ST-1JR Build - May the Force be with???

[FredA]

Hey guys,
I've been involving my son into my builds a bit... well, to be fair especially the sanding part... so really, it's only fair that we build his own guitar now!

So, we ordered and received an ST-1JR kit a week or so ago:


Being 7.5 years old he's not that impressed by wood grain... Star Wars is much much, much more exciting, so we are building a Star Wars themed guitar of course!
But now that we had the theme, we found it a bit hard to decide what it meant and how we were going to do it... there's not many guitars in Star Wars movies...

We've thought about using stickers, but really we could do that on any guitar we'd buy from a shop, or try and paint custom Star Wars characters... but we're not very good a drawing...

And then one a friend gave him a stack of Star Wars buckets that she got when they released the last movie. Embossed metal!
Looking at the R2D2 one, an idea started to appear: we're going to use parts of the bucket to build a R2D guitar.

So, here's the bucket before:


And the bucket after the dremmel:
Stage 1:


Stage 2:

[FredA]

The idea is to glue bits cut from the bucket to the guitar.
Here's a first idea of what we're planning to do:


Now, to make it more interesting I'm planning to recess the wood by 1mm where the bits go, so I can make them look like they are part of the guitar instead of just being glued on.

I've already bought primer, white gloss and aluminium spray paint, we still have to decide if it will be all white, with bits aluminium, or who knows...

So that's where we are after last weekend! :-)

[Dedman]

fantastic idea! Can't wait to see it come together!

[wazkelly]

Another idea would have been to take photos and print them out on decal transfer paper, or better still, borrow images off the internet and print them on transfer paper.

If you are going for solid white as the background once decals have been applied just a few coats of clear is all you need to keep them in place and appear as if they were meant to be there all along.

[FredA]

@wazkelly: humm... i'm thinking I could use your decal idea to 'fill the gaps' between steel plates... might look a bit empty otherwise...

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[Zandit75]

Brilliant concept! I'm a Starwars fan also, and I may be 41yo, but I'm loving the new animated show Rebels. Season 3 is about to start.
Really looking forward to this build!

[wazkelly]

Hi Fred, for a future build that I have in mind the plan is to photograph 'something' on a black background and also on a white background and print both big enough to cover the whole headstock and then trim to size. By doing both you have a sort of negative to work with in case the all solid one doesn't look so good.

Same idea can be done if using software to create logos but most of the stuff I have access to is limited, and besides the 'something' to be photographed is usually chrome and three dimensional which is extremely hard to do in graphics without spending more on software than what the project is worth.

Cheers, Waz

[Brendan]

Fred - have seen this out of a guy in Sydney - that may also be an idea on how to fill some white space...

[pablopepper]

One of the important thing Star Wars did first (or close to first) was introduce the concept of the "Used Universe". Things looked like they had a life before they ended up on screen, unlike many others before where everything was pristine and looked phoney. Aging and weathering play an important part in bringing the Star Wars aesthetic to life.

[FredA]

Ouch... love it but i'm not sure my painting skills will be sufficient for that!

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