hexa-db

Hah! I started an almost identical project! My guitar looked pretty much identical to yours. In my case it all started because the guitar needed a refret (a couple fret ends had lifted and would not reseat). From there it escalated... Mine was looking like this: I masked off the top and 1 layer of ply on the edge, sprayed it black. Then I masked off the bottom (and the 1 layer of ply again) and sprayed the gold. I wasn't happy with it though because the exposed ply fake binding was a bit blotchy (some kind of staining) and I couldn't get a clean enough line. I've now stripped it again and I'm going to redo it. I've stripped the neck, dyed with mahogany dye and tru-oiled it too - it feels great. I replaced the dot inlays with abalone as well. I still haven't got it fretted though! I started this about 5 months ago - I'm not sure I'll ever finish it now!!

PM Sent

How does it play & sound? It's hard to tell from the angle but the action looks pretty good considering the neck angle issue people mentioned. The controls do look a bit cramped - I'd be tempted to change the wiring to a single volume and tone knob, and remove the two knobs nearest the bridge (then fill the holes with some dowel, shouldn't be visible if you paint it). I think it would look cooler with bevelled edges (kind of like a lot of BC Rich guitars) - it would be easier to do than binding too Then again installing the binding would be good experience. By the way - if you still like the idea of a design on the top, have a look at the fabric top tutorial. I've seen some nice stuff done with Origami paper on the reranch.com forums too. Good on you for actually getting it done and not being put off by the comments made by a few people. By the way - the star grounding thing refers to the way the ground wires are arranged, in star grounding they all ground to a single point. Google for "guitar star grounding" and you should get the idea.

The Warlock reminds me of mid-90s Sepultura (Definitely a good thing in my opinion heh)

Not sure how well it would work or how practical this would be but how about... - Strip & prep the guitar according to the tutorials - Spray silver - Mask off your graphics, then spray black - Remove masking, spray with a tinted red clear coat (lots of coats, followed by the usual wetsanding/polishing) I think that should give you candy red graphics on a black background? Either that or as people have suggested, go with black and then an opaque metallic red for the graphics.

Have a look at the tech section on ww.ibanezrules.com - there's some good setup guides on there for the Ibanez Lo Pro Edge trems, but I'm sure it could be useful for other FR style setups too.

I just found my own thread when searching for something and realised I hadn't updated it for ages. After leaving it for over a week and attempting to wetsand I realised that the clearcoat was nowhere near thick enough so I sprayed another can of acrylic laquer over it and have left it for nearly three weeks so far. I'm going to make absolutely sure it's cured properly before attempting any wetsanding. In the meantime I've grabbed a couple of beaten up Squier strats from ebay to work on

That looks stunning! Thats the type of top my RG620QM wishes it had

Sorry for the thread hijack! I only had the one car and it wasn't anything too special - a 1992 Honda Del Sol. I did a fair bit to it though including intake, header, exhaust, cams, seats from a Honda S2000 and stuff. Here it is And another one Sadly sold since I needed a car with back seats and something I wouldn't be tempted to constantly modify.

I got into cars rather than guitars and decided I didn't really need a 7 string. I've now realised that guitars are a lot less stressful and a lot cheaper to work on - plus if I don't finish a guitar it doesn't prevent me getting to work the following day

I had an RG7620 which I stupidly sold recently. It was an awesome guitar, it felt like playing a 6 string RG - really comfortable. I really wish I'd kept it now.

You're obviously refering to rattlecan paintjobs ... Use a 2-pack product with a catylist and you won't have those problems. Not everyone has the budget/space for a full spraying kit though By the way I have seen 2k products in rattlecans (hardener in a seperate compartment, mixed by pushing a pin in the bottom of the can). Just thought I'd throw that in to add to the confusion

I left a recently sprayed guitar (acrylic based clear) in my conservatory all last week thinking it would get hot enough to cure pretty quickly but it didn't. Attempting to wet sand it on the weekend was a bit of a disaster :/ I hope it doesn't take a year to cure!

Yep - Sorry about the jemsite ad. I got a bit fed up, posted the ad and forgot about it - then I decided to repair it (forgetting I had posted the ad). The paintjob doesn't look that good in real life, there are quite a few dodgy bits but at least I learned a lot and can get it back together soon. Yours looks like the same model as mine - N7. Is yours blue or is it just the pic? Also, I'm not sure if my truss rod cover has "Mockingbird" on it (but it's been packed away for so long I can't remember!). Bryan - I kind of knew a lot of the things (like not using the last bit of paint etc) but I think I needed to make the mistakes to learn exactly why you have to do/not do all these things

Rather than post one pic every time someone replies, I'll stop being lazy and add them as links You can see the filler where I'd started filling most of the dents etc, and some of the cracks (between the pickup routes, in the neck pickup route). You can also see bit of wood missing from the bottom of the neck pocket. Bigger pics: Paint stripped, some repairs started (front view) Rear view after stripping paint & starting repairs After the first coat of black paint... (bad run from a dodgy can of paint that splattered suddenly Rear view after first coat of black (repair still visible, more sanding was done to get rid of that) After paint and clear, before proper flatting and polishing (quite a few different defects/issues, not all visible in this pic though) Another angle.. Big version of the pic in my first post I haven't got any pics of the work done on the neck unfortunately. I'm really pleased with the flip paint, it looks fantastic (apart from the defects I caused) in direct sunlight but I don't think one can is enough for a guitar like this. Might be enough for a smaller body like a strat though. Partly for my own reference, but some things I've learned.. - Heat guns work well for stripping poly but risk damage to the wood if you get too scraper-happy (try Nitromors next time) - Make sure the grain is filled - Sand more than you think you need to (except on the clear coat!) - Make sure the sandpaper is cleaned. Big gouges from gunked up sandpaper are not good. - Buy more paint than you think you need - Don't try and get the last bit of paint out of a can - Make sure everything is dry & hardened before moving to the next step - A respirator is worth every penny

