Dimartini python snakeskin project guitar completed

[JBall008]

Fan FreakinTastic!

Looks great; Well done!

[Johnnyryche]

WOW! That come out awesome, Brian! Congrats. Nice choice on the Custom 5 also.

[MikeE]

The Dimartini snakeskin is probably my favorite replica guitar and this one looks unreal. Nice job

[dinky kustom]

that looks so good.top job

[StukaJU87]

That came out very nice. I love it.

[jblicharz]

Amazing!

[slash]

Looks Great!!!

[Tune_Up]

Where did you get that big piece of snakeskin from?

[m2pmd70]

Where did you get that big piece of snakeskin from?

A big snake?

I was expecting a snake paint job. That came out awesome! WTG.

[bsteff666]

Thanks for the compliments guys.

I would love to take credit for the great job of applying the snakeskin.....but I can't.
I know a guy that deals with this stuff....so I left the application of the skin to the body & headstock to him. I assembled & set up the guitar & did some fine tuning with the snakeskin (getting the scales to lay down along some of the contours...cutting & adjusting for the hardware..etc.)

The way that it was done though......First I hit the areas that would be exposed (tremelo cavity & edge of the control cavity) with color tone stain to make them black.

Then the skin was just glued to the body with a very light but even coat of glue.
The top is all one piece. The back is all one piece. The edge the whole way around the guitar is for the most part just two continuous strips. The difficult part is joining the seams to make the whole thing look seamless. This is done by cutting around the scales on the snakeskin. The top & bottom pieces of skin are cut so that they barely rollover the edges of the body...leaving a "jagged" pattern of scales. When the side strips are applied...the skin is cut in a jagged pattern also...so that the scales on the side strips meet up with the scales on the top & bottom pieces of skin. They end up fitting together almost like pieces of a puzzle.

Then 3 or 4 coats of clear lacquer were sprayed to seal the skin. The skin really soaks the lacquer up. You need a few coats to keep the scales from popping up too much.
The scales on the snakeskin are only really attatched on one side of each scale to base of the hide. (Does that make sense?) Thus if you rub your hand across the skin in one direction...it is very smooth...but if you rub your hand across the skin in the other direction...you are going against the grain of the snakeskin & the scales will be coming up & it will feel very rough & you will risk bending up & possibly damaging the scales. Know what I mean? So you have to get those scales to keep from lifting up on the one side....and that's what the lacquer does.

Some trouble spots...like where your arm rubs...top of the horns of the cutaways...require a little glue under some of the scales...just gluing down the stubborn ones that want to pop up.

This requires a lot of work, but the end result is worth it.