Forgot about my holoflash Fernandes Tbird.
I did the holoflash at home.
I did the holoflash at home.
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Do you apply any custom decorations to your instrument?
- Thread starter Shenron
- Start date
It’s a zoo fer sure, but the fishing was also off the chain. It’s where I learned to love hooking something big enough to rip your arm out of the socket. That’s something of a myth, but I’m an angler so I’m known to be unreliable when it comes to fish, but if you are in to that sort of thing there are worse things than living close enough to be tapped into the local net so you will get a call from Panama City letting you know the black fin were running in PCB.I’m originally from Mobile. Gigged a bit along the Gulf Coast in the early 2000’s and some of the stuff I saw and experienced I can’t even write on TB. Let’s just say I grew up pretty fast.
I’ve always been partial to tuna, and thanks to living there I now know those little black footballs are my favorite tuna steak donor. Thankfully they are not a commercial fish so the only way to get one is catch it yourself, get a care package from a friend, or know a licensed sport fish buyer, but you know catching them makes taste better. The African Pompano you could get from the beach were another very tasty bite of fish. Coastal living was fun in a lot of ways.
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My first bass was painted by the guitarist, who was in art college back then.
He made it unusable by doing so, but I suspect he did it to cover up other damage he'd done.
He also painted the guitar of another guitarist that we played with and he painted and changed his Strat copy into a fretless guitar. I don't have any photo's of those.
1st bass
After that I got another bass. I applied a Celtic bracelet that was given to me as a sort of finger rest because it bothered me while playing bass. And I added some lines around the pickups as decoration.
A while later I got a Strat copy with an amplifier that I bought for my Synthesizer.
It needed some work. Someone also gave me a Schaller humbucker for it.
So I decided to do some carving. Below is how it ended up.
Both the fretless and the guitar were stolen from my apartment. I don't know if that had to do with the decorations.
He made it unusable by doing so, but I suspect he did it to cover up other damage he'd done.
He also painted the guitar of another guitarist that we played with and he painted and changed his Strat copy into a fretless guitar. I don't have any photo's of those.
1st bass
After that I got another bass. I applied a Celtic bracelet that was given to me as a sort of finger rest because it bothered me while playing bass. And I added some lines around the pickups as decoration.
A while later I got a Strat copy with an amplifier that I bought for my Synthesizer.
It needed some work. Someone also gave me a Schaller humbucker for it.
So I decided to do some carving. Below is how it ended up.
Both the fretless and the guitar were stolen from my apartment. I don't know if that had to do with the decorations.
REAL FAST. I swear, I think some of the people that came in those joints had thumbs on their feet!I’m originally from Mobile. Gigged a bit along the Gulf Coast in the early 2000’s and some of the stuff I saw and experienced I can’t even write on TB. Let’s just say I grew up pretty fast.
This is why when I moved to Tennessee, fishing just isn't the same: I'm not likely to hook something that could eat me. No Shark Rodeo on Old Hickory Lake, and I miss fresh seafood badly up here.It’s a zoo fer sure, but the fishing was also off the chain. It’s where I learned to love hooking something big enough to rip your arm out of the socket. That’s something of a myth, but I’m an angler so I’m known to be unreliable when it comes to fish, but if you are in to that sort of thing there are worse things than living close enough to be tapped into the local net so you will get a call from Panama City letting you know the black fin were running in PCB.
I’ve always been partial to tuna, and thanks to living there I now know those little black footballs are my favorite tuna steak donor. Thankfully they are not a commercial fish so the only way to get one is catch it yourself, get a care package from a friend, or know a licensed sport fish buyer, but you know catching them makes taste better. The African Pompano you could get from the beach were another very tasty bite of fish. Coastal living was fun in a lot of ways.
I like to swap whatever I can on basses to make them my own. The drummer in the last band I was in worked in a sign making shop, so he had access to vynle making equipment. We all had the band logo on our instruments. I've owned my white T bird the longest so it's got the most stuff on it. Pickguard and truss rod cover from Alperious Pickguards, hipshot bridge and tuning keys, a fender thumb rest, and some black knobs with pearl inlay on top. This picture is from when i played in Ashgrin, so the logo isnt on there anymore.
