An email from Stewmac has dragged me out of Making & Modding retirement
I’d flirted with the idea of making a mini pink paisley for a while, originally I was going to base it from a Squier Mini, but that’s still too big for my 5 year old daughter.
These Mini-T kits have been launched with an introductory price, so decided to go for it. Ordered last Tuesday, it arrived Friday!
Plan is, I’ll make a template for a more Tele snapped pick guard and get it made in perspex, shape the headstock then send it over to the Welsh Wizard for paislification!
It’ll either be done using a silver metallic base coat with a waterslide paisley decal or if we can get the paper done better than all the solutions currently available (the bits between the pattern aren’t white, or pale silver!) then we’ll go down that route.
Won’t be a super fast build, but I’ll keep it updated as things move on
Comments
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/89942/caspercaster#latest
edit
£115 I added one to the cart after watching the Stew Mac video, then saw the postage cost.....£45 is the cheapest option...I can’t justify that and it would be £30 to “join” and get free shipping...
Shame I really like it....
Still, it should look great when done, pick guard should be with me this weekend / early next week too - won't be too long before it can go off for paint!
I thought I’d then do the headstock shaping. Prit-sticked the template on, then drilled round the template, then used my jigsaw and a bastard file to shape it! Rough sanded to smooth everything out.
Decal from Rothko & Frost, also had a $100 voucher for Amazon.com (couldn’t be used on .co.uk), so ordered up a well priced pair of TexMex pickups for the mini beast.
Ahhh, good, I’ve been on at them to get some more tempter emails out
I really like that.
Perhaps I need to investigate Scratch-it for my DC build ...
The Stewmac email came in about the Mini T and Mini S style guitars and sealed the deal
Scratch-It / Gig Ink are great if you are after a certain type of pickguard, I think they are all clear based with a colour or design underneath, so you'd need to make sure that was what you wanted - worked well for this guitar and my Monterey Pop too
Next posts will be the painting process as it's being delivered to Rich today
Red meat and functional mushrooms.
Persistent and inconsistent guitar player.
A lefty, hence a fog of permanent frustration
Not enough guitars, pedals, and cricket bats.
USA Deluxe Strat - Martyn Booth Special - Electromatic
FX Plex - Cornell Romany
There is a build thread on here, but where I used to use photobucket, most of pictures in the thread have become blurred and watermarked.
It's taken a while as both myself and Rich wanted this to be done as close to a proper Pink Paisley finish as possible, I'm really not a fan of the ones with white background in between the pattern, just doesn't look right.
Initial experimentation was performed using cake base paper as a bottom layer (pretty much the correct paisley texture), the plan was to then clear coat over to build up to a flat surface, apply the decal and then clear before applying the burst. Unfortunately, getting the paper on smoothly was a near to impossible task, smoothing the paper damaged the pattern!
After several attempts at getting it on flat (different glues and approaches) and then having to remove it each time (sorry Rich!!), we moved on to plan B, metal flake, clear, decal, clear, burst.
This is with the flake applied:
Then, as of this afternoon, the decal is on one side. It looks incredible, the Welsh Wizard that is @lamf68 is doing an amazing job!
This is now drying out, ready for some sealer coats tomorrow, then it's onto the back!
Not sure Rich will speak to me after this (plus the troublesome Jazzmaster he did and the Monterey Pop!).
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/89942/caspercaster#latest
It's looking incredible now, the clear coat is still to happen, so it's going to keep looking better. As much as this has been a pain for Rich, it looks 100x better than the home build paisleys with the plain backgrounds, well happy with how things are going!