Tango Strat Reboot – ROB C MUSIC

The Big Apple Strat

The name is on account of the colour changing to Candy Apple Red and the plan to install a hotrail pickup in the bridge for a “bigger” sound.

The Tango Strat, which was finished in candy tangerine has been de-commissioned for an overhaul. This may seem a little obsessive of me and maybe it is, but here’s the story:

I was never 100% satisfied with the finish. It looked nice enough, but it had a few too many flaws. I have already documented some of the disasters I had with the weather and the difficulty I had getting the finish to take properly, but having salvaged it to some degree I had decided it was good enough as I had become sick and tired of painting this particular guitar.

Now that it has proven itself to be a very enjoyable guitar to play and performed admirably in a live situation I decided it deserved better attention with the finish. Recently I have been very keen on having a Candy Apple Red Strat with a black pickguard, I already had the silver and candy red paint waiting, so I reached for the screwdriver, dismantled the guitar and started the necessary prep work.

I decided to simply spray some candy red over the headstock first to see what would happen because if possible, I wanted to avoid having to get another decal and redoing all that again. It’s a bit dark, but I like it and it’s good enough. Just needs some clear coat.

I got as far as the silver base coat today. The next post about this guitar will be when all painting has finished. Re-assembly of the guitar will not be for months. One of the big problems with how this finished messed up originally was that I assembled the guitar too soon and the paint was too soft.

This time I am giving it a long time to cure, just to be sure – probably not until June 2017!

It won’t be perfect because none of my finishes are, but it will be much better than the last one.