Hey all!
The aim of this post is to record and document the processes I have gone through to make this guitar. Before I start with the fun part, I want to make a few notes.

I am not a professional guitar builder (luthier), painter or anything of the sort. I don't make a living from this. In fact, I'm just a university student much like many of the other fellow members here at Scandal-Heaven. Therefore, what I am posting here should be used as a guide moreso than a tutorial or a How-To (there are probably a million things I'm doing wrong and could be doing better)

I won't be able to replicate the guitar 100% simply due to the costs of certain items and the level of craftsmanship which requires years to develop.

Since I am a university student, I unfortunately might not be able to deliver regular updates so I ask for your forgiveness and patience if the situation ever arises.

Nice idea
I plan to put on my Strato the same pattern as Mami but it's really expensive... and i prefer to avoir to do it myself

Good morning everyone!
I guess the first thing to do before I chop up my guitar is to have a plan of what exactly I need to be doing. Previously I had an SG which I had painted halfway and I was sort of lazy to finish the job so I had a half painted SG sitting in my room, completely useless.

Anyway the first thing I done was draw up the design in Photoshop. I looked at many reference images but I won't post them all.



The main issue I had with drawing the stencils up is that in many pictures, the lighting was slightly different in each so it was hard to determine the EXACT colours used. This template took me about one hour to draw up but another hour to get the exact measurements.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?qaev88ua11aerv9

With this template you can pretty much open the file, print out one of the coloured circles and it will be properly sized to stick onto your guitar. Even though I am not the original designer, I did take the time to make that photoshop stencil so if you plan on using it, let me know or just a credit will do.

Anyhow, after drawing up the templates, it was time to find myself a guitar to paint!
For about two weeks, I was looking on eBay and Gumtree for a guitar body. I had found many cheap knockoff and variations of stratocasters which simply would not do. It had to be an exact stratocaster body so I needed either a very good copy or a Squier.
An example of a similar looking guitar which doesn't fit the bill is the Yamaha Pacifica. By no means a "bad" guitar at all, just not what I'm looking for aesthetically.
You will notice that the body shape slightly differs, along with the scratchplate too. The big one is the location of the input jack, it is on the side of the body rather that on the top face.


I was waiting on eBay for a while. Many good deals for guitar bodies were only local pickup from cities which were hundreds of kilometres away. I called up a few of my friends and luckily for me, one friend had a spare guitar which matched what I was looking for. Why didn't I call him sooner! .tsk.
He let me have the guitar for $50, CHEAP! (From now on, all mentions of costs will be in Australian Dollars AUD, my local currency)

Although it isn't a Squier, the guitar's body is exactly like that of a Fender/Squier strat, perfect!

Cost to date: $50.00 AUD

babaloued wrote:Nice idea
I plan to put on my Strato the same pattern as Mami but it's really expensive... and i prefer to avoir to do it myself

I'm actually to scared to paint on a good guitar so I'm using a cheaper alternative body. Maybe if this one turns out good, I'll have the courage to paint an expensive guitar

I'll be posting the total costs of the whole project to give you an idea of how expensive the process can be.

The guitar needs to be prepared before we do anything to it.
Firstly, all the parts need to be removed. Anything that isn't part of the guitars body needs to go. That includes all the electronics, bridge, backplate, strap buttons and the whole neck.

Next, the body cavities, screw holes and neck pocket needs to be sealed up. This is easily achieved through duct tape for the cavity and neck, glu-tack for the screw holes. The purpose of this is to ensure there is no paint buildup in these areas. This is extremely important, especially for the neck pocket because the buildup of paint is adding more mass to the body. It would be a shame to find that your neck doesn't fit anymore because too much paint has built up there.

After the parts have been removed and the appropriate areas sealed up, the paint needs to be removed. There are many ways to do this which I will summarise.

