This Ibanez Jem came in for a custom paint job to make it look like a Steve Vai signature guitar.
The job amounted to painting the lion’s claw at the Floyd Rose Tremolo cavity bright pink.
Doesn’t look like much of a job but it’s tricky enough to get a clean line around the edges of the lion’s claw.
The electronics and Floyd Rose were stripped out and the body covered up and masked off.
The critical part of this job was properly masking the edges of the Tremolo cavity to prevent the paint migrating under the tape.
Regular masking tape won’t do either – I used Frog Tape but I’m sure there are other good masking tapes available.
Then it was just a matter of priming the cavity, spraying the neon pink colour coat and then a clear top coat – all relatively easy.
I used a red primer initially, as in the photo below, but it darkened the pink colour coat too much so I went back and used a white primer.
The customer asked me to check the electronics over before I put the guitar back together – all looked ok although, these are overwound pickups and aren’t potted. I always prefer to pot the pickups that I make.
There was a bit more hum than I would like from a guitar so I tacked on another ground wire between the pots and that quitened things down considerably.
Then came the least attractive part of the job – re-installing the Floyd Rose and setting it up.
The installation is easy but, as anyone who knows me is aware, I don’t like Floyd Roses – so much pain for so little gain. so setting up Floyd Roses isn’t my favourite job.
I even have customers, with Floyd Roses, who come to me to have new strings fitted to their guitar because they can’t get their guitar tuned again with the action height correct.
So, all complete and ready to go back to the customer.
Ibanez Jem Custom Paint Job
