'78 Musicmaster refin musings

[LVC]

So, my '78 MM came with a pretty awful black refin. I don't mind the color but quality-wise it looks crappy. I want to refin this guitar at some point, but not before I've had a few similar projects under my belt to make sure I don't end up with a finish as amateurishly applied as the current one.

So for now I'm considering color options.


A little boring, but probably the easiest to do right. I like the black on black aesthetic, and it's vintage correct for this model.



This is much more interesting, although not vintage correct. But there's something about gold stripes on black that scream "late '70s" to me.



Marroon or burgundy ― this is based on a refin'd MM that I got to play briefly years ago. I always thought it looked quite good.



A very dark shade of green?




A stain, maybe? Marroon or walnut?



I think this may be my favorite ― Graffiti yellow with black compstripes, just like that FSR Bullet Mustang. For some reason I think this color combo looks very punk... maybe because of Olga's Tele?



So, what do you think?


If you want to have fun with it, here's a crude .png of the guitar with the body made transparent. You can just copy it & paste it over a colored background in Photoshop, Paint.net, or even something like MS Publisher to easily change the color at will.

[Nico]

If it's solid now, you might not get a nice grain when stipped. My MM bass had 2 different wood tone underneath. 1 part looks like clear alder, the other 1/3 greyish alder. No trans finish was possible.

You can check my MM bass refin post. Awesome Ocean Turquoise. It would look great on your's. Just sayin'

[MattK]

Suggestion: get yourself a sanding block and some graded wet/dry sandpaper, 800, 1200 and 2000 grit. Try gently wet-sanding the existing finish smooth and then polish it, see how you like it. If you do, job is done very cheaply. If you don't, you can use the same gear to finish up a spray-can finish in your chosen colour.
Signed, 78 black Musicmaster owner ...

[Nico]

Yep, i'm with Matt on that. Try to recover that finish first if black is what you'd logically go for anyway. Start with 800 wet, softly, get that finish all dull with minimal "pitting"(go extra smooth on the edges, or lightly scuff them up). Then proceed to 200-500 grit increments to 2500/3000. You might be surprised.

If it sucks, get rattle cans and proper nitro clear. It's just a 78 MM. If it's bad now, you'll have better results with help on here if you want.

[shigginpit]

This is much more interesting, although not vintage correct. But there's something about gold stripes on black that scream "late '70s" to me.

The guitar has probably already been painted at this point but none the less, I never thought that I enjoyed the competition stripe but black with gold comp stripe apparently looks awesome on a musicmaster.

[Fiddy]

Sparkle, Supersonic like blue.

[LVC]

The guitar has probably already been painted at this point but none the less, I never thought that I enjoyed the competition stripe but black with gold comp stripe apparently looks awesome on a musicmaster.

Hah! No, the Musicmaster still has the shoddy black refin it came with, as I currently don't really have the space to do even a rattle can job.
The more I think about it, the more I'm sold on black... I'll probably either try to fix the current finish, as MatthewK and Nico suggested, or respray altogether. And those gold comp stripes do look pretty awesome on black...

Sparkle, Supersonic like blue.

That's one of my favourite finishes... But I already have a sparkle blue Super-Sonic. And I have no idea how to do a flake finish... I wouldn't know where to start.

[shigginpit]

I looked at your linked thread with the pictures of the actual black paint, it's difficult to know how thick the refinish paint is from those images. Does it seem like it has enough paint coverage already on it to level and polish it out? If you have the ability, I'd agree it's probably best to try and improve the paint that's already on the guitar unless you find a location to strip and repaint it at. I'd also possibly recommend skipping the sides and edges, or do the bare minimum in that area so you don't end up burning through the paint where it's sprayed thinnest. You can probably just block sand the front and backside where there will be the most paint coverage and then wet sand in stages. When you get to the higher grit papers, I'd then start doing the sides so it's more uniform in the end. Any grit 1000 or above is unlikely to burn through the thinner spots if you're carefully hand sanding.

You could also consider getting a rectangle sheet of 3m vinyl wrap (you can usually buy it without having to get a whole roll) in the gold color and then cut that into stripes if you want to go with the competition look. Vinyl wrap is very easy to remove if you change your mind about it, because it will lift without leaving a residue when you're tired of it or if you decide you don't like it. As long as your surface is smooth and clean and you take care to push out the air bubbles as you apply it, it works quite well and lasts a long time in my experience.

[Buddy Bing]

I've got a seventy-seven in white. I forget where I learned this but there was a paint peeling issue. Black was the color mentioned. I expected to refinish one day, too.
I didn't expect to see gold racing stripes. An evocative choice! It rings a lot of bells for me. Like Andretti's Lotus, pur sang!