Edit: I moved some stuff in photo bucket, so i had to re link the pics. I lost a couple somehow. Edit done.


OK so first off, i know this is a Fender forum, but a few people expressed interest, for when I finally got this done. If Brad objects, i will willfully pull this down, don't mean to offend.

So as a few of you will remember I have been threatening to refinish my old Ibanez Roadstar II.

It has a long history of abuse. It gigged (off and on,)for over a decade, it has fallen from the storage box of a Van travelling at
highway speeds. been covered with stickers, had a friends little brother remove those with
a butter knife, leaving even more scratches to the finish, and then been covered with new
stickers. It has spent a long time in a crappy gig bag, which at one time was in a basement
that flooded. needless to say it needs some love.

here's a picture off the web, kinda the closest I could find to what it looked like new.
The pic seems to have uncovered pickups, and pinstriping that mine didn't, but
you get the idea:

Here's what it looked like after said abuse:



So to start the restore, I stripped the poly off with a heat gun and a putty knife.




and ended up with this:


Looks like some nice Japanese Basswood to me. Pretty good choice of wood for a 'Shred/Metal' guitar if you ask me.

It is hard to tell from the picture, but there is definitely some water damage to the wood
from when the basement flooded. Guitar must have gotten wet. I had to remove some wood, it was rotten and decayed. So the contour of the guitar will change ( I suck at this
so I am hoping it won't be too bad.) I guess at this stage after sanding it down with a random orbit sander to p220, I level sanded with a block, to p320. Then I use the air nozzle attachment on my compressor to blow away any sawdust. I then wiped it down with Naphtha, and then with Mineral Spirits. This was to remove any oils my hands got on it, and then the Spirits to remove any residual silicone the Naphtha left behind. Now no bare hands go near this puppy until after the finish is complete.




The next stage is really the painting process. but before I get ahead of myself I should point out, I don't have a garage, so I had to build a temporary paint booth on my back deck, so expect to see some shots of my grill in the background!

I settled on using one of those temporary green house deals:


As I used a paint stick in the neck cavity (Sorry Ceri!!,) I installed a hook in the top of the frame:



I also quick-built a little brace to hold the paint stick any time I need to lay flat:


So because I am using an auto body paint for this project (which I have never done before,) I used a primer from a rattle can, (which I have also never done before.) It was easy to spray, and really easy to sand flat.

I hold the stick in my hand for the most part while spraying, sorry no pictures. But if I even think I am going to get a run I quickly lay it flat:


I hang it to dry for a half hour:


Now since I haven't sprayed anything for years, let alone ever used a rattle can for a job like this, I was unhappy with the prime job. There were imperfections in parts of the primer coat, so I sanded it back . I usually do this with any primer I use shooting lacquer anyway, so not a bad thing. It leaves primer in the pores of the wood, and acts as a filler:



I blow it off with the compressor again, and once again wipe it down with naphtha and Mineral spirits. Then I respray it with Primer:




At this point I went to my brother's house, he's lending me his drill press, so I can finish up my Les Paul project.(keep tuned in for later instalments on that!)

Well, I let this cure overnight, and see how bad it looks in the morning.

¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
Okay, forgot my camera at my bro's place. So no pics of the black base coat. really, I just painted a black basecoat, nothing fancy to see.

Oh yeah , my compressor, and the gun I am going to use:






So I sprayed the black(2 coats,) then I sprayed my colour coat and textured it. I had to work pretty quickly with the colour coat, so I wasn't able to take any pictures of the process. It is designed for this kind of thing, so you spray a medium to wet coat, then cover it with cling wrap. the amount of swirl depends on how much you 'massage' the cling wrap, before you pull it off.



***OK, to get to this point I had a couple almost major problems. The person I got the paint from,(over the phone, I had to order it, no one here carries it,) gave me some bad advice.
The black basecoat, needed reducer to spray properly. She also told me, I would need reducer for the colour coat. I should have looked online at the manufacturer's site. As it turns out the colour paint didn't need the reducer. So when I sprayed it, it didn't dry fast enough. It kind of sank into the base coat. I wish I had my camera back then, so I could show you. It kind of looked a little like the bowling ball Strats. I didn't like how this looked after I finished clearing it, I will assume it was because I damaged the basecoat. I ended up stripping it back to the wood, and started over. Cross your fingers for me!!!



Well, I had to do some touching up, as I had a giant wasp(why didn't anyone warn me this stuff attracts em!!!,) trapped in the paint in the front, and 3 ladybugs in the back.