• Paint scraper. This method is one of the cheapest as you will only need a paint scraper. With the paint scraper, you create a chip in the paint and continue to wear away at the finish until it all flakes off. This will only work on polyurethane finish (commonly used on Fender guitars
  
• Paint stripper. This is the method I used. With this, you will need to purchase a chemical paint stripper which you apply to the guitar. The paint stripper will react to the paint which breaks down the bonds and eats away at the paint. You will still need a paint scraper to remove the weakened paint. I would say this method is more dangerous simply due to the fact that poisonous chemicals are being used. When I was stripping the guitar, a tiny drop of chemical splashed on my arm and it started burning my arm hairs away within seconds. .rage. It feels like a super painful sunburn. I would advise the use of safety goggles and gloves. Chemical strippers will work on both polyurethane (Fender) and nitrocellulose (Gibson) type finishes
  
• Heat gun. This method requires the use of a heat gun to melt the paint away. This is super effective against polyurethane finishes, which is based on plastic. The heat gun melts the plastic allowing you to simply peel it off like a banana. This method is also dangerous since we're dealing with heat, 200 degrees celcius to be precise. It also requires a lot of patience. Not enough time and the paint wont melt. Too much time and you'll char the wood

Whichever method you find most comfortable, I advise that you do it outdoors and pay particular care if you have pets and children. In my case, I have a puppy running around in the backyard so I put my parents cars on the driveway and used the garage as a workshop.

To remove the finish off the guitar, I used:

• Paint stripper
  
• Wet & Dry sandpaper. 80grit and 2000 grit
  
• Paint scraper
  

I was stripping two guitars, one polyurethane and one nitrocellulose and in total, it took me about 4 hours from 1pm to 5pm. If you're not used to hard manual labour (such as myself) you'll probably get blisters and sore arms.



Items purchased to date:

• Stratocaster body. $50
  
• 1L Septone paint stripper. $20.00.
  
  
• Duct tape. $4.00
  
• Wet & Dry sandpaper x2. $2.60 ($1.30 each)
  

Total cost to date:
$76.60

I look forward to the rest of your progress! If I ever have enough time, and actually play my bass enough to warrant doing so, I'd love to paint it (or a new bass) with Mami's Stratocaster design or one of Tomo's bass designs, so this would be a nice guide to follow. I just got Tomo's guitar strap, the white/gray/black Fender one with rectangle designs, last week during my trip to Japan, so I have a small part of their look down, haha...

Wanna do this to my guitar too but my guitar is a cheap telecaster copy =)))) I really wish I got a strat instead =))

Will totally look forward to this!!

GeoFreak wrote:I look forward to the rest of your progress! If I ever have enough time, and actually play my bass enough to warrant doing so, I'd love to paint it (or a new bass) with Mami's Stratocaster design or one of Tomo's bass designs, so this would be a nice guide to follow. I just got Tomo's guitar strap, the white/gray/black Fender one with rectangle designs, last week during my trip to Japan, so I have a small part of their look down, haha...

Waaahh whereabouts in Japan did you buy it? I wish I had more time when I was in Japan. Your sig looks awesome! If you ever get around to painting your bass, let me and the rest of SH know when it happens!

tori-chan wrote:Wanna do this to my guitar too but my guitar is a cheap telecaster copy =)))) I really wish I got a strat instead =))

Will totally look forward to this!!

Thanks for the support! I was considering designing a "Canta Model" as well. When I can spare the time, I'll dig through my mess of a computer and stick it onto a Tele and see how it looks haha.

Now that the guitar has been stripped, it's ready to paint. But before we actually start slapping some colour on to it, yep... there's more preparation. .omg.

Before applying paint to the guitar, it needs to be primed. A primer needs to be applied to the guitar. It is a preparation coat before painting. Priming is important because it protects the wood, increases the adhesion of the paint and it also increases paint durability.

