How to Customize your Guitar

~ Myspace.com/fallenshortrocks ~ FIRST OF ALL: DO not try this unless the guitar you are using is one you dont care much about. Dont do this to your main guitar, or one that has alot of value. Save that for the pros. This will explain some basics to customizing the body of your guitar, by yourself. You need to be able to paint, in whatever way you want to do it. Some use spraypaint, and some use brushes. I think the best approach is the AirBrush that they use to paint tshirts with.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Spraypaint, airbrush, or whatever paint you are using.
• A guitar of course (Electric, Accoustic guitars are kinda self explanatory)

1. First of all, remove your strings. Once you have done this, it may be wise to go ahead and clean your pickups, and pickguard. Some people may frown upon this but I use windex and a clean sock =) it works quite well.

2. Once you have a clean pickguard, go ahead and remove the screws around the outside. dont mess with the screws around the pickups( I only play fender guitars so other guitars may be different) because they raise and lower your pickups. If you see a pickup moving up or down as you screw, thats means you are on the wrong screw. Remove all the screws until you can raise your whole pickguard out of the body. (note that there will be wires still attached that will not allow you to completely remove the pickguard(with pickups still attached) from the body.

3. OK. On almost every electric guitar, you can unscrew the input jack. The wires from the input jack will be what is holding your pickup guard and pickups in the guitar. On stratocasters at least. On my guitar the wires ran through a hole in the body, and it kinda leaves you in a messed up position for trying to take the pickguard out.

4. This is the part that is going to be risky, so be very very careful. You need to clip the wires that are connected to the input from the pickups. Only do this though if you cant go ahead and pull the input out of the body also. If you have a stratocaster this is for you though.

5. After you have finally completed the task of taking the pickups and input out of the guitar, you should have an empty guitar body connected to the fretboard. That is easy to take off, just flip the guitar over and remove the four screws under the fretboard, and it should come right off. now you have the guitar body, with no wiring. This is what you want.

6. Now, you can sand the body. I am assuming that the guitar you are trying to paint has a messed up paintjob, but if you have a guitar with a beautiful paintjob it will work also, its just not gonna be that pretty when you get done unless you are a good painter. Make sure you sand it good, try to get all paint off, as best as you can.

7. Now for the fun part! Hang your guitar body up somehow outside. I used a coathanger, and tied it to a tree branch, but you can be creative. Decide, if you havent already, what you are wanting to do to your guitar. I made mine a replica of Eddie Van Halens Frankenstrat. You can find out how to make that design at other sites. Or maybe you simply want to change the color. Either way will work great. Go ahead and paint it, theres really no way to explain how, its however you want it to be. If you want a smooth paintjob its best to keep distance and try not to let the paint build up. (I did that and my paintjob is kinda rough when you rub your hand across it)

8. 
   www.eddievanhalen.com

   After you have painted your masterpiece, and have let it dry, now you need to reassemble your guitar. Go ahead and start out with the fretboard, the same way you took it off. The next thing you need to do is put your input jack back into the guitar, make sure the wires go back through the hole in the body. (if you had to seperate it from your pickguard and pickups) Next, take the wires you clipped and strip them, about an inch on each wire. Now there is many ways to do this, but connect the wires back where they were. you can use wire connecters, you can weld them back, some people may not like my approach but it works perfect, I twisted the wires back together tightly, and used electrical tape around them. After you have done this, go ahead and put your pickguard back onto the body where it goes, and screws in their correct places. There you have it, a guitar with a new look. Get you some strings on it and try it out.

Tips & Warnings

• If you put strings back on it and get no sound, or a bad sound, chances are you didnt connect your wires from your input back good enough. You may need to keep messing with it to get it right. That can be annoying.
• You can go to bands myspace if you want to see the guitar, that I based this article on. Myspace.com/fallenshortrocks Go into the pictures and it will be the one thats red with black and white stripes.
• Please dont try this on a guitar that is important to you.
• Do not do this if you are scared of clipping your wires and being able to get them back together. I had no knowledge of wiring when I did it, but I was able to pull it off.