Little Red Guitar

My 7 year old daughter has always loved pretending to be onstage giving a performance. For Christmas she's getting a child size guitar (along with this refinished one). This smaller version makes it easier to put on Taylor Swift concerts when she's running about.

Special thanks to my Mom for providing this miniature guitar. I refinished it red, polished the hardware, and replaced the strings. 

This part is pretty straight forward. I unwound the strings and took off the hardware. It was a little harder to remove the frets but my pocket knife made short work of it. I made sure to put all the parts in a plastic bag. 

To prep for primer I sanded the guitar down. I also used a file to file down some of the high spots on the neck. Before moving on I wiped off all the dust. 

The fret board was coming off. There were also some cracks around the body. I used wood glue before clamping things back down. Here you also see the sheet of paper I stuffed in to keep paint from spraying inside. 

First was a coat of primer. I wet sanded and reapplied a couple coats. Next was red paint. It's actually one of the factory colors for a Ford F150. Then I taped off the body and painted the fret board black.  

I had pin stripping left over from a pinwood derby car. I thought it would work well here. It's easy to work with. Just peel off the backing and work it around the curves. The ring was made by placing painters tape on wax paper and curing out circles. After transferring the tape to the guitar I painted it black.  

I sprayed paint on tin foil and dabbed a brush in to touch up imperfections.

I sprayed on a clear coat and wet sanded that too. I actually used metal polish to buff the finish. It worked well. Last step was to put all the hardware back on and tune it up.