To apply the primer, a few tools are required. The main tool needed is a spray gun. I have purchased most of my supplies from a local hardware store in Australia called SuperCheap Auto. It's a one-stop shop for all the supplies you'll need to paint a guitar and not only are their products reliable, they're budget friendly too. I bought this spray gun for $35.

You'll also need an air compressor, which supplies the air to the spray gun, allowing the gun to spray paint. Air compressors can range from about $80 upwards to $600 or more. The $80 variant will get the job done. Luckily for me, my friend's father owns an air compressor, saving me the cost of buying one myself.

You'll want to make sure that the guitar is free from any dust and dirt before applying the paint. This can be easily done by a light rub with 2000 grit sandpaper and wiping down with a lint-free cloth. This will also ensure that the body is smooth.

Always remember to stir the paint before loading it into the gun. As with most paints, paints are colloids, meaning that the paint solution is made of a particles suspended in a liquid. (Thank you High School Science ). As a result of being a colloid, over time these particles will settle to the bottom of the container. Paint should not be used this way. By stirring the paint, this allows the particles and the liquid to blend together in equilibrium. (Thank you High School Science once again)

After the paint has been stirred, you will need to mix it with a paint thinner. A general rule is 1 part thinner to 3 parts paint. After that, your paint/primer is ready.

You should follow the instructions of whatever spray gun you buy. From my experience, don't use the air compressor over 60PSI, otherwise there will be too much output and you'll end up spraying too much primer. Use a vertical application, spraying from top to bottom.

When priming is done, hang up the guitar somewhere protected from the weather. A shed or garage will do fine. The main enemy here is the wind and rain. Rain will obviously wet the guitar and wash the primer off and the wind may blow loose grass, leaves and whatever debris onto the guitar, which will stick.
Leave the guitar to hang for 24 hours. Although the primer will seem like it's already dried before an hour is up, it is safer to leave it for a day.

I primed my guitar last night (15th January) but it was too dark to take photos. Instead this photo was taken today (16th January) after leaving the primer to dry.


After priming, the guitar is now ready to be painted. Thanks to the primer, the paint will apply very easily to the guitar, making my job much easier. Applying the paint takes the exact same process as the primer. Instead of loading the gun with primer, we load it with paint. Before I painted the guitar, I went over the primer very VERY lightly with 2000 grit sandpaper to smooth it out once again and to remove any rough parts of the primer.

Today I applied the black base coat to the guitar and it is currently drying.

In the background you can also see that I'm painting my SG and the blue air compressor.

After using the spray gun, like with all equipment, it is very important to clean it. No doubt you will have gotten paint on your hands, gun and maybe the floor too. The easiest way to clean paint is with mineral turpentine. A cloth dipped with turpentine will be enough to remove paint off your gun and hands, as long as you haven't left it time to dry. I would also advise after painting, dispose of the leftover paint and load the gun with a bit of turpentine. A few sprays of turpentine will clean out the leftover paint inside the gun.

With the air compressor, make sure ALL the air has been expelled from it. All air compressors have a bolt on the underside which can be undone to let the air out. Alternatively you can hold down your spray gun to release all the air. Remember, compressed air is dangerous and can explode.

Items purchased to date:

• Stratocaster body. $50.00
  
• 1L Septone paint stripper. $20.00
  
• Duct tape. $4.00
  
• Wet & Dry sandpaper x2. $2.60 ($1.30 each)
  
• Air Spray Gun. $35.00
  
• 125mL pot of Grey primer. $5.00
  
• 125mL pot of Black paint. $5.00
  
• 1L Mineral Turpentine. $4.90
  

Total cost to date:
$126.50

If anyone has any questions which haven't been answered, feel free to PM me. I'm sure that I have not covered every little topic otherwise this article would be a case of TL;DR. I'm sure some people will find this too much to read already but please bear with me. .uhuh.

