Sooo I have had an Epiphone Explorer Gothic series for awhile now, it was my second guitar, bought in my second year of playing way back around 2003. I bought it purely for aesthetic as young players often do which is good because the special edition guitars generally tend to have better specs than their entry level counterparts.
A couple years later I purchased another guitar, this time an Epiphone Zakk Wylde of the camo variety, once again falling in love with the aesthetic of the guitar, the Zakk Wylde became my workhorse and the Explorer was banished to its case only coming out in times of reminisce and then recently I lent it to the singer of my band to start his guitar journey.
As a result of it being with my singer I often played it when I was at his place and realised what a badass guitar it really is. The fretboard is made for shredding, I am not a shredder but the ease of getting around the board made me think that with a few upgrades this guitar could become a beast.
Along with the stock pups being of lesser quality I also wasn't happy with the finish, I felt the black was too 'metal' for my current music and aesthetic sensibilities. I had seen a number of refinishing projects here on the forum and had wanted to undertake a refinishing project of my own and thought well now this could be awesome.
And just to be clear by undertaking a refinishing project I mean send it to a pro ?
Enter Neon Gecko who has a name in real life, it is Wayne. I had seen Neon Gecko pop up with reference to other people's refinishing projects and so he was the first person I turned to. Wayne is one hell of a nice guy. After contacting him on the forum I popped over to his place on a Saturday guitar in hand with not much of an idea of what I wanted. Initially I thought maybe that SG red or something but didn't really know what to expect as I knew and still do know very little about the dark arts of refinishing a guitar. Wayne's knowledge is amazing, I am sure many of you see guitars made out of mahogany, basswood, maple caps etc etc and wonder what the hell does it all mean. Wayne can tell you. He was also happy to share the info and answer all my questions about which woods make for warmer sounds and whats the best wood for rock n roll etc.
Ok so Wayne explained how paints work and how undertones can shine through and showed me catalogs of paint as well as other guitars he had done to give me ideas of what was possible build an idea of what I wanted. After our discussion I vaguely settled on a burgundy burst however this depended on what the wood looked like so we first had to check what lurked beneath the Explorer's black metal veneer.
Wayne scraped the paint off and now there was no going back...
I hadn't researched the guitar before going to Wayne so initially he thought it was Basswood, upon checking up Epiphone claim the wood to be mahogany and upon further research by Wayne it turns out to be an african cousin of mahogany which is called Korina hence the name of the original Explorers and is also known as Limba for all you woodophiles ?
I left the guitar in Wayne's capable hands and he sent me these pics of the guitar sanded down... As you can see the Korina is a beautiful wood, very attractive, Wayne assures me with a little stain and clear coats the woods finish will 'pop' even more.
Body:
Headstock:
Looking damn fine to me!! What do you guys think? Burgundy burst? Wayne tells me to wait for the stains and coats of clear before we settle on a colour. I am sure Wayne can chip in with his experience as well as if any of you have questions fire away.
