# Coca-Cola Guitar



## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

I've written about this person before four years ago on the forum. My original post in 2008 was about his friend sandblasting a copy of his B.C, Rich Mockingbird guitar into a glass coffee table. For those who didn't see it the original post is here: http://www.guitarscanada.com/open-mic-non-music-related/16998-its-blast.html His nickname on the newsgroup I frequent is "Bike Painter" but his real name is Randy and he lives in San Diego, California, U.S.A. His main job is airbrushing cars and motorcycles but sometimes he does some guitar oriented work.
He posted some photos of his latest project on the newsgroup recently and here's what he says about it:

"One of my clients asked me to build a Coca-Cola themed guitar, to be given as a gift to his brother, a collector of Coke memorabilia. I bought a somewhat beat-up, black and chrome Strat copy off of Craigslist for $50 bucks, and stripped it. He gave me free reigns to do whatever I wanted to it, so here’s the end result. 

Knobs were made from the caps of Mexican-bottled Coke, bonded with epoxy, to a pair of barrel-shaped, white speed knobs. Pickups got covered with a solid chrome cover for the humbucker, and solid red covers for the single coils. Selector switch got a red tip, and Coke artwork was airbrushed on the body and headstock. Pickguard was striped in low gloss black. The whammy bar got tipped with a miniature Lucite Coke bottle, and the neck plate was engraved with the new owner’s name. Paint is catalyzed, 2-stage urethane, in Coke red, and polished like glass. 
From start to finish, including material cure times, and hunting down all the dress-up parts, it took almost 2 months. Actual billed labor time was just over 25 hrs."

I commented: "Pretty cool B.P. but I wouldn't want to use those knobs very often. )"
He replied: "Thanks Ken! They’re not as rough as they look now they’ve been coated with clear urethane. They actually feel kind of smooth. This guitar is probably going to spend most of its life as a hanging display, and won’t likely get played all that often. It’s just a revamped Yamaha EG-112. 
http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/guitars-basses/el-guitars/eg112up_pkg/?mode=model "

Here are the photos:


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Cool guitar and a nice job


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## Petey D (Sep 8, 2011)

Nice custom job, fairly subtle. I like it!


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

Excellent job. It would be a nice conversation piece for the den.


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## blam (Feb 18, 2011)

Very well done sir


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

GuitarsCanada said:


> Cool guitar and a nice job


I agree, he did a very nice job on this. I remember you saying at the get together at the Hard Rock Cafe earlier in the month that you didn't know what you were going to do with your "Pepto Bismol" pink Strat. Maybe consider a paint job like this with a Pepsi theme? ;o)


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Petey D said:


> Nice custom job, fairly subtle. I like it!


Same here. It's interesting that he chose a Yamaha for this.


Steadfastly said:


> Excellent job. It would be a nice conversation piece for the den.


Yeah, too bad it probably won't be played much. (



blam said:


> Very well done sir


I agree, I think Randy did a nice job on this.


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## bolero (Oct 11, 2006)

looks great! I like the bottle cap knobs

that body is crying out for the swirl to be painted across it though, would augment it nicely


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

That is a cool look.

I like it, though I prefer Pepsi. 8)

Pepsi Tele?


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## cheezyridr (Jun 8, 2009)

it _is_ cool lookin! 

i'm a pepsi guy too, but they don't have the same iconic thing going on with their brand. maybe a barq's rootbeer sg? or how about one of those shred-licious pointy strat style guitars done up for redbull? hahahahaha

seriously though, that coke guitar is cool. i bet people who collect coke stuff would flip for something like that.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

That's a good point cheezy.

A guy could get in a boat load of those scrap Strats and clean up refinishing them for memorabilia collectors.

Hmmmmm....


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

A bit off topic for the thread but a lady who worked next door to me when I was in Dartmouth, N.S. had a Japanese car (Datsun (Nissan), I think had her roof liner rip on her. She thought she recognized something underneath and opening up the liner a little more was a Coca-Cola sign on the underside of her roof. Now, how's that for recycling?


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## Guest (Mar 26, 2012)

That's a cool retro-mod fer sure!
The swirl would look great on the 
headstock with the bottle on a slight tilt
starting from the end of the truss groove. 
Maybe even a polar bear white, or dr. pepper.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

bolero said:


> looks great! I like the bottle cap knobs
> 
> that body is crying out for the swirl to be painted across it though, would augment it nicely


Yeah, I guess he didn't consider that. It really would have been the finishing touch.



sulphur said:


> That is a cool look.
> 
> I like it, though I prefer Pepsi. 8)
> 
> Pepsi Tele?


I'm the same way. I prefer Pepsi over Coke.



cheezyridr said:


> it _is_ cool lookin!
> 
> i'm a pepsi guy too, but they don't have the same iconic thing going on with their brand. maybe a barq's rootbeer sg? or how about one of those shred-licious pointy strat style guitars done up for redbull? hahahahaha
> 
> seriously though, that coke guitar is cool. i bet people who collect coke stuff would flip for something like that.


Same here Cheezy. I'll take Pepsi over Coke any day. Yeah, Redbull or Dr. Pepper would be pretty cool as well. It's too bad the person that's getting it is just going to hang it on the wall.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

laristotle said:


> That's a cool retro-mod fer sure!
> The swirl would look great on the
> headstock with the bottle on a slight tilt
> starting from the end of the truss groove.
> Maybe even a polar bear white, or dr. pepper.


Yeah, I'll mention the swirl idea to him but it's probably too late. I wouldn't mind having a Pepsi or Dr. Pepper guitar myself. )


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

I'm a Pepper!!!!!