Next step will be ,shooting a 2 part (2K urethane--pretty sure its not exactly the most legal thing to spray on my deck, but I won't tell if you don't.) I should be able to wet sand, and polish/buff pretty soon. this stuff doesn't take nearly as long to cure as lacquer does. I have never sprayed a urethane, so I am hoping I don't end up with too much orange peel. I am not worried about the urethane hurting the sound, given the nature of this guitar, and my belief that the thickness of the finish is more detrimental than the type of paint. I know this will be much thinner than what it originally had, but given it's a 2k urethane, it should end up hard as a rock.

Just gotta let this cure and then wet sand, and polish/buff, it'll really pop.

Sorry about the pics, I lost my good light outside, and in the room I have for this to gas out, I can't get a good shot, IMO these shots don't do it justice, but should give you a decent idea of what I am looking at.

Back:


Front:




Edit: I'll have to get around to taking some new shots after the clear coat. i lost those : (

When I reassemble I'll repost.




Cheers

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

WIN.

Very good sir. Love that colouring.

_________________
No no and no

BTW your the only person ive ever come across outside of my family that uses the word Juju.

_________________
No no and no

Nice!

Nice work. Can't wait to see the finished project. Keep us updated please sir.

Russ

HELL'S TEETH!!!

How did I miss this long awaited thread? I musta been in prison or
something...

Man, there's some frustrating gaps in the record, what with deleted photos
and such. Can you fill in some of the blanks, please?

And Twelvebar, do tell us the rest of the story. Show us how it turned out...

Cheers - C

Ceri i will try find the missing photos. i might have accidentally deleted them. I haven't assembled yet, I ordered some parts, and then didn't decide to use em, so I have some other stuff on the way.

I have a few other things that I started up on, but I will definitely post when I get back to this one. Really I might end up waiting til snow flies to finish it up.

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Please do. And stay away from the shower curtain rod, huh?

Really, no idea how I missed this. I thought a pin couldn't drop round
here without my hearing about it. Ah well: Fender will keep me posted
with email reminders from this point on...

I dunno: next you'll be telling me I missed the YouTube vid ZZDoc's been
promising us for so long of him playing Layla on a NY rooftop...

[Shakes head in dismay] - C

Twelvebar I really like the swirl effect. I assume you pull the saran wrap off the color coat before it dries...does it leave any raised areas in the color coat and can you get the bubbles out of the wrap without srewing up the finish.

yeah, I pulled the saran wrap off right away after 'massaging' it.

Areas where the saran wrap doesn't really touch the surface leave the stronger color. The paint is easy to manipulate. There are raised areas, where the colored paint is, but we're talking micrometers here. After only a single clear coat you couldn't see them.

The paint is designed for this. You don't get anything sticking up in little dunes or anything like that.

I did way more 'massaging' on the back but on the front I laid the saran on more gently, and kind of more wrinkled, so the green coat would be undisturbed in parts.

Too be honest this finish was really easy to pull off. A bit of randomness is part of the effect. All in all I think it's a fitting paint job for an 80's metal 'Superstrat'

_________________
I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Looks really cool. I have never heard of juju either.

that's looking really cool man, and the idea to use the temp green house as a paint booth was pretty brilliant!



(I would've been tempted to leave the giant wasp and clearcoat it onto the guitar, that would've been sick. But........I'm kind of odd like that.)

Really? Like Niki, it's not new to me.

For example, in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy it was given as an
example of very foul language, when the financial minister of the Royal
World Estate of Qualvista said that the economy had now arrived at what
he called, “One whole juju-flop situation”...

The Juju Man is kinda like the Boogieman. Some useful and highly reliable
information is to be found here:

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ju-ju_man

You should definitely believe every word of that.

So happens there's also a bar in London, not far from where I live:

http://www.jujubar.co.uk/home.html

And last and in every way least, a charming tune on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_7DOq7Ygo4

Hope all of that helps. Assuming you're having a very quiet day...

Cheers - C

Your very proffessional twelvebar and that's a fantastic effect and hope to see the finished guitar, I love that stick in neck idea I just hang mine up with a hanger on a cross beam mike stand but it moves sometimes as I spray, I like hgow you cleaned each major part with spirits and naphtali.
Im am currently restoring a 1972 black beauty Aria which isnt easy. I have kept the sides and back original for the juju hahahahahahha mojo and am working on the headstock front and back of neck.

That is some serious Mojo you have going there...Nice.

RK

_________________
RK

2007 Fender Highway 1
2012 American Deluxe
2015 MIM Dave Murray HHH
2010 Fender Blacktop
1987 Fender Avalon Acoustic
2012 Marshall DSL 15 watt head