Drew's ES-5V first (ish) build

[wazkelly]

Hi Drew, I can help with cutting some of the costs.....

You only need 3oz bottle of Tru Oil.....8oz is overkill and contains enough to do 5 guitars whilst the small bottle usually does me fine for 40+ coats on one guitar or about 20+ on 2 being built and finished at the same time. Once opened, shelf life is an issue as it will eventually start to harden and go off, even when left upside down with just a small pin prick hole in the foil as it states on the instructions.

If doing a nudie natural finish you could also skip any grain filling too. Timber mate over here is about $10 for a small container that would cover well over 20 or maybe even 50 guitars.

Have never used sanding sealer and don't see the point when using Tru Oil as it does that job as you apply more layers and then do the occasional wet sanding too.

For the set neck kits if you ordered tight bond from PBG it only comes in a very small quantity, about 10ml from memory so again, you don't need a large bottle of that stuff either unless you plan many more builds.

And with the sanding, have to agree that on a hollow body it shouldn't need as much effort as a solid body which tend to arrive rough as due to lots of machine marks that need to be sanded off.

Hopes this help to clarify a few ways to cut costs and still produce something decent.

[blinddrew]

Thanks Waz, much appreciated. I shall let you and Simon duke it on the relative values of sanding sealer. PBG can't ship the neck glue overseas so I'll be buying the smallest container I can find for that.
To be fair, none of it is expensive on its own, it all just adds up!
I do have a mixing project to finish as well so that should keep me busy until another couple of pay days roll around. It's also still cold and wet up here so not great weather to be standing in the garage...

[Simon Barden]

Waz has done a lot more Tru-Oil guitars than I have, but on my ES-1, I've used a full 8oz bottle. OK, I did knock it over and lost about 1/8th of the contents, and I've re-done the headstock a few times which has wasted some coats but I do feel that on your first build with it, with a big bodied guitar (probably twice the surface area of a Tele), you'll use more than one 3oz bottle. And it does sink into the wood, so I do feel that the sealer/filler helps get a smoother finish to start with.

[wazkelly]

Fair comments Drew & Simon. Weather differences may play a part too when compared to our hotter and drier climate.

[blinddrew]

Bonza, thanks folks. I shall leave my virtual basket unaltered.

P.s. bit of gentle work with a scraper seems to have removed that glue smear, plus a very much thinner one on the rear. Guess I need to do a damp cloth test to see how much has soaked into the wood?

[Simon Barden]

Yes. Use white spirit, turps or meths rather than water, as those don't raise the grain (meths evaporates more quickly so I use turps if available, if not, then white spirit). It's not always easy to spot glue smears with the naked eye, so best to check all over, as they haven't been that careful when assembling your body. It's not a typical problem on the ply kits and most often affects the ones with veneer tops (though they have got better on that recently). But it's obviously binding related, so have a good look round all the edges just to check they haven't been as careless with the edge bindings as with the F-hole bindings.

[blinddrew]

Will do

[blinddrew]

Had a look at the headstock today as the overall shape had been bugging me a bit. It's quite a long way off symetrical

but taking off the shaded areas should help. The peak and flourishes either side are particularly wonky so I'm thinking of trimming it all back to a single wave similar to the old Hofner style headstocks.

[blinddrew]

Right, hoping to make a bit of a start on this tomorrow. My plan of approach is as follows:
Body:
Damp with turps to check for any remaining glue marks. Hope there aren't any, remove if I can.
Let dry.
Damp with water to raise fibres then sand with 240 to ready for oiling.
Neck:
Measure, re-mark, and cut the headstock. Realise I've made a mistake. Cry a little bit.
Sand the heel of the neck so that it's firm fit but goes in all the way.
Check the alignment and fret board height and angle. Probably cry a little bit more.
Then follow the instructions in the sorting-out-your-neck thread.

That will probably be more than enough to go on with but, subsequently, next steps will be to start working down through the grades on the neck and then start on the oiling according to the oiling-your-guitar thread.

Does that sound about right?

[FrankenWashie]

Make sure you have tissues on hand. For the love of God don’t make the mistake of dabbing at your tears with a turps soaked rag.😁👍🏾