I've quickly thrown the Goth Explorer together so I can see what it'll look like if I go with my plan to just refinish the top in natural. It's not got the strings at full tension let alone wired up but it gives me a pretty good idea of the look.
I reckon the black scratchplate works nicely while the treadplate one doesn't. It would probably look great if it was black anodised/painted and it could be tempting to paint it myself but it doesn't quite fit anyway. Whether this is a Gibson/Epiphone difference or on account of this being a copy of a '58 rather than a later model I don't know.
If I'm going to reshape and paint a scratchplate then I may as well look into buying/making one that fits. I can't simply use the existing black one as it's been covered in the same nasty lacquer as the guitar body. I'll have a go at cleaning it up but don't hold out much hope.
Hi there, great blog. Damn, you've got one hell of a collection! do you have a showroom? hahaha.
ReplyDeleteWhat about veneering this explorer and adding a burst effect, something like this spalted maple top Ironbird.
http://bcrich.info/files/2010/11/-129921404798147420.jpg
I bought some cheap maple veneer last year from ebay (check out seller id: cazand1230_16) and have been planning this type of finish on a warlock style bass I salvaged, but it's still on my todo list.
Hey, if you have the time check out my blog, which is supposed to be about guitars too but it needs updating. Cheers!
I've stuck some Danish Oil on the Explorer top and it's come out OK. I need to clean the back and sides of sticky nastiness before I can make any more progress really.
ReplyDeleteI've got a couple of bookmatched Bubunga flying V tops I must do something with at some point, but I've found decent lumps of wood to make the rest of the body from seem to be quite expensive.
I was going to stick some veneer on the RR2V but then amazingly the plywood it's made from was quite attractive.
Had a look at your blog, we're both doing similar stuff, buying cheap guitars and screwing around with them.