Project Beatle-Couster

My new project that i have just started is to make a beatles themed guitar out of my camping acoustic. I bought this off of ebay for $15 about 2 years ago. Plays great and stays in tune exceptionally well, best $15 ive ever spent lol

Given the headstock shape (see below) i thought i could replicate a rickenbaker headstock by painting it black and printing out a logo and gluing it under some clear coats.

Here it is after a quickie with 230 grit

Next i masked off the headstock

After two coats of black krylon

Printed out a accurate sized headstock picture. Then cut out the logo and used wood glue to apply it to mine.

Here it is glued
After hitting it with 2 coats of clear this is the result.

Looks pretty good only differences are the tuner positions and the direction that the headstock slopes at the top but once this guitar is done its going to look cool. I have plans to get a friend to draw beatles motifs on the body and then ill hit it with clear coats. So far the plan is for Rocky raccoon, fool on the hill, strawberrys, bulldog, blackbirds and a yellow submarine to make an appearance.

Body Section Selection!

After cutting out template for the headstock and body out of construction paper, i placed it on the material to find a general area of interest... here are a few i came up with..

some run lengthwise, and others horizontal and one is diagonal.

Material Time!

Finally got my material in the mail today. Came off of ebay took a while to get here but has finally arrived in one piece!

I've decided on this bad ass large/small snake skin scale mix with blue splotches. I'm thinking about trying some fabric paint on the blue to see if i can make it a yellow instead as i have so much material to work with i can experiment with coloration.

and here is a picture with the guitar and neck (for headstock reference) next to the material for sizing.

next step is to fully prep the body and decide on a chunk to use on the front face.

Stinger anyone?

After sanding down the headstock (front and back), i decided to clean up the back by giving it a stinger.

I went about doing this by masking the stinger with 1/4 inch painters tape and using 1/2 inch else where.

Two coats of black krylon later and its starting to look pretty sharp, no pun intended.

And the great unveiling, looks pretty good i was happy with how it turned out, now its time for a few coats of clear and it will be good to go.

Darker

Here was my staining set up.


I ended up using wood stain as i could not find leather dye locally and didn't want to order from stew-mac.

After taking the time to mask off each individual fret, as seen here.

I then applied the ebony stain with a Q-tip and let it stand for 15 minutes. After i wiped off the excess and let it dry overnight and stained it once again.

After it was dry the masking tape was removed and this is the finished color of the board. Its not as dark as i'd like it (looks darker in person) but it did clean it up well, it looks healthier and the wood looks better overall.

Now thats my kinda woman!

Drillin'

So heres what the headstock looks like after i've drilled it out to fit the Grover tuners. Im going to have to sand down the back to clean it up and make it nice and flush so the tuners sit properly. Looks pretty good and its getting there. The largest bit i used was 3/8" and i worked up to it drilling from both sides to prevent any stress fractures from the drilling process. Its recomended to drill half the depth from the top of the headstock, flip and drill all the way threw.

Till next time folks,

just keep strumming,

-Anthony

\w/