The Bat Guitar

[evilbetty]

here you can see that taping method i use to do a very tricky curvy bit ,this was tight as and almost a slight design flaw as the shapes were soo close it was going to be tuff to get any paint in there, thats why i made the bat head shape only half the thickness of the neck and not the full thickness ,this allowed me just enuf room to get paint in to the very very tight circled areas!!!! was still hard but managed to pull it off

Edited July 8, 2008 by evilbetty

[evilbetty]

then the fun bit out with the router and rip out the 2 humbucker cavitys and the bridge pin holes and also the string thru ferrule holes , then it was looking something like this

[evilbetty]

then a check of all the parts being used make sure i got it rite!!! so put the bridge humbuckers and tuners in place for a final check before i looked at finishing it

[jer7440]

Lookin very cool! Not normally my style...but I'm diggin this guitar a lot.

[evilbetty]

the 2 humbuckers were taken from a warlock and the bridge is a tune-o-matic with rollers ,the tuners are wilkinson all hard wear in black ,of corse lol so everything looking good from here off to start the paint side of things,

so a few processes i had to do before i would paint anything ,first one was sealing the wood with a wood sealer,i found the mahogany very open grained so need several coats of sealer to help fill the grain and seal it off,i used a water based one as i was going to use auto paints to paint it ,first time i used the water based sealer but it worked well and im now using it everytime i have bare wood to deal with thats going to be painted,

so heres a few at the paint shop getting ready to be sealed, i used 2 threaded rods between 2 stands to hold it up while

i sprayed ,

Edited July 8, 2008 by evilbetty

[evilbetty]

and heres it sealed,ahhh was great to see it all one colour!! still heaps to do but the sense of satisfaction was rather good at this point ;-)

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

hope im not boring you all with these million photos i think its easyer to show the pic than trying to explain exactly what i was doing , anyone like it so far???? my mates think its mental ,i like it alot casue i designed it and made it my self thats the best part ,and knowing that if i saw a guitar in the store that i could make one similar ,i love do it yourself its very satifying ,specialy when it works!!!

[evilbetty]

so that was the wood sealer stage all done,i left it for about a week to completley dry out then hand sanded it all down agin using blocks to keep every thing sharp and straight,i used 180 and 240 gritts then pretty much the same deal again but this time i used 2pak primer .2 pak primer is mixed with hardner for those who dont know and sets quite nicely also its very very easy to work with and sanding is a joy you can get it very smooth with out any harsh scratches ,but heres the priming stage anyway

this time i took alittle more care with keeping the guitar as clean as possible,by putting paper down around the area i was spraying help keep the dust away from it ,not a real big deal ,but lumps of crap and dust sometimes casue problems later,this was just to keep it the best i could get in the ass booth i spray in ,anyone who has a prince booth or has sprayed in one before will know there rubbish lol,

so heres the primer shots, primer was tinted dark grey as i was going to be painting a dark colour

Edited July 8, 2008 by evilbetty

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

again this was left for a week to sink back and dry,then the final sand down was using 320,500,and 800 grits,

as for the colour well i like black ,but this time i wanted to add a litle something so i started with a black base,

then sprayed a red pearl mix in a dye ,which i then took some screwed up plastic and dabed the plastic all over the guitar this pulled up small bits of the red revieling the black underneath ,kinda looks like a scaley patern if you look carefully but also being a pearl in some lights it look jet black then on other angles it looks red,kinda a cool effect and just something differnt i wanted to try,the painting took several hours of work but in the end i think it payed off .

also i made up 2 jigs to hold the guitar in a way that i was going to be able to use the bonnet stand we use for spraying bonnets at work,if you see my first post youll see the crazy sett up i made for the draco guitar,this was similar ,

but made it in 2 parts both clamped onto the boonet stand the top one going thru the tuner holes and clamping in place and the bottom one was actualy threaded rods that i threaded into the ferrule holes this worked great as there was no need to touch the guitar in any way or drill ramdom holes to hold it while i sprayed ,also using the stand gave me the advatage of being able to have it vertical and horizontal ,vertical for the back and horizonal for the tops was the best way alowing me to slam the hell out of it with out to much fear off runs flooding the booth and having to swim out there ,hahaha ,no i was very lucky there were no runs and considering what i had to paint with the crazy ass shapes specialy around the bat head area ,that was tuff but i got it all ,so heres som e shots of the paining in progress

Edited July 8, 2008 by evilbetty

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]

[evilbetty]