I started to wet sand the guitar body today. I’m super nervous about it so I started on the back. I put more clear purple on the front and top side than I did on the back.

I’m using 800, 1500, and 2000 grit wet/dry paper. I’m using some water with a bit of soap to wet the paper and flood the surface. I’m wrapping the paper around a pink eraser.

This area shows what a couple passes with 800 looks like. The dull surface is the high spot, and the shiny is the low spots.

A few more passes and the low spots mostly disappear

1500 and 2000 in opposite directions take care of the scratches from the rough papers.

2000 paper

Next I’ll use some rubbing compound to remove scratches from 2000 and then some polish to make it shine!

I opted to use my phone a friend lifeline for the frets in the Vangaurd neck. Kevin at Coyle’s Richboro Music does some cool stuff. One of those is tossing my neck into his refretinator machine.

He shared an update on Instagram, check it out here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cha8qlSuYGe/

The frets are stainless steel and jumbo-ish size. I have stainless frets in another guitar and I’m never going back. Bending is sooo smooth and they stay clean longer. I hear they last a bujillion years too.

I’m super happy with the work he did, and highly recommend them to anyone looks for fret job. I think he has a mail order service on his reverb page where you can mail a neck and he will do the work and send it back.

There are a few more small jobs to do on the neck and then it’s ready to go.

• Apply a new logo to the headstock
• Clear coat the headstock face, wet sand, and polish.
• Make a new truss rod cover (this is gonna be cool)
• Put satin finish on the back of the neck
• Install tuning machines.

The temperature outside this morning was cooler and low humidity. Time for clear coat!

I’m using Spraymax 2K Gloss Clear in a can. This stuff is nasty so I’m spraying it outside. I set up a tent and blocked off the sides to keep the breeze down. My little Black and Decker workbench hold my guitar holder thing nicely.

I sprayed the whole can on the guitar. 5 or 6 coats and it looks suuuuuper awesome!

Here is a quick video of it in the sun. 🍆💦

Time to repaint the headstock on the Vanguard. Kramer headstocks have a small border of black painted on the sides to give the appearance of a headstock plate. I taped that line off using blue tape. I also covered the other areas that might get over sprayed.

Here is a photo of the little detail HVLP spray gun I have been using. It’s from Harbor Freight and it works real good!

Then I sprayed the headstock with a nice basecoat of Createx Autoborne Sealer Black

Next is a coat of Createx Wicked Gloss Black to finish it off.

After the paint dried a bit, time to peel the blue tape off!

The next step is to add a bit of clear and then a new Kramer logo and more clear.

I sprayed the color coat on the Vangaurd. The color is Createx Candy2O Grabber Orange. It’s the same water based stuff as others. It dries real quick so I was able to put on about 6 coats. This time it’s a proper orange and nobody will mistake for brown or copper.

The color is a dye that is mixed with a clear paint. It’s like a 6:1 ratio of clear to color.

Then I used a small HVLP spray gun to spray it as even as I could. It came out pretty good!

Overall I am happy with it! There are some small imperfections… A hair on the front near the neck pickup, a couple blotches in the silver that show up.

Here is a quick video of what it looks like outside in the sun.

The white basecoat has dried and now it’s silver time! Instead of the charcoal metallic like last time, this time I’ll apply a coat of Createx Wicked Metallic Silver.

This coat came out a bit blotchy looking. Maybe when it dries it will look a bit better.

The next step is some candy orange!