1985 Kramer Baretta Zombie resurrection

  • Thread starter Thread starter bubbastain
  • Start date Start date
bubbastain

bubbastain

Well-known member
This is my 1985 Kramer Baretta. I bought it new in 1986. It was my third guitar(Zenon Victoria, Hondo Explorer an then this). In 1994 it fell out of the back of a truck on the freeway on the way to play a show. Case destroyed. Volume knob smashed into the body and neck came off the body but only because the screws stripped out. Not too bad. Could have been worse.
The next week I kinda fixed the volume knob issue with some bondo, reattached the neck and gave it a rattle can paint job over the existing paint. Good enough and played it like that until 2001.
Then in 2001 I took it apart and thought I would sand off the original paint. WTF!? I had no idea the crap was so thick. I then tried chemical stripper and it did almost nothing. And that's how the guitar stayed until this year.
Earlier this year I used a heat gun and scraper to remove the old paint. It was kind of a disaster. My guitar apparently has a maple top. Almost more of a thick veneer. Anyways, I bubbled/blistered that up in a spot. I then just sanded it out. I wasn't trying to remove any of the scars, I just wanted to paint it. So I painted it with a single can of Stew Mac gloss black nitrocellulose rattle can lacquer. It can out pretty crappy, but it's good enough. Looks fine from 15 feet away. And yes, I did burn through the nitro on the upper horn while giving it a little buff job. Ehhh, still better than it was and it's actually playable. So this is the first time I played it since 2001.
Forgive the chrome trem bar. A new black FR bar will be here next week. I'll also set the intonation next week too.

 
Back
Top