Molluscs and Monsters

Yes, I'm still working on the Garbage Guitar! I hit two roadblocks a while back. One, I wanted to add some marquetry (of a flying squid) to the head of the guitar, but I'd never done marquetry before, and after some practice I've determined... that I need a lot more practice. Also maybe better craft knives. Two, the plastic binding was in godawful shape and I wasn't sure what to do about that.

For the latter, I finally decided done was better than perfect, and also better than compromising the structural integrity of the instrument. I sanded it down, filled in some pits with epoxy putty, and colored it over with a silver paint marker. The paint marker needs to cure for a month just in case, because I'm putting poly on this thing when I'm done with it, but it should be fine and it certainly looks better. As for the marquetry, the smart thing would be to give up on it, but my local library is supposedly adding a wood-safe laser cutter to its computer/crafting area, so I'm waiting to see if that actually happens. I have my design, the scrap veneer, and the wood glue ready to go. There may be a little bit of a sunk cost fallacy going on here, but dangit I want my squid guitar.

All the really hard parts are over. I've taken off the old paint, from the geological layers of latex and acrylic down to the original, scuffed up, Girl Assigned Pink finish that required a heat gun to soften up before I could scrape it the rest of the way off. I got the geological layers of acrylic and latex off the hardware as well, without destroying them or losing the very tiny screws, which was harder than it sounds. I sanded down to the wood, repainted with Danish oil tinted with oil paint because that is what I had available, and didn't end up with a sticky disaster or a broken guitar. I made my own replacement nut, and my own replacement bridge, and successfully attached both. I filled in the tearout under the bridge and re-reamed the holes without ruining the instrument. I've sanded, cleaned, and (where relevant) oiled every centimeter of this thing.

Now this extremely long project is nearing its end and I'm excited about it. Is it going to sound amazing? No, it was a cheap kid's guitar I literally found in my neighbor's garbage and I'm a complete amateur in every crafting skill relevant to its restoration. Is it going to look professional? No, see above. But it's my garbage guitar. I've poured a lot of time and effort into it, and I think I'm going to be happy with the end result.

Oh yeah, I haven't done a Garbage Guitar update in a while.

I stained the sides with a mixture of WATCO "natural" Danish oil and phthalo blue and green oil paint, and I'm pretty happy with how that turned out. I'm putting veneer on the front and back, partly for appearances, but I wouldn't have bothered if I wasn't hoping it'd help me fill in/add a *little* more strength to that part of the back I scorched so badly. I applied a mix of sawdust and hide glue to the tearout in the bridgeplate, and will hopefully learn soon whether that was a good idea or a terrible idea.

EDIT: Wait. I've... never made a Garbage Guitar post here, it looks like? Whoops. Uh, long story short, I found a guitar in the garbage! And I've been trying to fix/customize it. it started out looking like this:




the acrylic paint it was coated in was so drippy and thick that I could pull a decent bit of it off with my fingernails. Underneath, it appeared to have been painted white (still in craft paint, and there's nothing wrong with that if you're not planning to play it I guess) and doodled on with marker/pencil. It was kind of neat to uncover, like an archaeology dig.

Under THAT, the professional paint job it apparently had originally was Girl Assigned Pink, that ugly mid-saturated pink toy companies use to designate something is For Girls.







It's a real steel string guitar though, apparently a cheap one for kids to learn on. Honestly once I'd gotten all the paint off the hardware and out of the bridge, made a makeshift saddle from a piece of thick plastic, and gotten some strings and pins, it was playable... but it was still Girl Assigned Pink. Also, there was some damage to the bridgeplate, and some paint still stuck in the bridge, both of which made the pins sit unevenly and somewhat precariously.







After a lot of sanding, scraping, and a heat gun, I did get all the factory paint job off, but I accidentally scorched part of the back pretty badly because I'd never used a heat gun before. Researching fixes led to researching woodworking in general, and veneers, and fancy things you could do with stains... aaand long story short I added a lot of technically unnecessary complications to my project.

I mixed up my own blue-green wood stain with alkyd oil paint and WATCO danish oil. I think it came out nice, personally. I also found a fancy type of wood veneer, bird's eye maple, for cheap, and I'm applying that to the front and back. There's something I'd like to do with a small piece of burled walnut to help with that scorched corner and generally look cool, but I lucked out with the maple veneer; fancy veneer is usually pretty expensive, and I don't know if I can afford to get the burled walnut. I've already spent more money on this project than I really should be spending on anything in my current financial situation, tbh, though most of it has been tools I'll almost certainly get plenty of use out of in the future.

And that's the Garbage Guitar! I hope it was interesting, or will be interesting in the future.