Jackson PS4

Mid level Jackson performer, a perfect candidate for a bit of customising i.e. great little guitar with tons of playing years left but with a finish that has seen better days and with hardware and a body that could really benefit from some interesting artwork

This came along as a full guitar. So after getting all the hardware off and electronics out it was time to get down to completely stripping the body of the existing finish. As well as being very scratched in many places with a few small chips there were also two fairly big knocks that had chipped the finish and caused two big dents on the sides around the input jack.

Again, the finish itself was not that thick at all, especially compared to a lot of heavy, thick finishes that you do come across. I still decided to fully strip it though. Quite often this is not really necessary, I just wanted to show the process on the site and also as a bit of a personal experiment. Can be satisfying to re work a guitar right form the wood though the end result being a guitar very different from the one that arrived, and giving each one its own individual style and personality. That’s really the main driving force behind the customising of guitars that goes on here - to provide something totally unique and a complete getaway from the mass produced factory guitars you see everywhere. Obviously this doesn’t apply to all; there are plenty of amazing custom builds, stunning woods and finishes out there but this is just another option for customisation.

It’s the sound and playability that of course are most important, but creating visually total one-off guitars, without sacrificing the quality of the guitar or the finish and without affecting the key features of the guitar as an instrument, is my overall aim. Whilst they look awesome as wall hangers, when it comes down to it these are made to be played!

Anyway that’s enough rambling, back to what’s going on. As I said above, often there’s no need to fully strip the finish, but as well as being quite satisfying there‘s also a few other things to note, e.g. it keeps the overall thickness of the paintjob down, it is nice and beneficial to do this where possible. There’s endless debate, argument and discussion about finishing materials and the pros and cons of each, but I won’t go into all that. And there are so many variations, opinions and personal preferences that it would be easy to get caught up in all that, so here I just want to keep things very simple - all coats as light as possible but still providing a finish that is hard wearing enough to protect the artwork and take plenty of abuse, and still looks great, just as you would expect from a quality shop bought guitar.

I should also quickly mention that stripping a guitar of its existing finish is almost never an easy task, even with the lighter, thinner ones. A laborious and pretty horrible job, with some of the thicker finishes taking a serious amount of work to remove and a fair bit of time, hence the extra cost for me to do this if this is what you would like. It also needs patience and care in the trickier areas of horns and contours so as not too damage the guitar, and to not accidentally reshape an area. Definitely the least fun of all the stages.

Here we have the whole body roughly stripped of the original finish, right back to the wood. In this photo there were still areas that needed sanding work but this is basically it. It needs some flatting out to get all the surfaces level and uniform, and to bring back some of the edges that may have been lost through very slight rounding off during the stripping Again, the neck pocket is masked off to stop any unwanted build up. The pickup and bridge cavities were also stripped of paint so, unlike the Yamaha above, I left these unmasked so the primer coat would reseal the wood. A wee bit of masking in the bridge cavity itself stops certain screw holes and other bits getting filled with gunk.

Same deal on the back with sides fully stripped. A tiny bit of masking around the inside edge of the electronics cavity stops any build up, so the cover plate fits back in fine. The two chunks of wood missing around the jack socket were cleaned up, sanded smooth then filled with the usual filler. Once hardened the filler can be reshaped and sanded to follow the shape of the body. As with the Yamaha, if done right it will be completely unnoticeable once the primer is on. A final all over sand, taking it through progressively finer grits of sandpaper, was next, removing all imperfections ready for the primer coat.

For work on a bare body - if you can get the guitar to me in this state, either already stripped or a fresh new body ready for the go, then you will be reducing the prep time and materials a fair bit, hence keeping the overall cost of the work down. So maybe something to think about, as I can always touch up and fill smaller scratches and dents that may occur from the inexperience of doing this yourself.

The light coat of white primer goes on. This acts as a bit of a filler on tiny imperfections, seals the wood again and creates the perfect basecoat for the artwork.

Just a quick photo of the back showing the same. The two repairs on the side, around the jack socket, are completely covered and no longer visible. Once the primer is fully hard a light all over sand with fine papers achieves a smooth base, ready for painting. The better the prep and the smoother the primer, the easier the remaining stages of painting and finishing are.

Here it is painted on the front and sealed in, shortly after the back and sides were painted all black. As I’ve jumped from white to fully painted in one step, with no in progress photo, this doesn’t really get across the amount of time and attention to detail that goes into the artwork itself. Whilst it is the most fun and interesting stage of the process for me personally, it is also time consuming and labour intensive. The amount of time and thought that goes into the design alone, before I even touch the guitar is something that can’t really be shown or explained. All the artwork is original and I try where possible to come up with a design that works around the features, rather than a mass produced or stenciled piece, or just an image to “plonk” on top of the guitar; so each guitar is a totally unique with artwork designed around the guitar itself and around the customers ideas.

A quick photo of the front after the full clear coat and polish. Doesn’t look a whole lot different in the photo, you can just about see shine of the finish. At this point it was looking great. As I said with the Yamaha, the super glossy lacquer really brings everything together and shows off the artwork brilliantly.

A quick snap of the all black back, again you can get a slightly better idea of the flat mirror like, super glossy finish.

Come back soon to see the fully built end result!!