This one is a personal project. My hope is that, having san-to-ryu master Zoro on my guitar will make me a more formidable and deadly player. 9__9

3/22/04:

Refinished in 2005, using Reranch seaside green, tinted lacquer finish, and custom decals.


About the guitar:

--It's a standard steel-string no-name, and originally had a blond maple/dark cherry two-tone finish.
--Bought from a Sears in 1974 (or thereabouts), and given to my Aunt, it cost about fifteen to twenty dollars.
--It later acquired a hole in the back, along the very bottom, which I repaired with balsa wood, wood glue, and some careful sanding.
--The finish, I stripped entirely, using something very caustic and potentially hazardous. (To humans, only, not to wood!) I then primed the soundboard with some white sand-and-sealer, and buffed it down to a smooth finish.
--For the back, I used permanant lampblack, non glossy pigment, thinned.
--The front, I used a 2:1 mix of robin's egg and chamois (a pale creme yellow)glossy finish sign painter's enamel. (Uh, not recommended for guitars, exactly; but for this no-name it was good enough.)
--After buffing it down to remove dust, and de-gloss it. I sketched a few designs , picked the one I liked, and transfered it with craft graphite paper. Pretty simple process.
--For the fill work, I used more of the permanant lampblack, and acrylic craft paint. (Again, not usually reccomended, but it _is_ non-toxic and easy to work with. For a solid-body, or other non-musical wood-type project, acrylic is what I would normally use.)

--Finally, I coated the entire thing with polyuerethane. Due to the thickness of the paintwork, I found it to be the best option. In most other cases, it's recommended you use nitrocellulose varnish.