I think if a sticker is cool enough, or sentimental enough, it could find a place on a bass, but I haven't found that for me yet. The most sentimental decoration on my bass is a little wooden bird that hangs off of the headstock. Back in high-school, I was in a band with a bunch of buddies. A few years ago, I reached out to the guys and we got back together to jam. The singer was really excited about it. He brought out a bunch of his guitar gear too and insisted on leaving it at my place (the rehearsal space). A few weeks later, he took his own life. We all now assume he was leaving his things with us knowing he wasn't going to be around to use it. It was heartbreaking, and his stuff sort of just sat in my music room for a few years. I finally decided to sort through the room, and found a little wooden bird sitting inside the back of his amp. I gave the amp to my little brother (he was just starting out on guitar, and it felt right giving it to someone who was going to use it) and the little bird now hangs off of my headstock as a little tribute to our old singer.
My contribution in the category would be Batgirl. Apart from the decal, she's a totally stock Yamaha BB415. I got bored of the plain red color.
Backstory: Comics fans may remember that Batgirl's secret identity is as the Gotham City Librarian. It so happens that my wife is our town's library director, and that we were both comics collectors back when we met. So basically, when I got the idea of putting a big decal of a pinup girl on my bass, Batgirl was pretty much the natural option (and the only one I could have gotten away with). Bonus; shortly after I did it, Adam Hughes, the artist, came to our local shop for a signing. So I brought the bass for him to sign (you can see his AH! initials in gold sharpie on the upper horn). I still gig her regularly with Mugshot Monday.
Backstory: Comics fans may remember that Batgirl's secret identity is as the Gotham City Librarian. It so happens that my wife is our town's library director, and that we were both comics collectors back when we met. So basically, when I got the idea of putting a big decal of a pinup girl on my bass, Batgirl was pretty much the natural option (and the only one I could have gotten away with). Bonus; shortly after I did it, Adam Hughes, the artist, came to our local shop for a signing. So I brought the bass for him to sign (you can see his AH! initials in gold sharpie on the upper horn). I still gig her regularly with Mugshot Monday.
I haven't lately but I used to occasionally get up early on Sunday and drive down for dinner at McGuire’s or someplace else along the coast. I’m past due for a saltwater recharge.
Every instrument I've ever owned for any length of time(once I knew it was a keeper) had gotten modded and or custom painted. I've done everything myself, so they're far from perfect finishes but I think look way cooler than they did originally.
I'm really surprised how so few musicians do though. For people that are so creative, you would think you would see way more custom creations, instead you see a plain solid color P or J bass 90 percent of the time. Guitar players are just as guilty. With a million options at your fingertips, everyone seems to just go with a plain strat or les Paul.
Here's my main players......
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What did you do to the silver Ibanez,the multi scale 5vr?
I went down the path of custom paint to involve my artistic kids. They did some cool stuff for me.
OK back on topic. Here's an old Jet King I got for almost nothing, but it was filthy. The guard was so saturated with nicotine it was light brown. It had a red dot price sticker on the lower guard that left a perfectly white circle when I peeled it off. I sanded and scrubbed sanded and scrubbed and the best I could get was to the light tan color it is in the pic, but after extensive cleaning and sunning, the bass lost all the nicotine stink, but the bright circle was annoying as hell, so I covered it with a logo sticker from the lubricant I used to sell to RC car racers. When I gave it to my niece for her church building fund, I scraped it off.
That Ibanez I was originally trying to get a mirror chrome finish, like Joe Satriani's guitar, but that was impossible with rattle cans, so I just did a metallic silver/chrome which came out decent, and then did a marble effect, which the spray paint shoots out like silly string over top. Looked cool, but when I clear coated it, it was too cold out and the clear developed all these tiny cracks and raised texture. Learned my lesson.
The explorer I tried doing a cracked effect on the body and headstock. Came out ok on the headstock, but the effect was so tiny and fine on the body you couldn't see it from any distance, so I sanded it back down and just did a plain bright white, and then painted the binding stripe.
songwriter21
I have an obsession for wood. The musical kind.
First sticker I've put on any of my basses in a while. It's my main gigging bass, and my beater, so this one is fitting to display one of the most fun concerts I've ever seen.
Here’s your spray chrome that works. It comes from a company called SpazSticks. You can buy direct or from Amazon, and I suspect most any hobby shop should be able to order it for you if you prefer that route.
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I’ve used this on lexan with great results so it should be a no brainer on a lightly scuffed poly finish.
I would also recommend you use their black backer. I've tried it with both gloss and flat black enamel and it kinda works, but it looks so much better with their backer. I used it to do chrome highlights (bumpers etc) on toy race car bodies so it can take a licking.
you can get it in spray bombs and airbrush ready. The spray bombs work, but it’s easier to control if you can shoot it.
