Recreating Machine Gun Kelly's Pink Schecter

[JaeM]

Hey Guys! I hope you have been well. I have this project in mind that I am trying to carry out and would just like some advice on how to carry it out. My girlfriend is a huge fan of Machine Gun Kelly's new album "Tickets To My Downfall", and I would like to recreate the guitar that he uses as closely as possibly (without breaking the bank of course) as a gift for her. The guitar he uses is a custom Schecter PT. I got a similar used tele styled Schecter to work with. However I just don't know what would be the most effective way to go about this project. On closer inspection, the guitar MGK uses is actually taped and not painted. I don't know how I would achieve the same finish that he has on his guitar, especially with the distressed edges. Or should I just paint it? 

Thank you, any advice helps

[Bizman62]

To me that looks like a poorly done paintwork! I mean, let's say a guy has a standard tele which doesn't fit the image of his band. So he sands it more or less to bare wood and takes a shocking pink rattle can. Before painting he also notices that he actually doesn't like the standard tele control positioning nor the pickguard so he takes a large bit and drills a couple of big holes for the pots. As he's not a woodworker he simply covers the  wiring channels and the pickup cavity with gaffer tape, poking holes for the pot shafts. Then he sprays the body with the paint. After some gigging the paint at the sharpest edges and the surrounding of the pots wears off - that would easily be mimicked by using fine sandpaper, some 400 grit won't chip the paint but speeds up the aging process exponentially.

[curtisa]

43 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

To me that looks like a poorly done paintwork!

I dunno. If you look at the first pic there's what appears to be a seam running along the tops of both pickups, and there's some kind of bubble on the edge of the body just above where the neck meets the body on the bass side. Could the material used be sheets of adhesive protective covering used for school exercise books? The trade name down here is 'Contact'. Not sure if that's the same name used elsewhere in the world. A couple of sheets for the front and a few long strips for the edges. I'm sure you can get it in neon pink...in fact I know you can, as someone managed to cover another guy's desk at work in the stuff as part of an elaborate prank!

[curtisa]

Actually, on closer inspection I agree with the OP. The Schecter PT comes in a twin humbucker variant, so I'd say he's just used some random bits of self adhesive film to cover the surfaces of a stock PT in that garish pink colour (zoom in on the controls in the second pic and you can see all the  joins and overlaps). I dont think he's had to modify the body in any way. At the body edges he's just covered it in a non-continuous way so that the pieces don't meet where the surfaces intersect. As they wear through the edges get exposed as they appear to do so in the first pic. A black Sharpie pen will do the rest of the artwork.

My guess is it's either the book protective material I mentioned earlier, or something similar like offcuts of vinyl wrapping used on cars.

[Bizman62]

5 hours ago, curtisa said:

there's some kind of bubble on the edge of the body

Now that you mentioned it I must  agree, the entire guitar is covered with "Contact" - the common Finnish name for it is "contact plastic" no matter the brand.