More Progress on my "Was Black" Now "Surf Green" Daion Rockson MDL

If you haven't been following this blog for long, over the past few months I've been slowly doing a repaint on my second Daion Rockson MDL. It was originally black, but black just doesn't really do it for me, and as the body was pretty knocked about I decided to have a go at doing a refinish.

For previous info on this Rockson MDL see the following links:

http://daionguitarsdownunder.blogspot.com.au/my-second-daion-another-rockson-mdl
http://daionguitarsdownunder.blogspot.com.au/progress-on-rebuilding-my-black-daion-rockson-mdl
http://daionguitarsdownunder.blogspot.com.au/more-progress-on-my-black-daion-rockson-mdl

My last post on the 14th of July showed a few pics of the freshly painted body in what resembles an aged Surf Green colour. It's actually an interesting colour to photograph, as it looks anything from very close to Surf Green, to almost Blue in colour depending on the light the pictures are taken in.

I've collected a LOT of pictures over the past few months of genuine Surf Green 1960's Fender Strat's for reference, and again the variety in the colour depending on age, wear, light etc is equally vast. In any case I'm very pleased with the colour as it has turned out a very acceptable shade of green for what I wanted.

However, getting the colour the "right" shade was only the first step for this refinish. Part of the main aim was also to replicate the wear and tear that the original black finish had, as all the knocks, dents, scratches and chips go towards telling the story of how the guitar has spent its last thirty odd years.

So after spending an evening after work sitting on the lounge room floor wet sanding the whole body to get a nice smooth surface, the body was ready for a good polish to bring out a bit of a shine. I didn't go overboard on the sanding, nor on the polishing, as I was keen to to smooth out or get rid any of the dings or chips in the body, but after a bit of elbow grease it came up pretty damn good.

If I had to be critical, if I was to do it over again I would probably have bought a little grain filler, as the bare wood, even though tightly grained, still shows the tiniest bit of grain through the paint. Normally on a solid colour finish you would see no wood grain, although it must be said that this is a very minor issue and the grain is only noticeable in some places under strong light when viewed up close. It's probably also a result of not putting too thick a coat of paint on the body, as I wanted it to look like it had lost a bit of the original paint over decades of use, which it certainly does look like.

The second part of the refinish job was recreating the original wear and tear, and I must admit I was a little nervous taking to the freshly painted body with files, screw drivers, knives etc. I was only going to get one go at doing it right, and had to be very careful not to go "too far" and ruin the whole job.

With a lot of care, and working slowly I identified each individual mark in the body and replicated either a scratch, a chip, or rub, and applied the appropriate effect. One of the features of the original Fender Custom Colour Strat's was the fact that the solid custom colour was often applied over an originally Sunburst finished body. This had the effect of the original finish showing through as the solid top colour was worn through.

In trying to replicate this to some extent, I left some of the original black finish around the edges of the body, so that when I rubbed back the green paint, some of the black would show though. So some of the marks representing areas where rubbing the body would have been from the shoulder strap, the strumming forearm, and just generally handling the guitar, where gently rubbed back to show some black underneath.

Areas that would have been lightly scratched were replicated with a jagged style chip in the paint that again often only reveals the original black paint underneath, and the chips in the body that were deeper had the paint filed or chipped away to reveal the original timber finish.

Overall I probably spent a good two to three hours gradually going around the body until I'd replicated the original wear and tear on the new paint. Unlike some relic jobs which can look a little bit unrealistic due to generic markings on the body, all of the marks on the new finish are the original ones, so nothing has been "faked" to give the appearance of an old guitar, this is more of a restoration of the original damage.

I'm sure some will appreciate what I've done, and some would have preferred it be brought back to mint original, but at the end of the day this guitar looks how I imagined it in my mind, and it's been an enjoyable process so far.

Next on the list of jobs is to buy some new screws, as the original bridge pivot screws have had the heads rounded off a bit making them hard to adjust, both spring claw screws have had the heads rounded off (I had to grind a slot in them to be able to unscrew them), and one neck screw has also had the head rounded off, so they will all need to be replaced, hopefully with screws that at least look similar to the original ones in as far as aging goes. If I can only get shiny new ones I have read of a few ways to slightly discolour them to give a nice vintage aged look.

Anyway, below are a couple of quick pics to show how it is looking so far. I did post a shot of it in the last post with a tortoise shell pickguard, but these pics have the original white one back in place. I'm still deciding on which way to go with that decision as I really like the tortoise shell, but would like to just keep all of the original parts on it, so I think the white pickguard will probably stay.