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

sulphur said:


> I'm a Pepper!!!!!


I like Dr. Pepper as well. It's my second favourite. :banana:


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Just an update, I asked Randy about the "swirl" or "wave" option Bolero suggested and this was his response:

"We had talked about doing the 'Dynamic Wave' as it’s called, but neither the client nor I wanted it with the older style Coke bottles we used on the headstock and the whammy bar. We also have a smaller brown bottle with white lettering as an alternate whammy bar tip. Both bottles are bored for a snug, press fit, so the owner can swap them back and forth. Both bottles look good, but the green glass one is more size proportionate for the guitar, and favored by those that have seen both mounted on the bar."


Here's the photo of the alternate brown bottle tip on the guitar:












I have to agree that I like the green glass bottle tip better.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

*The Final Cost*

Just one more update. Randy (a.k.a. BikePainter) sent me an e-mail yesterday and told me what the final cost was for the Coca-Cola guitar. Here's what he wrote:

"Ken,
Thought you might want to see the final tally of what my client spent on that Coke guitar. I also cut off the new set of nickel strings, and put on a set of red ones before he shipped it to his brother in Ohio. 


$50.00 Guitar
$200.00 Paint matls.
$125.00 Airbrush artwork
$4.79 Speed knobs
$4.99 Coke bottles I
$3.94 Coke bottles II
$8.89 Coke guitar toy
$8.41 Red coil pickup covers I
$6.00 Red coil pickup covers II
$11.11 Chrome Humbucker cover
$10.00 Whammy bar
$3.00 Coke in 16 oz glass bottles (for the bottle caps)
$7.32 Strings / slide switch tip
$12.50 Engraving
$25.00 Case
$12.94 Red strings
$6.00 Plug jack
$10.00 Machinist
$757.50 Randy's time & labor
$27.00 Vintage guitar pick
$56.76 Photographer
$16.83 Packaging
$128.61 Insurance & postage

$1500.10 Grand total"


Edited to add that the guitar is now featured on a blogspot website: The Strat-O-Cokester


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## dcole (Oct 8, 2008)

Sweet looking guitar. Love the bottle caps on the knobs. I did the same on my guitar but used old Labatts caps that we found in the attic when we re-did the porch.


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

That is cool!


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## Steadfastly (Nov 14, 2008)

dcole said:


> Sweet looking guitar. Love the bottle caps on the knobs. I did the same on my guitar but* used old Labatts caps that we found in the attic *when we re-did the porch.


Do you actually expect us to believe you found the Labatts bottle caps? C'mon, you got them after you drank the contents, didn't ya?


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

dcole said:


> Sweet looking guitar. Love the bottle caps on the knobs. I did the same on my guitar but used old Labatts caps that we found in the attic when we re-did the porch.


Yeah, it's a shame the guy who'll be receiving the guitar doesn't play. It'll mainly be used as a wall decoration.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Budda said:


> That is cool!


Thanks Budda. I thought so as well. Randy put a lot of work into that guitar.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

*A letter from the new owner*

Okay, so *one* more e-mail from Randy. He sent me this last night:

*Frank had e-mailed me this shortly after he had talked to his brother, and the Strat-O-Cokester had arrived intact, in Ohio. 
*
"I just got off the phone with my brother, an hour long conversation about how absolutely blown away he is.
He's still overwhelmed by it all...
I floated a number of concepts past him (both in print and verbally) about a strap, a case, etc.

It arrived totally intact and he thought I'd sent him a neon sign or something until he saw the guitar case (he says it's nicer than his).

He also tells me he had given his Fender to his wife (and another to his youngest son), while he has an electric / acoustic and he bought his oldest son a nice acoustic last year.
I sent him a 300 DPI photo so he can print it and show it to other people he doesn't deal with online.

I also pointed out that he should have a business card done with the photo (he likes that idea).

And I sent him another file with a photo for his computer's desktop.
He had to get off the phone to calm down a bit and look at the rest of it all...

He also said to tell you thank you for all of your work and the blog of it going together really made him aware of all that was involved."

So Randy's got a very happy customer. BTW there's another website that has more photos including the sanding, paint and hardware he used on this guitar:
Jim's Coke Guitar Project: Jim's Coke Guitar

Sorry to keep this thread going so long but Randy wanted to keep me informed.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Well here's a bit of a surprise. I responded to Randys last e-mail which I quoted above and I said, "Thanks for the update Randy. It sounds like, to put it mildly, your client is quite happy with the results."

But his response was very unexpected. Here's what he said:

"My client was probably not quite as happy with it as his brother was after it arrived in Ohio. Frank e-mailed me this morning to tell me that his brother will never allow his sons to play the Strat-O-Cokester, nor will it be included in their inheritance. Jim plans on contacting the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to see if they’d be interested in having it, after he passes. It would be quite an honor to have it displayed in the R&RHOF."

So that's that I guess.


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## Jaybo (Jun 3, 2010)

That is really, really awesome.


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## Kenmac (Jan 24, 2007)

Jaybo said:


> That is really, really awesome.


Thanks Jaybo. He put a lot of work into that guitar.


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## GuitarsCanada (Dec 30, 2005)

Kenmac said:


> I agree, he did a very nice job on this. I remember you saying at the get together at the Hard Rock Cafe earlier in the month that you didn't know what you were going to do with your "Pepto Bismol" pink Strat. Maybe consider a paint job like this with a Pepsi theme? ;o)


That's a thought


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