Chrome Boy Replica

This guitar is just an ordinary JS100 but painted in a chrome finish by a company called Future Paint.
It’s fitted with mini schaller tuners, a DiMarzio Fred and pick-ups and a real Schaller Floyd Rose. No savings on the hardware!!!

The body and neck I got separate from Ebay and they cost me around $120 each. I think the neck was refretted and they even removed the ‘Satriani’ inlay on the 21st fret. Even the marker dot is a little bit bigger. As far as I remember it took me about half a year to find out (the rosewood is a little bit darker as well) but then it explained why it really looks like a more expensive JS1000 neck.

First I removed the original black finish. Then I sanded everything down to grid 600 and spray painted the body with primer. I remember that an awful lot of sticky substance came off the body, I guess it was some kind of sealer. Can you imagine how this stuff ruins the sound of your guitar?

Then I made a beginner’s mistake (in fact I made two).

For sanding I didn’t use a sanding block. I just sanded free-form. Especially on bodies that have a curvature such as the Ibanez JS and for example also a Les Paul, you will not follow the proper contours and reshape the body. So my JS body is not perfectly round anymore but has spots where the curvature flattens. Since the body is mirror like chrome this is visible even more! Lesson 1, always use a sanding block when sanding.

 

Mistake two, I thought to be helpful the painters who would do the chrome, to deliver the body perfectly pollished. NO NO NO, any paints needs a rough surface to stick to. So always sand your body to a maximum 600 grid, do not go further.

Anyway, I think in the paint shop they roughened up the body. The end effect looked quite nice except from some cracks….aarghhhhh.

What happened, this chrome paint is a very hard and tough. And since the body is from wood and wood expands and shrinks under different conditions, cracks came up.

Luckily the cracks are not that visible, the biggest one is parallel with the strings but it’s a pity. The paint shop was disappointed as well so they gave me a refund, I only had to pay 100 euro’s. Anyway, with the cracks it almost looks like the original Satriani chromeboy, that one has cracks and blemishes all over the body.

When making another one, I would go for a luthite body such as the latest series of chrome boys. Luthite is a ‘plastic’ that has resonance characteristics just as wood has. One pro, it doesn’t expand/shrink. Some Ibanez EDR models have luthite JS like bodies which could be used.