I got mine at Big Boss in Ochanomizu, Tokyo for 1980 yen each. If anyone gets a chance to go there, it's the main store on the corner of the intersection two blocks south of the station (not the newer branch really close to the station). It's at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor, and there's a SCANDAL sign above them. I saw Tomo's and Haruna's straps for sure; there was a black one with gray text/designs (pictured in the 2nd and 3rd links below), but Mami's strap in the Playboy PV looked like black with white text/designs. http://www.bigboss.jp/tokyo/

Btw, this is the store that the girls visited in the Ochanomizu special interview with Becky (can't seem the find the thread in the media section; can anyone help?). I think I also saw the Gretsch White Falcon Relic that Mami tried out :D

I also found them on the Fender Japan online store for a little more (2100 yen), but I'm not sure if they can ship internationally. They require a Japanese address when creating an account, so maybe you could ask a forwarding service like Celga to buy it for you. They also don't have as many colors as the store I went to. They only have what might be Mami's color (see above). http://fender.jp/store/category_spec.php?ci=12&item_id=00441

I also found them in a music store chain here in the U.S., so maybe you can search your local music store too. The colors are limited to the same ones I saw on Fender's store. http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-2--Monogrammed-Guitar-Strap-100365891-i1130014.gc

Hey everyone! A slow and boring update for today.

This afternoon I went and checked out the guitars. There were a few spots where I had sprayed too much paint and formed some blobs so I had to sand those out. After smoothing those out, I lightly sanded the whole body and painted a second coat of black.

On another note, I had a neck custom made for me in the USA and they're currently building it to my specifications. I also had new electronics and black volume/tone knobs ordered. I'm currently looking at ordering my pickups now. I've decided on the DiMarzio Area 67 set and trying to find a place that sells them at a reasonable price.

After tonight, the guitar should be fine with two coats of black. Right now I need to start thinking about how I'm going to paint the Mami design onto the guitar (spray and stencil vs. hand painting). Each method has their up's and downs but I'll try to get a good job done either way.

Sorry there are no pictures for this post, it must look really boring yeah?

This is an awesome project! Definitely looking forward to seeing the final product. ^^

/offtopic - Sydneysiders represent? lol

TanyaLilac wrote:This is an awesome project! Definitely looking forward to seeing the final product. ^^

/offtopic - Sydneysiders represent? lol

Thanks! I think it's awesome how we are both from Sydney!
Plus that most of the users who have posted on this topic are Mami lovers .clap.

I waiting to see the painting part of Mami's pattern

Hey everyone. No updates for today unfortunately. Sorry to all those who were looking forward to an update.

Today in Sydney hell has burned over. My thermometer says:



And the phone says


Sorry but it's just WAY too hot to be working outdoors. I don't think the weather will benefit the painting process at all but hopefully I will have some better news to update you guys on after the weekend.

Oh...my...Gosh ...

Sick project you got going here man
Mami ftw!

I was hoping to try do this myself one day XD
Can't wait to see the result.

And 46 is a stinking hot, it was 40 in melb and that was bad enough

Jibba wrote:Sick project you got going here man
Mami ftw!

I was hoping to try do this myself one day XD
Can't wait to see the result.

And 46 is a stinking hot, it was 40 in melb and that was bad enough

I think that was a record high for Sydney. The previous week also hit around 45. I can't stand the thought of this becoming a weekly event .omg.

I'm heading into the city tomorrow in hopes of buying the coloured paints to be used for the Mami swirls. Let's hope for my sake that the weather is forgiving.

Hey everyone!

Today's update will be a little different to the others. It's a shopping haul!
After arriving back home, I discovered a had a few presents from the mailman .clap.

I'll try keep this short and concise. I'm sure that most of the readers here are just waiting for me to get the Mami swirls on. Trust me, I cannot wait either. The moment I finish this post, I'll be heading to my friend's house to check on the guitars. Hopefully they'll be ready for me to paint. Worst case scenario is that I'll have to sand and apply one more layer.



