Victor Baker Paint Job for Fender Strat

I purchased a 2008 Fender Billy Corgan Stratocaster in satin nitro Olympic White in the summer of 2008. While I absolutely loved the sound and feel of the guitar, I just couldn't convince myself that I was happy with it's paint job. The flat Olypmic White finish just wasn't for me. I researches places and people that could refinish my guitar, and came across paintmyaxe.net, run by master guitar builder Victor Baker. He builds beautiful instruments by the name Victor Baker Guitars, and started a guitar finishing/re-finishing offshoot called paintmyaxe.net. After completing my research I decided to invest my money to have him refinish my guitar in pewter metallic, and it turned out to be one of the best investments I ever made. Victor paints unfinished guitar bodies that are ready to go, but he was also more than willing to take apart my Strat, strip the old paint job, apply the new one, and put it all back together. He did this with amazing care and precision, and my guitar sounds, feels and plays EXACTLY like it did before; it just looks 100 times better. He must take some serious measurements, because I would have never thought it was ever taken apart. As for the finish itself, it's amazing: much better than anything I've ever seen on a stock instrument (more on that below).

10/10 for not just offering master-quality paint services, but also disassembly, paint removal, and reassembly, all to the customers exacting specifications. He puts in the extra mile and it shows.

The guitar sounds just as good as it ever did; like I said before, I could never tell that it had ever been taken apart. After all, Victor builds some of the nicest custom guitars I've ever seen, so this came as no surprise. He knows what he's doing. The paint is applied very very thin, and the original color was stripped, so the tone of the wood still shines through and is excellent.

10/10 for doing everything to make the guitar sound as good as it ever did.

The new finish surpasses all of my expectations and anything I've ever seen more. It blows away any stock guitar I've ever seen before, and I always thought my chrome silver American Fat Strat looked damn good. The grain of the metallic finish gives it an incredible depth and sparkle, and the clear cote really helps it shine. Every paint job he does for a customer is custom; he mixes it himself and really knows how to create some exquisit colors. It's rock hard too, so I expect it to hold up very well.

10/10 for surpassing my highest expectations and being the nicest looking finish I've ever laid eyes on in person. It shows that it was done by a master of the craft.

I just got it back today, so it's hard to guage this. It cured for a while in Victor's shop, but he said to try to take it easy on the guitar for the next month because it will continue to harden. It's already harder than the original nitro satin finish, so I'm sure this thing will be able to take a beating.

I talked to Victor through email both before and after the process, and even talked to him in person twice. He's a really cool and helpful guy, and it was a pleasure doing business with him. Whenever I'd shoot him an email, I'd have a response early the next morning.

10/10 for being quick to respond and a nice dude

In my 7 years of playing, I've never been happier with a guitar, whether it's one I own or a dream guitar in a store. Victor Baker helped make my near-perfect guitar perfect.

Also, I've got $540 down as the price, but note that the includes the cost of takings the guitar apart, stripping it, paintings it, and putting it back together. The paint job by itself was about half of the total price, I believe.