I decided to mod my early 2,000"s RGX 121 from H/S/H with trem to H/H fixed bridge, change all the hardware & refinish it.
The neck pickup didn"t work, the tone pot was pretty poor being basically all or nothing & I wasn"t keen on the tuners.
This was it before I started
Now stripped of all hardware
Rubbed down ready to have the single coil & trem cavities filled & some primer put on
Cavities filled & body primed.
After initially priming it I could still see where I had filled the cavities so sanded it back & primed it again.
This is it after 3 coats of Fiat orange red rattle can spray paint
As you can see I have somehow managed to get runs on the front of both horns.
Tomorrow I will be sanding the runs out & giving it another 2 coats of paint.
I have decided that I don"t like the single colour so it will then be left for at least 24 hours before masking it up & applying some wide bands of black paint to hopefully arrive at something like this front & back.
It will then receive 5 or 6 coats of clear lacquer, be left for a week then lightly flatted then polished.
I have got all the parts for the rebuild from Axetec which consists of Hot Slag & Rolling Mill HB pups in zebra, chrome locking tuners, chrome fixed bridge, chrome knobs, black tip 3 way blade switch, push pull volume pot, standard tone pot, chrome neck plate, new output jack socket & plate & chrome strap pins..
Hopefully in a couple of weeks it will be finished.
I have changed lots of hardware before but this is my first attempt at spraying & I didn"t realise how much work is involved to try & get anything barely near being an acceptable finish.
I take my hat off to people who do refinishing as my end result is going to be nowhere near as good as any of them even though I have spent a lot of time on it.
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Plus putting the black bands on would involve a lot more work so I stuck with just the Fiat orange/red.
It has just had it"s 4th coat of clear lacquer & will probably have another 2, so 6 in total.
Not going for the black bands has also saved me several days of drying time so I may be able to re-assemble & fit all the new hardware this weekend coming or more likely early next week to be on the safe side.
I am looking forward to how the Iron Gear Hot Slag/Rolling Mill sound.
Even though I thought that I had taken a lot of time prepping & spraying it is by no means perfect.
It has cost me about £60 in materials, paint, lacquer, wet & dry etc & TBH having @lamf68 20 minutes down the road from me I don"t think that I would bother doing it myself again.
Even though the guitar had received 3 coats of primer, 6 coats of colour & 6 coats of lacquer when looked at at the right angle I can still see where I have filled the single coil rout & the trem cavity (front & back) & there are imperfections in the paint.
Also on Saturday, so after 6 days of drying in my house at probably a constant 70f, I marked out, drilled & mounted the bridge.
Somehow the lacquer, paint or both is still soft as the ruler, tape measure & pencil lines ( I put masking tape where the bridge was to go & gently marked the masking tape with a pencil) I used to set out where the bridge was to go have marked the guitar.
I will be sanding it back again, possibly to bare wood this time, & priming, colouring & lacqering again.
I am going to use a darker red, leave more time between coats (I left 15-20 minutes as the the cans said) & let it dry for 2 weeks to be on the safe side, although I do not have to mark anything out now.
This is my first attempt at spraying a guitar, well at spraying anything & it is a learning curve.
This will cost another £40 odd in paint to hopefully get a reasonable finish.
I really should have just given it to @lamf68 as it still won"t be anywhere near as good a finish as he would get.
I suppose if it weren"t for the fact that I have filled a cavity & rout then the job would have been much easier & straightforward, but getting a good finish is not easy.