In keeping with the looks of Mami's strat, I had a few particular parts ordered:

• 3 ply pickguard. Black/white/black
  
• 1 volume and 2 tone knobs. All black with white print.
  
• 5-way pickup selector tip. Black
  
• 3 pickup covers for single coils. Black
  

I also ordered new electronics. The parts in the old strat were dirty and rusty. You could hear the rust grinding when you used the pickup selector... Worse than scraping a chalk board.
Electronics simply consist of:

• 3 potentiometers. 500K
  
• 2 capacitors
  
• 5-way blade pickup selector
  
• wires
  

I had spare time so I wired them all together for the photo. Wiring is a whole 'nother tutorial. What I did was I took photos of the wiring in the strat before I dismantled it. I simply referenced that photo and reassembled the parts

Above all the parts is self explanatory. They are the paints I'll be using for the Mami swirls. Red, yellow, blue, green and orange with black and white for mixing tones. Oh and a paintbrush set as well.

Items purchased to date:

• Stratocaster body. $50.00
  
• 1L Septone paint stripper. $20.00
  
• Duct tape. $4.00
  
• Wet & Dry sandpaper x2. $2.60 ($1.30 each)
  
• Air Spray Gun. $35.00
  
• 125mL pot of Grey primer. $5.00
  
• 125mL pot of Black paint. $5.00
  
• 1L Mineral Turpentine. $4.90
  
• 3-ply BWB pickguard. $7.00
  
• Black pickup covers and knobs. $3.50
  
• Electronics. $15.00
  
• 5 colours of paint at $4.00 each. $20.00
  
• Black and white paint at $7.00 each. $14.00
  
• 3 paintbrush set. $5.00
  
  

Total cost to date:
$191.00

I am totally speechless! .omg. Such dedication!! So worth every dollar spent! .cool.

you are amazing!

Nice but the only problem is her guitar is an HSS so you might have an humbucker

babaloued wrote:Nice but the only problem is her guitar is an HSS so you might have an humbucker

Yeahhh I was going to make a note somewhere but the thought just passed me.
I was aware that Mami's Strat is a HSS. I guess I should say this will be a Mami Strat with a few of my own personal touches.
Those "personal touches" will be a SSS instead of HSS and my choice of pickups.

I wanted a SSS guitar because I already have two other electrics:

• The Ibanez S670 which is a HSH
  
• The SG which is a HH
  

I guess I just need a SSS guitar haha. Though the thing I REALLY like about the guitar is that if you look in one of the earlier posts, particularly where I was painting the guitar, you'll notice the wood rout is universal. This means that the body has been routed in a certain way which allows any configuration of pickups.

I think when I have enough spare money, I could buy a second pair of electronics, another pickguard and HSS pickups so I could do a "swap" whenever I need to .clap.

Hey everyone! I feel like I'm letting the readers down if I don't regularly post.

I know most of the readers here are waiting for the Mami swirls to be painted and I ASSURE everyone:

Tonight I properly finished undercoating the Strat so I do assure everyone that the guitar WILL be ready to be coloured tomorrow. I'm sorry that it has taken this long for me just to paint a black undercoat on the guitar. I screwed up many times. Paint was too thick in some areas so I had to sand them down, repaint, wait one day to dry and well... you've seen how long this has set me back.

Right now, the guitar is painted as nicely as it can possibly be. I have the coloured paints ready and all the equipment is ready to go. If all goes well, I'll have the red swirls done tomorrow night.

Currently, the guitar is drying off it's final coats and if all goes to plan, I promise to have an exciting update tomorrow.

In other news, I received my new tuners in the mail today and I have also been notified that my custom order neck is finished, has been processed and probably somewhere over the Pacific Ocean on it's way to my house .clap. I'll post a photo when all the gear arrives.

Thanks everyone for your patience .hail.

Haha don't apologise! XD This is your project ... I'd do it as many times as I needed to get it right...