How To Paisleyify Your Own Guitar

Well, I mentioned the other day that a great new forum, made-up of a lot of the members of the ill-fated and lightly mourned Music Radar one was about to launch, and I'm pleased to say that it hit the boards in it's new shiny suit at the weekend and is already buzzing.

If you are into guitars in any way, you owe it to yourself to pop along and sign up (tis free as a free thing) at www.thefretboard.co.uk.

You won't regret it, unless you don't. then you might of course, but nobody will hear you scream.

I had also mentioned that to give it a good start, a number of the members are writing some articles/threads about different things, including how to give a guitar a cool oil finish by the genius that is Wes Venebles, Pickup winding by the GuitarWeasel and some great build threads - watch out for TTony's they are stunningly cool pieces of wood.

Obviously this is all good, but can only look more professional and betterer if something lower of tech, style and taste is aligned along and side, and so I too am chucking my tuppence in and doing a couple of threads on Jookiness.

The first will take you through the stages needed to be-paisley a guitar body, with the nice twist that it will also have a gold leaf top, corroded to let the paisley flood out (have a look at The Lulu One and you'll see what I mean).

Anyway, the body for this was donated by another forum member John_P and it arrived today (I'm still calming my heart after seeing 'Exercise Books' written on the box).

This will be the very, very, last and final time I paisley a guitar with fabric, so it is cool that you can Singalonga Jooky if you fancy it.

And if you do want a peek, you'll need to join us on The Fretboard as that is the only place it will appear.

Anyway...

La la la laaaaa

How to make a Jookified Guitar in Lots of Easy Steps

I keep getting asked how to make a Jooky guitar, or more to the point, how do you turn a bog standard Tele into a paisley one - so I figured I would give a rough guide to rough finishing.

Before you start though, think about it. Do you really want to do this? Especially if you are starting with an expensive or beloved guitar... If you think you do - cool, and good on you - but don't blame me if you are disappointed with the results. Silly as it sounds, it takes a fair bit of care to get things looking quite this disheveled, but still working and likely to last a fair old while, so it isn't a wham-bam kind of thing. It can be, but the more you put in, the better the result.

There you are then, continue at your own risk - I'm not worth suing anyway...

Going ahead? Cool. So in simple terms, and to be honest it is all pretty simple, this is how you do it:

1. Buy some good parts, or take a guitar you already have and take it to bits. Take lots of fotos as they may come in handy when you have to put it back together, especially the wiring bits if you are going to change them or you haven't messed with such things before..

If it's parts you are going with, get a neck, a body, some pickups, some tuners, a bridge and any bits that needs like springs, a scratchplate, some pots, a switch of some sort if you are using one, some wire and lots of screws.

2. Find some nice cloth or paper that has a cool or groovy design on it. If you are going the paisley route, and why wouldn't you, type 'paisley fabric' into Ebay, and pake your tick.

3. Sand the guitar body so that it is slightly rough.

4. Stick the cloth or paper with your design on, taking care to flatten out any bubbles and leave it nicely runkled around the edges. Get a really, really, sharp craft knife as you'll want to cut bits off and that makes life ever so very much simpler.

5. Get some sort of grain filler. There are lots, but test on the cloth/paper before hand as some react badly. What you are trying to do with this is turn the fabric/paper 'plastic' in the truest sense, so that it will be hard wearing and not tear or peel off. Unless you want to have it torn or peeling. I do sometimes. The one I tend to use is an American fabric craft stuff, rather than a woodwork one, which acts as a glue and a grain filler in one. It's called Mod Podge and a fiver's worth will usually do a single guitar. However, I think a wood grain filler might prove to be equally as goodish.

6. Sand the filled covering smooth and use a tack cloth to get rid of the dust.

7. Spray it lots of times with a lacquer of some sort. I like matte ones as they give a more aged finish, but gloss works too. This will make the finish hardwearing, but still look good. With Mod podge this will stop it being a bit sticky to the touch, which can happen apparently, though never has to me. You can use nitro for this if you like, but it takes forever to dry and you really should get some proper breathing apparatus. Normally I just hold my breath and run from the room every so often. Either way, you will need quite a few coats and lots of drying time. Sanding between will give a smoother finish, depends how Jooky you want to be really.

Once that is out of the way, get some T Cut and use that, and then some guitar polish, and err, use that too. Instructions are helpful here, so read the back of the bottle.

8. As for the neck, first things first, if you have a logo you will want to sand it off. This obviously upsets some people, and taking Fender off the headstock often makes me look a bit dense, I guess, but there we are. That's my trip, you can leave that part alone and just cover the body and claim you spent $3,000 at the Custom Shop. However, if you are following the plan at this point you should also sand the rest of the neck roughly.

9. Write 'Jooky' on the headstock with a marker pen, along with the guitar's name. You'll probably not want to write Jooky as it happens, so call it what you will, I don't mind. Use a Sharpie kind of pen so it sticks around, and then with a soldering iron or a pyrography tool if you have one, burn the name into the headstock, following the lines sort of carefully..

10. Using Danish oil or something similar, oil the headstock and neck. Make sure your burned-in name gets filled as it colours it nicely Again, the more you do the darker it will get. If you only roughly sanded the neck you will get a lovely aged look to it all. Again, upto you.

11. If you didn't want to burn the logo in, just give it a light coat of lacquer to stop it rubbing off.

12. Now that all the finishing is complete, give it a few days to dry and touch up or rough it up to taste.

13. I forgot to say, if you want a matching scratchplate, you need to do all the stuff you did to the body to it as well. Sorry if you didn't read ahead.

14. Now for the fun bit. Install the pickups, pots, switches and connect to the output jack. This is obviously different for every guitar - at least every one we do, so that is up to you, I’m afraid.

For that aged, Jooky look, take care to have mismatched and rusty screws, don't put them all in to the level and generally scuff things up a wee bit as you go along. If you wanted a relic type of look, you might want to invest in nickel covered hardware and stick it in some vinegar or lemon juice or something. You can find plenty of information on the web about that sort of bobbins though, so I won't bother repeating it here. Mainly as I would probably tell you wrong and they would go black or dissolve or something.

15. Bolt the neck on, if applicable, and then err, put the guitar back together....

And that is it.

Simple.
lovely.

OK, there is a bit more to it than that, and you should expect to take a couple of weeks over it all at least, but in general terms that will get you somewhere close.

Alternatively, use your imagination and do something different that suits you better.
This is meant to be art sweetie, and there ain't any prizes for plagarism sugar.

Brothers Do it for themselves too

I keep getting asked if I will make people a Jooky guitar to their specifications, or more often as it happens, whether I will 'finish' their own guitar.

Usually in Paisley, of course,
fast turning into my trademark that one is.

So far I've declined each and every one, and to be honest I can't really see myself going that route.

It would be pointless after all, as the fun is in the ideas not the service-industry aspect.

What I don't mind though is if people buy something I've done and then change it. In fact that really appeals to me in lots of ways. I've always loved chaos theory and the practise of evolution, and the idea that somebody might change pickups or other bits, well, that is all good.

It's like a painting that changes with you over time, and I always felt that people should step in and finish a few of Monet's for a start.

I've even helped a few people who want to do the fabric finish thing themselves, as that is cool too. So if you want your guitar covered in Paisley cloth, do it yourself. it isn't hard and you'll have a lot more fun doing it than you will by throwing me a pocketful of shrapnel.

DIY is the new punk, after all, as well as the old one.