender Strat here: http://www.myspace.com/foxvicious