I've always thought that black wahs are boring - almost every wah out there is black. So when I got a 70's Thomas Organ wah about a month or two ago that was pretty beat up, I decided to refinish it in metallic purple. It came out okay, but not perfect. But I loved doing it, so I got my old crybaby that I had gutted and turned into an expression pedal and painted that one metallic blue. That came out better than the TO wah. Even though I don't have everything down pat yet, I'm loving doing it and they look killer.
So I went on CL looking for broken wahs and I found these for $25 bucks - a 90's reissue Colorsound wah and a vintage Jen Wah Baby:
Talk about a great deal! Since I've already got 3 wahs (Clyde Deluxe, the 70's TO, and a musonic kit is coming from Joe Gagan to be put in that blue enclosure) I'm going to paint the wah baby just to get better at them and give it to a friend. But I've loved the Colorsound wah enclosure ever since I first saw one, so I'm keeping that for myself. I don't have anything to put in it yet but I'll probably hit up Joe Gagan and see what he can do for that sick ass enclosure.
I'm not charging anybody anything yet as I can't get them perfect enough to feel comfortable taking money for one, but eventually I think I'll offer my wah refinishing services to my friends and charge enough to cover my expenses plus maybe enough to buy a 12 pack to get me through the process. I don't want to take orders on them because then I'd actually have to charge quite a bit. It's a ****ING PAIN IN THE ASS to get the powdercoating off these pedals. I hand sanded the first one and that took forever, but I used a dremel and a 60 grit sanding wheel for the second one and... it still took a few hours just to get to the bare metal. But IMO there's nothing cooler than a nice metallic color on a wah pedal. So I think I'll just do them for friend and myself and build up a nice collection of wah pedals.
