I bought this guitar when the kids were little, and it had been sitting around for years in a corner somewhere. My daughter and I had sanded it down and taped off the fretboard and pick guard with the idea of painting it, but we never got around to it. I decided to take on the job myself by reproducing Hokusai’s “The Great Wave off Kanagawa” on it. Surely you have seen this painting…it’s the one of that huge wave and a couple of boats, with Mount Fuji in the background. I started by woodburning the outline for the whole thing. I determined that even though I had sanded it, I hadn’t done so enough to completely remove the clear coat, which made the woodburning difficult and uneven. I then got a stain pen and started coloring in the black parts of the image, but was also not thrilled with the results. So to finish it off I got a Sharpie and got to work. Once finished I gave it a few coats of Polyurethane, put everything back together and that was that.
Except that I don’t know how to play a regular six string guitar, but can fake my way around a 3 string. So I decided to make it a 3 string, but use 2 strings of the same note, so GGDDGG. I had to do some crude hacks to the bridge to keep the strings together, but this was a throwaway guitar anyway, so I didn’t feel too bad making the modifications. I enjoyed putting this one together!
The finished product The various methods for coloring the image are evident here, gives it some variety I think
