Black Board Guitar

I first saw this guitar poking out the top of my local wood recycling bank, I just had to take it! I decided I would give this battered guitar a new life. Here is what I did:

First I took a look at the damage. Superficial damage was pretty bad, however technical elements like the pickups were working fine:

I first sanded the whole guitar so when I came to painting the paint would definitely soak into the surface of the wood and not peel or chip off.

 

I then used fine surface polyfilla to fill in the dents and holes. I went over the whole guitar filling in all the little gaps. I would advise using a strong flat tool to do this, try to level off the polyfilla as much as you can as this will save you sanding time later.

I then sanded the polyfilla so it sat flush with the body of the guitar. I used a block of wood and fine surface sandpaper (P 400). I didn’t use my hands to do this as it wouldn't have achieved an even surface.

I took off the scratch plate so I could paint the body easily. I wanted my guitar to be unusual so I painted the body using black chalkboard paint (Don’t ask my why!). I wasn’t sure how it would come out, after about three coats I thought the effect was pretty awesome!

I then took to taking off the machine heads and replacing them with ones I took from another guitar. If you are buying tuning pegs make sure you buy them in the right direction, you will need right pegs for right handed guitars and left pegs for left handed guitars. Make sure the holes in the head of the guitar are the right size for the tuning pegs, I shoved my new tuning pegs through holes that were too small which resulted in stiff unusable tuning pegs, I had to take them out and drill new holes. (Please don't make this mistake”! It was time consuming and frustrating!)

I then painted the neck with a matte white paint. I bought a set of new string and threaded them through. Watch this video if you not sure how to string a guitar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CtqfHmssx8

I ruined a new string in my ignorance!

Here is the finished guitar: