Ducklet's STF-1

[Ducklets]

So, went looking for paint ideas, and found some dark green glittery stuff. Bought that, some undercoat, and clear. Current plan is a dragon theme, with a head carving on the end of neck. I have some tung oil left over from my fiddle build. that will go on the neck and fingerboard.
Plan:
1 Test paint, how it interacts with the tung oil. How to get the best smooth finish over the textured glitter finish.
2. basic shaping of head. sanding
3. tung oil on neck, mask that.
4. base coat on body, head
5. Black paint in trem cavity of body, under pickguard.
6. masking. including pick-guard area. Anticipating moderately thick clear coat because of textured paint.
7. color paint.
8. clear coats to basic smooth finish
9. detail carving.
10. detail painting.
11. clear finish.
12. unmask.
13. shielding.
14. Assembly.
thinking of putting the decal on the pick-guard. will mean disassembly, and clear finish on the guard.

[Ducklets]

Received Kit quickly, it's nice. But I have a volume knob on one of the Tone pots. other than that, it seems great.

[wazkelly]

Welcome Ducklets.

Current price for that kit is extremely good value. Interesting plans and hope it all comes together just fine for you.

Cheers, Waz

[Andy40]

Welcome to the forum Ducklets. Any chance of a piccy of the kit?

[Ducklets]

Kit partial assembly


Controls. Two volume knobs. The middle knob is on a pot with a capacitor, so it definately is supposed to be a Tone knob


Test of oil. will finish this, then test Primer and paint over it.

[Ducklets]

On the Controls image, you can see the edge of the jack cutout thru the screw hole. I'll see if i can adjust the jack position, and do some undercut carving, to give the screw more purchase. Also, the tuner holes seem over-large, 10.3mm diameter, and the pegs are 9.6mm dia. they rattle around a bit.

[Ducklets]

Spent today madly doing Canadian thanksgiving... but finished rounding the fret ends, and started the test paints

[Ducklets]

Undercut the jack cutout with my dremel. The wood separating the spring compartment from the bridge pickup is only about 3mm thick, and they've tried drilling a 12mm hole for the ground wire. Understandably, it's a mess. perhaps a 3-4mm hole would be more sensible?
Started sanding the body.

[Ducklets]

Did a lot of sanding, body and neck (minus fingerboard) did some test painting, discovered (after 7 layers) that the glitter paint requires a coloured undercoat. So off to Bunnings. Currently the paint is looking like 2 white undercoats, 2 coats of forest green, 7 or so layers of glitter, multiple layers of clear (till gloss)

[Ducklets]

Ok, it seems my blade switch is faulty, both neck and mid pickups responding in the 1st switch position (just the neck tone tho).

Getting my test carving and paint runs near right, learning what works as I go.

Put in some silver circles roughly where the tuner posts will be. I'm going to cut the notches deeper on the final design of the head. Was working on some scale patterns for the body, obviously the silver doesn't work. Was considering writing the idea off, but tried using the template with glitter, and it looks good. Going to have to make a much better template, and give some serious thought to what happens near the edges of the body.
The photos don't do the glitter justice, and was pretty happy with how the masking came out. The final design will have a iris painted on.