Josh’s First Build - EX-1

I wanted an Explorer when I first started playing guitar. I remember playing an Epiphone ‘58 style Korina explorer in the natural yellowed colour in a huge guitar shop in Brighton, UK. I was $200 or so short and so couldn’t get it. In the following 15 years or so I lost my passion for them as I became a Strat obsessive; however I now have 9 guitars - only one of which (an acoustic) is not a Strat.

I’ve refinished one Strat recently - a 1984 MIJ Fender which had been beaten to all hell. That went pretty well after 3 attempts at finishing with Duplicolor paints - an amazing colour called Chlorophyll. Unfortunately I’m an idiot and absolutely shafted myself twice in a row by poorly preparing the wood. NEVER. AGAIN.

Having spent ages looking for that Epi Explorer I fell in love with those years ago, it turns out they’re rather hard to get hold of. Only one cure for that - make one. Being a mainly jazz/rock player I don’t fit the usual Explorer demographic, and so I’ve decided to repurpose the explorer as a jazz machine and give it a softer edge. Colour, sound...everything really.

The kit came. Looks fantastic. I upgraded the metalwork to gold, alongside the Grover locking tuners and the bone nut. The wood is all in good shape, the body is well routed and is nice and clean.

I skipped a couple of steps and forgot to take photos.

So, so far what I’ve done.

1.) Tested the neck for size, had a brief assembly and after sanding down the sides of the neck pocket (bit of a size mismatch) finally got the neck fitting nicely. Scale length up to scratch.

2.) Decided to finish the body and neck separately

3.) Set about finishing the neck. I’ll have a coloured headstock and so sanded the front of the headstock first with 120, 240 and 360 grit papers, before sanding sealing and priming using Duplicolor white primer filler. Used this on the Strat project and it’s just great.
Took all the tape off and swapped it over so the fretboard and front of headstock (now primed) are covered so I can finish the rest of the neck.

4.) Gave the neck a good sanding to a smooth finish before using Feast Watson teak oil on the neck - given a couple of coats and left to dry for a couple of days. There’s an annoying mark on the neck which I can’t quite work out, I’ll put a photo on my next post. Not sure what it’s from and it doesn’t seem to sand out.
Once the teak oil is dry (it’s staining the neck beautifully) I’ll wet sand the neck using non-odor turps and teak oil as lubricant. This should then give me the spiciest of finishes.

5.) Sanded the full body 120, 240 and 360. The wood is pretty flawless - a couple of glue lines and a fair bit of open grain to sand back but that’s to be expected. No significant marks or scratches. Painted on Feast Watson sanding sealer in two layers as the Ash body seems quite porous. Once that’s dry tomorrow I’ll give it a good sanding back with 360, ready to accept primer.


Next post I’ll put up a few pictures and stuff. Can’t wait to see how this ends up.

GAK would have been the shop in Brighton. I've been there once as well. https://www.gak.co.uk/

Sometimes there are just natural marks in the wood. You normally can't do much about those.

Ash normally needs grain filling as it is an open pored wood. Sanding sealer may do the job, but you may want to use a neutral or ash-tinted grain filler and then the sanding sealer. But the sanding sealer and primer combination may do the job. Get it smooth and flat now, and it makes the rest of the finishing so much easier.

I'd give a slight mist coat with the primer to lightly dust the finish before sanding back the sanding sealer. That makes it so much easier to see where the surface dips or has humps.

Look forward to seeing pics!