Martin’s Kramer 5150
Martin visited us, wanting to expand his guitar collection with an Edward Van Halen Kramer 5150. He knew he wanted to paint and assemble it himself. For this, he used a Kramer 5150 DIY kit as a base, featuring a basswood body routed for a humbucker pickup in the bridge position and for a Floyd Rose bridge, a maple neck with a maple fretboard, the characteristic banana-shaped headstock of this model, and a heel-adjustable dual-action truss rod. He was determined to build a high-quality guitar, so he included a Floyd Rose Special bridge, a CTS potentiometer, and Wilkinson EZ-locking tuners.
Components used for assembly:
Basswood body routed for a humbucker pickup in the bridge position and for a Floyd Rose bridge.
Maple neck with maple fretboard. Banana-shaped headstock. Chrome Floyd Rose Special FRTS1000 bridge. Chrome Wilkinson WJN07-EZ tuners. CTS A500 potentiometer for volume control. Seymour Duncan 50s pickup. Chrome hardware.
Material used for lacquering and finishing
Classic White nitrocellulose spray
Black Gloss nitrocellulose spray
Hot Red nitrocellulose spray
Gloss nitrocellulose spray
Tru Oil for finishing maple fretboards
Adhesive tapes of different thicknesses
Decals and logos
Here’s a video tutorial of the project and two demos so you can see the final result.
Steps for lacquering
1. Sealing of the fretboard and back of the neck and lacquering with Nitorlack nitrocellulose spray in Classic White color
2. Sealing the white lines on the body and mast. For this, we use adhesive tapes of various thicknesses to recreate those of the original model.
3. Body and neck lacquered with Nitorlack nitrocellulose spray in Hot Red color
4. Removal of adhesive tapes.
5. Black lines are lacquered with Nitorlack Black Gloss nitrocellulose spray. After adding the logos and stars, the final coat of clear gloss nitrocellulose lacquer is applied.
