So I’ve got this old Samick Strat copy sitting in my closet, and I’ve been getting around to thinking that I want to repaint it. I would want it to resemble the flamed appearance of guitars such as this. Is this possible to achieve at home? What potential pitfalls could I run into in painting a guitar? What procedure should I follow?
To get this kind of finish you would have to use a woodstain to get the colour you want, then a clear varnish to protect and give a shine to the wood. To get a darker colour, you just apply more stain, working outward in circles gives the progessive “tobacco sunburst” effect that stained strats tend to have.
Its very easy to do badly, but real hard to do well. I’ve never stained a a guitar, but the couple of times I have stained wood, I found it wound up with a kind of patchy appearance when you looked closely. The dificulty is keeping the amount of stain applied even.
The other potential bummer is, as cornflakes points out, the wood you are working with. A lot of cheaper strat copies use plywood rather than a solid block of real wood, so its entirely possible that a nasty surprise may be waiting for you when you strip the existing finish.
Looking at your link I’d say its highly unlikely your samick would have fancy flamed maple like on the gary moore LP. Those cuts of wood are reserved for top end guitars and are finished clear so the grain shows through. If you strip off all the current paint, you will probably find a piece of unimpressive poplar, alder or even balsa wood (at best, could be plywood like Milo and Cornflakes suggest.)
Slightly off topic, Fender and Ibanez (maybe others, too) sometimes use a “photo-finish” to mimic nice wood grain. This is fancy silkscreening that paints the wood to look all pretty and striped, hidden under layers of other finish its hard to tell the difference from a distance. Many of the fancy woods are nearly extinct or protected.
Refinishing is a hassle and probably not worth the effort on a Samick, sell the guitar and put the money towards an axe that looks like what you want.
Not too up on woods, but look at the area behind the saddle. Looks to me like a tiger maple. Notice the criss-crossing lines. Flame only has the ripple in one direction, straighter than curly maple.
as an aside, the guitar I had custom built is flame maple back and sides with European Spruce top. It is finished completely clearm which makes the maple a two tone brownish-tan. As noted above, the orange-ish color is from a wash.
To wash your guitar, check out most any Lothiar supply catalog for washes.
My suggestion? Don’t ditch your guitar. If it plays well and you like it, keep it. If you sell it, you probably won’t get enough to make a major dent in the price of a nice guitar. Electric guitars don’t sound appreciably different with paint on them (to all but the most specific ear) or any other “enhancement”. We all remember Eddie Van Halen’s guitars, no appreicaible sound quality change there. Use it as a test palette. Try out different varnish, paint, whatever schemes. If it doesn’t work, strip it down and start over. Waddaya got to lose?
I’m almost certain that the Samick is made from plywood. Does this rule out the possibility for any sort of clear coat finish, even if it were a darker one? I’m not completely hung up on finishing it with the wood being visible, it’s just something I’d like to do.
I should mention that I’m repainting the guitar mostly for the sake of having a project to do, not so much to make it a nice guitar (I already have a Gibson ES-335 for that ) In the end it is my hope to put a Roland GK-2A pickup in to use with a Roland VG-8 Guitar Synthesiser. With the VG-8, the body of the guitar is for all means and purposes irrelevant, so I figure the currently unused Samick is a good choice to put it in.
If you really want an authentic flamed maple body, you could buy a new body, stain it, and then rebuild your guitar with the new body. You could get a body from Warmoth as well as other places. It might improve the tone of the guitar too, but it’s probably more money and effort than you had in mind.
The picture does indeed show a guitar made of highly figured wood.
This type of wood is often called fiddleback,because curly woods of this type were always chosen for the backs of violins and other stringed instruments.
In order to paint a less figured wood to resemble highly figured wood,a high degree of skill is required.This is the work of faux painting.Faux is just a French word meaning false.The meaning here is to paint the wood in such a way that it falsely appears to be something it’s not.
An excelent book on this suject is** “Finishing Magic”**byBill Russell.
Below is a link to a site showing many figured woods,variously called:Fiddleback,Curly,Figured,etc.
For the purpose of this discussion the words can be used interchangeably.Most guitar folks call it,“Flame”.
I’m certain that your guit is ply. That being said, if its painted now you won’t know the grade of the ply til you strip it.
It’s possible you might get a good finish grade ply to work with. Doubt it though. Still, that shouldnt prevent you from experimenting. I’m with Spritle. Be creative -can’t hurt.