I wanted to get an inexpensive bass guitar that I could customize so I placed an ad on the local CraigsList for damaged / broken bass guitars.
One response was perfect, a Fender Squire P-Bass. It was missing the pick guard, volume and tone pots, and line jack. and one of the tuning machines was broken. The neck was straight but the paint on the body was chipped and cracked. But the price was right, $25.
The neck was straight and the frets didn't show much wear, except for the first and second, but not enough to warrant being replaced. The finish on the neck was in pretty good shape also.
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The body on the other hand was rough. There were a lot of chips and cracks in the paint and the two strap mount holes were stripped.
I did some research using the serial number and found that this bass was made in Korea in the late 1980s. The body is plywood.
The stripping gel is toxic so I made sure to wear a respirator. It was wintertime so I did it in my basement bathroom with the exhaust fan on. I don't recommend this, it would have been much better, and safer, to do outside.
Bass Guitar Paint Texture
My tub was lined with plastic and I wore heavy rubber gloves. The gel was brushed on very thick and I let it sit for about fifteen minutes. I used an old chisel to carefully scrape the loose paint off. Be careful not to dig into the wood. This process took several days, but the total actual working time was about three hours.
Sanding was pretty easy. I started with some 100 grit paper to get the remaining paint and rough spots knocked down. By the time I was finished, I was using a 600 grit wet/dry paper.
I used Rustoleum white primer since I was going to finish the bass in yellow. I put on a light coat, let it completely dry, and lightly sanded it with 400 grit paper. You can see in the last picture where I dabbed on wood filler to clean up some rough spots and gouges.
Guitar Paint & Guitar Varnish
I did this process until I had about six or eight coats of primer and there were no more visible dings or gouges.
I painted it the same way as when I primed it. Take your time and put on many light coats. Let it harden and sand between every few coats to get a smooth finish. It takes a couple of days to get it done right. Again, it was winter so I did it in my garage and when it started to set up, I took it back down to the basement bathroom and let it harden in warmth.
Once I had about eight or more coats of paint and I was happy with the finish, I let it sit for 48 hours to harden.
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I then used Rustoleum clear coat and put on about eight coats, again, waiting and sanding between coats. The last three coats I didn't sand between.
I found a kit online that came with the volume and tone pots, the jack, resisters. I assembled the pots and jack into the pick guard and followed the directions for hooking up the wires.
The pickup wires were fed through the hole in the body and they were soldered. The pick guard was then screwed on. I had to drill a few holes as the pick guard wasn't an exact fit to the original, plus I had filled in the original holes when I added wood filler to the body.
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I wanted the bass to look more like a 'real' Fender P-Bass so I purchased a set of Fender style tuning machines from the internet. They were about $25.
The original holes for the shafts were too small in diameter to fit the new ones so I had a friend with a milling machine bore the holes to fit. I aligned each one and carefully drilled the four holes and installed the mounting screws on the back.On a random Tuesday, while aimlessly scrolling through Instagram, I came across a sponsored post from a non-profit organization called ArtReach. The post read “Call for Artists! Guitar Art Auction 2021” and I clicked right away. Upon further investigation, I found that ArtReach is a non profit organization that uses it’s resources to provide free visual arts programs for San Diego youths. I also found that they were looking for 32 artists to donate their time to paint electric guitars, which were to be included in an online auction later in the year. I wrote down the contact email and began looking up guitar inspiration on Pinterest. My main source of inspiration came from artist Mister Phil
I can’t say why, but I was immediately inspired to sketch a design with sea creatures. I took inspiration from my utility box mural and wanted to create something with clean linework, a cohesive color palette, and a complex subject matter. I took to my iPad and sketched a rough design on Procreate. After finishing my illustration, I sent it off a mockup of my design, along with my application, and waited (impatiently) for a response.
Design Your Own Guitar Created By Our Guitar Experts Using Metallic Paint
When I showed up at the office near Balboa park, I was greeted by Anna, the person who I’d been emailing with the past few weeks. We talked a bit about the ArtReach program, and then she showed me the three guitars she’d picked out for me, trying to guess which ones would work best with my design. I thought that was very considerate and chose a light teal one with a white pickguard. I knew I was going to be repainting the whole thing, so I wanted to start with a color that would be easy to paint over. It didn’t occur to me until I picked up the guitar that I’d only considered the front of the guitar in my initial sketch. Once I had it in my hands, I knew I wanted to paint a consistent design all over, flowing around corners and edges.
I considered how I would accomplish that while I began step one of the painting process, prepping the guitar for painting. Although ArtReach did take the time to scuff the surface a little, I wanted to go in with my circle sander and give it a thorough sanding. After sanding both faces, I took some strips of sandpaper and paid attention to all the edges and curves the circle sander was unable to reach. After that, I wiped the guitar down and primed the whole thing with 1-2 layers of white Gesso paint.
Once the guitar was primed, I decided that best way to accurately transfer my design would be to use the doodle grid method. This method consists of drawing random doodles on the surface, taking a photo of both sides and then drawing on top of that at a lighter opacity on my iPad. Once I had my digital sketch where I wanted it, I used the doodles as references for where to draw on the actual guitar. TIP: I used two different colored pencils on my guitar to avoid confusion, blue for the doodles, and red for the creatures.
From Junky To Funky
Next, it was time for paint! I’d already created my color palette digitally in Procreate, so now it was time to mix my own paint colors. I already had a substantial supply of acrylic paint at home, so I used what I had to mix my own blue, light blue, yellow, coral, green, and grey colors. I then stored them in little mason jars to make sure the paint remained fresh throughout the whole painting process. As always, I tested these colors on a small piece of canvas to make sure they worked well together before putting them onto my guitar.
Before I jump into the process of painting the guitar, I want to talk a bit about supplies. Since I was not being paid to paint the guitar, I wanted to keep my supply purchases to a minimum. Thankfully most of what I used I already had available at home including brushes, sandpaper, circle sander, gesso, acrylic paint, pencils, and other variables. I did, however, end up buying black Posca paint pens and a high-gloss Montana varnish recommended by ArtReach. I bought paint pens because I knew I would be outlining each creature, and there’s no way I would be able to achieve that clean linework without a pen. In bigger pieces that need linework, I’ll typically use the full width of a brush to achieve a smooth line, but since this was so small, pens were favorable. I also bought the pens in two sizes, smaller for the coral and background elements, and a thicker stroke for the animals. This was my subtle way of helping the animals stand out from the rest of the design.
I tackled the painting in three stages. First, I covered most of the body in the dark blue background color, avoiding any main animal shapes I’d outlined. As with most projects,
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