Matt's WL-1 build

[Kick]

That gloss is superb! And bummer of the neck but you'll find a solution ;_

[Drummerdude]

Wow that is coming along great.. use the end in sight.. nothing like putting hardware on knowing that it will soon be complete. Can't wait to see and hear it..

[mjg]

Thanks guys,

Did a bit more sanding today. The back is now completely smooth with no orange peel, with 1200 grit. That took an hour and a half just to finish that off. Slow going!

I've also done a few coats of stain to fix up the neck, it's getting there.

Spending the rest of the week at the mother in laws place in Brisbane, so no more guitar this week. But at least it will be warm.

[wazkelly]

Spending the rest of the week at the mother in laws place in Brisbane, so no more guitar this week. But at least it will be warm.

Compared to Canberra anywhere is warmer, except for just an hour up the road at Goulburn which was -10 degrees C a couple of days ago. Still need to pack some warm stuff as we have got down to 6 & 7 a few times in the past week or so. Ooops, that's probably what some of your day time maximums are at the moment so you will be easy to spot being one of the few folk wearing shorts and a T-shirt haha.

[mjg]

I am sitting here in shorts and tshirt at the moment.

[wazkelly]

Looks like something's missing? Where's the thongs and stubby of the local brew?

[mjg]

Well, we were staying with the mother in law, so more likely to be cheap red wine than beer. The kid even had a swim in the ocean, we had to pull him out after 15 minutes though, as he was turning blue.

Progress on the guitar front. I've finished sanding off all the orange peel, down to 1200 grit. That took a lot longer than I thought it would. About 7 hours or so of sanding. The edges took longer than the front and back, which surprised me.

Today I did the whole guitar down to 1500 grit, that was less than 3 hours, so at least things are speeding up with subsequent passes.

Had a moment of idiocy (I've lost count of those by now). I was getting bored with sanding off orange peel, so wanted to do something else to make it feel like progress was happening. I test fitted the pickups, back cover and the socket. Everything looked really good. "Why don't I mark out some of the drill holes now?" I thought to myself. So I used a centre punch to mark some, and drilled some holes. Awesome, progress made. Back to sanding.

Of course, the next time I sanded close to those holes, the water seeped in, and the paint started to raise up as the wood grain underneath absorbed the water. Craaaapppppp.... Luckily the first ones to swell up are going to be under the back cover. I've since dropped some thin glue into all the holes I drilled, which has stopped the rest of them taking on water.

So, yet another valuable lesson learned. :-)

Tomorrow I may have time to do the 2000 grit sanding.

Also recently have gone back to paid employment. Good for the bank balance, but seriously messing with guitar building time. :-(

[wazkelly]

I think we have all learned that wet sanding into freshly drilled holes lesson at some point. Mine was on the 1st build and now i either pre-drill before applying finish or drill after final polish which has its risks with potential for scratches whilst lining things up.

[mjg]

A few progress shots.

This is going from 6000 to 8000 grit.



And a few shots of 8000 grit done. There are a few patches that I might go back to next weekend, before starting on the 12000. You can see that the water has leaked into the wood around the back trem cavity. That will be covered by the plate, so not too worried. There is also some warping around the smaller control cavity on the back, which looks a bit crap, but I can live with it. I thought that the paint was pretty well sealed around those areas, but obviously there were some small holes that the moisture can get through.

[Dedman]

beautiful finish MJG!