Speed knobs: making any colour a possibility (Purple Sparkle content)

bad_alice

I'm lucky enough to have recently acquired a wonderful 2019 LP Deluxe Light. Think "2015 LP Less model but with none of the issues", so a half thickness mahogany body complete with a full thickness maple top but, crucially, with no wider fretboard, no brass nut, no 3-knobs-and-a-toggle-switch, no robot tuners and no sharpie Les Paul or Mr Spock/Les Paul holographic sticker. I've heard these are pretty rare to find, especially in the UK's second hand market, as I believe they were made solely for the Japanese market, but please feel free to pitch in if I'm wrong on that. 

Like the Les Paul Less range from the front it looks and hangs exactly like a full thickness LP. Oh, and it weighs 7.2lbs! To answer the question I wondered at the time too "nope. It feels nothing like a SG. Due to the neck joining the body as befits a LP it feels exactly like a LP to play too." #WIN 

My original plan had been to replace both the stock mini humbuckers with low wind P90s but honestly, the bridge mini hum is fucking GLORIOUS - like a humbucker but with a slightly lowered bass response and a punchy, tight growl as a result. Once I'd played it a few times, I realised it was going nowhere. I did end up replacing the neck mini hum with a BKP Nantucket P90 as, as cool sounding as the neck mini hum was, it physically wasn't built to provide the single coil hollowness and clarity I knew the BKP Nantucket could.

So...I guess Neil Young knows a thing or too about pickup combos? Who'd have guessed...?!!  

Right then, enough background. The guitar's called "Blake" who, OBVIOUSLY, now has a number 7 sticker on board. #Blakes7FTW

(And please, go check the interwebz if this is not making any sense!)

Anyway, the decal is a rich iridescent purple and It occurred to me a bit ago that a couple of similarly coloured speed knobs would both look cool and serve to tie in the purple of the "7" as a core colour for this particular LP.

While I did manage to find some sparkly purple speed knobs over on Etsy, they weren't quite the colour I was hoping for - more lilac than purple tbh - and they were also around £12 each too which felt a bit cheeky, especially as I was beginning mull over whether I might be able to make some perfectly matching ones myself?

I bought 3 clear speed knobs from eBay; 2 to go on the guitar and one to practice on. Yes, they're designed to fit Epiphone/Chinese guitars but, honestly? If you use a suitably sized flat head screwdriver and turn it until the plastic nibs that narrow the diameter of the post are all broken and gone, then they fit USA Gibson posts perfectly. Next up was the paint. I thought "fuck it, if I'm doing this I'm going full SPARKLY purple!" so following a rather steep and fast learning curve in the land of paint I scored a small pot of purple glitter acrylic. A set of cheapo art paint brushes #£3 later and GAME ON.

I quickly learned that patience is integral to this particular project as the way this paint really delivers is when you layer it, so one coat then wait for it to dry, and then the next coat and so on - there's probably around 6 layers on each knob.

That said...if, like me, you suck at patience I feel I should add that a hairdryer is a huge help where speeding up acrylic paint's drying time is concerned.
Sometimes you get lucky with projects, and this was definitely one of those. I'm chuffed to bits with how it looks and, hopefully, sharing this will encourage some of you mad souls to try similar experiments with clear speed knobs too.
Run WILD (and sparkly), amigos!

Pics of the result and the stuff I used below...

bad_alice

A ssshhhhparkly bump in case anyone fancies giving this a go?

SpoonMan

Hey @bad_alice thanks for the link, those look great!

I've found some sparkly/clear lacquer that I think I'll try. If that's not enough I could probably put a colour on after as well. 

bad_alice

SpoonMan said:

Hey @bad_alice thanks for the link, those look great!

I've found some sparkly/clear lacquer that I think I'll try. If that's not enough I could probably put a colour on after as well. 

No problem @SpoonMan and I hope your painting project turned out just as you hoped?

I've since decided to make the pickup covers purple sparkle now too. I think that'll be it though, as I like the way the cream - I'm including the ivory tuner pegs in that category too - offers a lovely contrast with both the ebony of the guitar body/headstock facing and the sparkly purple bits too.
There's another thread on here documenting how I did that but, for now, it feels like closure to share a pic of the completed guitar here too.