Worm Rout

As you can see, the restoration is going well. This is no candidate for a sunburst, but at least we've reversed the atrocity of that swimming pool. Worm rout added for authenticity and practicality.

The Bleeding Strat

We got a commission to refinish a very old Strat. This one had some kind of red on it over what looked like a 3-color sunburst (note the amber in the trem cavity), but had been badly reliced. It looked to me like they had set it on fire on the front, but on the back it actually had some decent and real buckle rash.

No matter. The owner wants a pristine Nitrocellulose finish (Dakota Red), and that's what he'll get.

We love stripper.
Not sure the backstory on this Strat, but it's quite old, but it looks like basswood. Very light (feels like under 4lbs) with a tight grain. It's been swimming-pool'd, and we're going to fill that in with some basswood, and re-rout for three single-coils.

Should be a fun project.

Fourth on Google

No, this site isn't fourth on Google for anything (It's first for "Trevisol", ;-) ), but when you search "John Mayer Charcoal Frost", the fourth result is this:
Offset Guitars Build Thread
That's my post at OffsetGuitars detailing the progress of my Charcoal Frost Sportster Build!

Speaking of which . . . let me go on record as saying I do not look forward to doing any more racing stripes ever again.

The guitar has 5 coats of clear on it, and after being sanded smooth (it looked like it had spray texture on it) it was ready to be taped off and striped.

Now I need to stripe it, and to get a good straight line, I'm going to be using a "la-ser".

Once I get that line taped, I can use it as a reference for the rest of the stripes.

Next came tape on the other side, and pinstriping to mask the individual stripes from each other. Then we masked the whole guitar off with brown paper.

3 Coats of Silver metallic Lacquer, and it's time to peel. That was a frenetic, harried, breath-holding activity.

But it came out! It's about as perfect as I could hope for. I even was able to wrap it around to the back (on the bottom edge), which is more than Fender does with this kind of racing stripe. It went well but now we've got all sorts of blue tape residue on the guitar. I'm going to use Dunlop 65 to get it off before the final 6 clear coats.


Things are wrapping up. I'll be ordering the trem soon, then it'll be on to assembly.