Mosrite Ventures Mk II: The Paint is On!

Well today I got the painting finished on the Johnny Ramone Mosrite Ventures Mk II (fingers crossed!!). In the end I put 4 coats of primer on there with a gentle sanding of 800 grit in between each. It would have only been 3 coats, but on the 3rd coat a mosquito got stuck in the primer and had to be extricated. Here's how she looked with the primer dry and ready for gloss.

With the body nice and clean and smooth after the primer, I was a tad hesitant to go ahead with the gloss. Nothing like taking a beautiful surface and marring it with some spray fail like drops of paint, insects or dust. Anyway, I had to bite the bullet sometime! And so it came to pass that, after two coats of gloss acrylic, with absolutely zero mishaps (phew!), the body came to look as it does now.

Do the photos really look any different?? Well, believe me they are ;). Two perfect coats of acrylic gloss white and now ready for clear coats. Yet another chance to mar the surface, but a chance which I'm going to have to take! I'm going to let the gloss acrylic cure for about a week before attempting clear coats to avoid any issues with cracking and so on.

Anyway, she's really coming together now. The neck has 8 coats of Tru-Oil and is feeling nice and smooth. Two more coats with 2000 grit wet sanding in-between and I'll call that done. Stay tuned punk rockers!!

Mosrite Ventures Mk II: Mock Up and Test Fit

Well the mock build on the Johnny Ramone Mosrite is done. With a nice tight neck pocket, everything fit together like a dream with absolutely no wiggle room at all. What a quality kit this is turning out to be!

With the neck bolted into position, the E strings sit perfectly up the neck. No adjustment necessary.

That's all there is to report campers! When everything goes so smoothly, and fits together so damn easily, the news is often fairly bland. So it is this day! So without further ado, it's on to the finishing proper for this punk rock beast.

First job - sanding to 600 grit. Gabba Gabba Hey!

Mosrite Ventures Mk II: Hey Ho Let's Go!!

Guess what I found on my doorstep this morning? The most exciting thing to grace it for quite a while. It's my newest guitar kit from Pitbull Guitars: The Mosrite Ventures Mark II as made famous by the one and only, the incomparable punk rock legend, Johnny Ramone!

I'm so excited! I've wanted one of these for years and years, and I've waited patiently for the couple of months it took for this special order kit to arrive. But, I gotta tell you, it was SO worth the wait. This thing is amazing!

Out of the box, the kit is a wonder to behold. The body shape is spot on - exactly to spec - with that under-hanging larger horn and the misshapen back section that made the Ventures Mk II famous. The headstock also sports an exact replica of the immediately recognizable Mosrite "M" shape, and even the Zero'th fret has been included. Unbelievable!!

The body is 3-piece basswood with no obvious glue or machining marks. The neck pocket is quite long compared to your normal Tele or Strat, and that should mean a good transfer of vibration from the neck to the body. The neck meanwhile is a nice piece of Rock Maple with a Rosewood fretboard. It's a 22-fret setup with a scale length of 626mm measured from the middle of the 0th fret to the middle of the 12th. The profile of the neck is super thin so it should be really nice for me and my small hands to play!

All in all I couldn't be happier with the kit. I'm so happy in fact, that as soon as I opened the box I contacted Adam from Pitbull again to order another one; this time in Ash.

I'm going to finish this kit in traditional Johnny Ramone style - white, with a Dimarzio FS-1 in the bridge position. Reportedly, Johnny never played the neck pickup at all (in the end he even had the switch taken out) so I probably wont worry too much about replacing this one.

I'm so damn excited!! Time to get sanding...