Your new godson is really lucky - my godfather is a luthier and he's never made me anything! :D It looks really cool though - maybe I should make something for my son... (he already likes grabbing the strings on my epi LP and letting them go)

I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum because it's a repair & refinish rather than a scratch build but here goes. I originally started a project thread on reranch but my account kept getting deleted (happened about 3 times even after getting a mod to reset it each time). Anyway... About 6 years ago the guitarist in a band I was in smashed his BC Rich 7 String. It was a bit of a Spinal Tap moment. After someone forgetting to bring some of my synth gear to the gig in time for soundcheck, him breaking a string in the soundcheck and suffering Floyd Rose induced tuning issues throughout, and then having a dodgy monitor speaker and finally having his wireless transmitter fall off his strap (causing the battery to fall out and the receiver to start scanning/blasting white noise) he had enough and threw the guitar one the floor and stormed off. I bought it as it was for £50 and did nothing with it for ages. The first thing I did was remove and reglue the fretboard as it had come away from the neck, then I moved house and didn't touch it for a few years. Then I set about stripping the poly finish to see how bad the cracks in the body were and again didn't do much for ages. Earlier this year I finally got around to gluing the cracks and smoothing out with woodfiller. As well as two big cracks running from either side of the neck pocket (right through) to the bridge pickup routes it also had numerous big gouges, dings and dents. A piece of wood between the neck pocket and neck pickup had also broken and fallen out (and later got lost). I made a new piece to replace it and did a lot of filling and sanding. I'm not really a big fan of modern BC Rich guitars and it never really played that nice so I decided I wasn't going to bother aiming for perfection, just get it playing. It's also a good learning experience. I filled and sanded most of the problem areas and sprayed some primer. The primer sunk into the grain so I realised I probably should have grain filled. A lot more sanding, then some slightly moistened woodfiller spread over the body got it a lot smoother. I then sprayed it again with Halford Filler Primer and a coat of black paint. More sanding to 800 grit and another coat of black. I decided to go for chameleon/colour flip paint because I wanted to see how well it worked and I thought the bevelled shape would show it off well. I got a 400ml can Liquid Red from specialistpaints.com. This didn't seem to be enough and I ended up with a slightly streaky finish. I also got a run which I sanded back a little and tried to cover up but didn't really have enough paint. I then did a really stupid thing and tried to use the last bit in the can - that caused a few huge grey streaks of residue to splatter over the front of the guitar Luckily they almost completely disappeared as the paint dried and the clear coat was added. I bought what claims to be 2k clear coat in an aerosol. Some of the ones I looked at had a seperate compartment in the base and have a mechanism to cause the hardener to mix in. The one I bought wasn't like this - it was just a standard can so I'm not convinced it's 2k. It did stink though and made me glad I bought a respirator!! I gave it a couple days and started wet sanding. I thought the laquer would be fine as I've had car parts resprayed and fitted them 24 hours later (from a place with no oven for baking the paint). The laquer was too soft and I now have a thumbprint in the laquer on the back, and a few more defects. I'm now going to leave it a few days in a hot conservatory and get it polished up. Here's how it looks now: Is it right that you can only add 1 pic per post? If so I'll wait for replies and add some in-progress pics.

Now, have you painted with 2K? Because it is not hard as a rock once cured, it is plastic like. And it flexes and moves with the plastics on my car. you got this right, it will not crack like you mention, so that is a plus. Both of them have their pros and cons. If you can spray 2K safely go ahead and use it. If not then nitro (good one) will do the job, it just takes more time and work to finish. I've seen 2k laquer in aerosol cans on ebay recently. I think the hardener is a seperate part of the can and there's a button/pin to push on the base that mixes the two components. I'm considering giving it a go as it sounds like it'll be better than Acrylic for this project (a BC Rich so no worries about an accurate vintage finish )

I was kind of leaning toward that opinion. I'll have to be extra careful with the spraying of the basecoat! At least if the flip looks a bit weird due to orange peel texture it'll look fairly uniform and I can pretend it was deliberate effect - sanding scratches would look a lot more obvious I guess lol

Hi, I've never got around to posting here but I've been lurking on & off for a while. I'm repairing/refinishing a cheap & nasty BC Rich 7 string, it's currently in primer. I've decided to have a go at using some chameleon/flip paint (in a rattle can) over a black basecoat. I contacted the company that sell the paint to ask if I should wet sand the basecoat and they suggested not sanding the basecoat at all as any sanding marks would show up in the colour flip. My thinking is that if sanding marks would show up, surely the inevitable orange peel from the rattle-can basecoat will too? Surely wetsanding the basecoat to 1500 would get it flat enough not to have visible sanding marks? (maybe even too flat for the flip paint to get a bond?). Should I just try to get the basecoat on as flat as possible and hope I can avoid the orange peel or risk some wetsanding anyway? This is my first refinish attempt and I know it isn't going to be perfect as the guitar had so many dings and dents there was a limit to the amount of sanding and filling I can do - I'm expecting there to be imperfections (lots!).