Up for your consideration my first guitar refinishing project. My BC Rich Bich. Don't have a name for her yet, but I'll entertain your suggestions.
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- Headstock Detail -
- Body Detail -
The whole thing got started around Christmas when I saw cool inlaid dragon fretboard on eBay and bought it. The intent was to use it on an inexpensive Bronze series black BC Rich Bich.
Got the board, and using instructions found here, removed the original fretboard and glued in the new one...
...just in time to realize that the original neck had a 24.75" scale fretboard, and the new fretboard was 25.5". Great, now what...
One possible solution was to get another fretboard, and start again, or alternately move the bridge back 3/4". So I decided on the latter. First stud came off quite easy, the second... pulled off a 2" chunck of black paint.
Even though I had bought the guitar brand new at Guitar Center, it had been repainted from a crappy blue to a nice glossy black. Unfortunately, they never bothered to sand the body down, mearly sandblasted and repainted it. The only thing that was holding the paint together was it's own integrity. I was able to strip down the black paint with a putty knife in about 15 minutes. The blue underneath was really nasty so I started to strip it as well.
So what was I left with...? a cheap laminated plywood body in the shape of a Bich. Obviously it's time for a solid color. Then I see an article here on veneer tops. Off to my local lumber company where I bought 4ft long strip of lacewood venner. I didn't want quilt or flametop anigre. The choice for me was either a beautiful piece of birdseye maple or the lacewood. The $85 price for the birdseye vs. the $30 for the lacewood sealed it.
After glueing the veneer top on, I stained it, sealed it with laquer sealer, sanded smooth and decided I was going to do a solid black on the back and sides with a burstover on top (once again a technique learned from the tutorials here) and the rest natural finish.
Meanwhile I'd read a lot about Polyurethane and lacquerfinishes, and decided to go with poly. The first coat of clear poly goes on, looking mighty nice. When I come back 1 hour later it's all fogged up. Since this is my first time using poly, I attribute it to improper technique, sand it all down and start again. Fogges up... *** ?? Is there a compatibility between the poly clear coat and the lacquer based sealer? Everything I read said they are compatible. I called various paint shops with this question, but none had an answer. I started to do more trials and no matter what I did the poly would fog up. NOt all over, just in random places. By now I was getting ready to give it up, but I just had far too much time invested in it.
So I decided to give up poly and finish it up in lacquer. But still there was something that didn't quite click. Even stained, the lacewood was still too light and contrasty to the black burstover, so one day as I'm browsing through a Michaels Art store I find a can of something called Glossy Wood Tone. When I get home I try this and it's a transparent Walnut brown, but the more coats you apply, the darker it gets, but it never really gets opaque. Great, this will add to the burst over to further blend it in, while darkening the original tone of the lacewood. By now this look great, and I'm quite proud of this. So after a few days I sand it lightly, and apply a coat of clear lacquer (no more poly, remember), just so I can watch all the areas with the new wood tone get fine cracks in the paint. It looked like some mad slasher had taken a knife and made a thousand small cuts in the finish.
I was not having a good time... For a while I actually considered leaving it like that for effect, but instead I went back to various trials and tests. And lo-and-behold... Polyurethane seemed to go on top of this new wood tone coat like glass. No wrinkling, no fogging up, perfect. The best that I can surmise is that the wood tone spray is some sort of enamel, and it interacts OK with the poly. So...DING!... I get the idea. Why not give the entire guitar a coat of wood tone, so it acts as a neutral medium between the laquer base and the poly,... and, JOY OF JOYS, IT WORKED !!!
So now I have this pretty cool looking body, but the new neck and fretboard just don't cut it, as the fretboard rosewood is just too light, and the dragon design just too busy. So I look around on eBay and find this floral/vine inlaid ebony fretboard (this time I checked to make sure it was the right scale length). The question is do I rework the already re-worked neck or do I get another neck to do this on. In the meantime I had bought a set of black Sperzel 3x3 tuners, so I decided to get a neck with a 3x3 headstock instead of 6 inline. So I find a brand new Line6 Variax neck and buy it. Removed and replaced the fretboard, applied some lacewood veneer to the headstock and painted to match the body.
Custom made the decals, the truss rod cover, added all black hardware (including black knobs with abalone tops, and HERE SHE IS !! The bich of my nightmares...
It was a pain in the butt, but I like it, it plays quite smooth, and given how much time I put into it, I'd never trade her for anything.
Your comments are welcome, and thanks for looking.