A Clockwork Guitar, the Steampunk Stratocaster

Jake von Slatt — Mon, 01/01/2007 - 01:00

I have a Fender US Highway One series Stratocaster, which is a half decent guitar, but looks just like a million other Strats. I had been planning to replace the pick guard with a black mother of pearl guard but my experiments in electrolytic etching made me think I'd like to try something a bit more unique. Thus the Steampunk Strat was born.

I started by scanning the pick guard and printing out a bunch of copies that I could sketch on until I got the image that I wanted.

Next I carefully traced an outline of the pick guard and begun to draw my image. The concept was to make the pick guard look like a brass clock escapement with gears, cogs and a flywheel.

drawing the escapement for the clockwork guitar

Google images was instrumental in finding images of clock escapements I could cadge features from. Once I had a good drawing I scanned it back into the computer and filled in the black area with the Gimp (a Linux image editor like Paint Shop Pro). This gave me a mock-up to test on the guitar.

Next step was to cut the brass and to iron a laser printed reverse image on it. See my article on Electrolytic Etching for the details of that process.

There were some gaps and flaws in the toner mask so I touched it up with paint.

Into the copper sulfate bath, I made a nice cathode grid and a new plate holder out of brazing rod for this project.

Mysterious energies etch away the copper and zinc components of the brass. I love that blue!

The etched pick guard was cleaned up with steel wool, drilled and the pickup holes cut out. Then painted with 2 coats of Krylon Ultra Flat Black.

After the paint dried overnight I sanded away the high spots, polished it a little with some more steel wool and gave it a couple of coats of lacquer.

I painted the pickup covers and knobs with Krylon Plastic Fusion paint and re-assembled the pick guard to the guitar.

The Clockwork Steampunk Stratocaster Guitar

The finished Clockwork Steampunk Stratocaster !

Man, I Really like your

Elduderon — Mon, 06/29/2009 - 10:53

Man, I Really like your work!

I'm Trying to do the same with one of my guitars, but i can't create a a real good art...
Is there any way you can send me the original that you used in your guitar?
'Cause I just can't draw something as cool as you...

Thanks a Lot for the help, and congrats for the job!

Amazing!

tacamaral — Thu, 06/25/2009 - 23:55

Man, that's excellent work! Congratulations.

Using your techniques, I have done somethings myself (nothing compared to this guitar, though).

I showed this guitar to a friend of mine who owns a stratocaster and - guess what - he asked to write you asking for the template (as others have done). : )

Is it at all possible?

Thanks a bunch for all the info.

All the best.

Sure, drop me an email and

Jake von Slatt — Fri, 06/26/2009 - 10:57

Sure, drop me an email and I'll send it to you!
Thanks for the kind words!
Jake.

Copper Sulfate Bath

jstanfield — Tue, 06/02/2009 - 14:19

Excellent work Jake!

Where on earth did you get the idea for the copper sulfate bath for the pick guard?

I ask only because I'm working with a company that is producing music instruments, and they're looking for something interesting to do with an aluminum panel aside from painting or covering it in Tolex. I thought of this and wanted to know where you got that idea?

It's an old process used for

Jake von Slatt — Tue, 06/02/2009 - 16:13

It's an old process used for making etchings of the print variety, I found most of the best information here: http://www.greenart.info/galvetch/contfram.htm
I've seen aluminum electrolytically etched in salt water with good results as well.

clockwork artwork

damnallmyemails — Wed, 04/08/2009 - 14:36

wow jake man you have a serious cool idea here i wonder do you still have the artwork for this guitar i would love to do this on my strats pickguard but i couldn't find very many gears cogs and wheels and my drawing sucks lol. anyway you have this scan still around and could a brotha use it

Awesome axe!

LonePhantom — Thu, 03/26/2009 - 04:25

That pickguard is absolutely awesome. I'd love something like that for one of my guitars. I reckon continuing the theme on the rest of the body would be brilliant too.

From a fan

eL3VEn — Wed, 01/07/2009 - 21:05

Hello I'm a fan of steampunk as a style and thriving culture and also a huge fan of your site and works, I have a request that if its not to much trouble would be a great help and very much appreciated; I too have a Highway one strat and i love what you have done with yours and i was hoping that i could possible get your template to make my own clockwork strat from your design, I also plan to do a few designs of my own using the technics i have learned from your site but nothing i have drawn has compared to yours in representing the steampunk style. It would be much appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
-Max R. Barton