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while I will admit this looks great so far and it is looking to be an epic LP, after doing a fair few guitars now I will say orbital sander is not a good idea, a hand sanding using 3 different grades of wet/dry while it is a little bit more work is the best way to go, sanding with a block or clip in palm sander shouldn't take more than half an hour for each grade of paper, I personally use 400, 800 and 1200 for the wood before stain/lacquer then I move to a 1200 and 2000 for final sanding before polishing LIGHTLY skimming the finish with a 2000 grit paper soaked overnight in soap water it has a extremely reduced chance of scratching the finish while taking off the layer of cured top coat lacquer 7 - 10 days after laying final coat
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Looking great Dan - that blue will really pop with some high gloss!
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Just to clarify I only machine sand at the very start of prep sanding. I still go through the grits hand sanding. The orbital is only used to take out deep scratches. The sander I have is a variable speed and I only use it at low speeds, I don't get very aggressive with it.
You have me worried now, with you experienced guys advising against using an orbital sander. Why is using one a bad idea?
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Hi Danmade, in order to remove scratches you need to sand with the grain. If you sand against the grain, you merely make more scratches.......since you have used a dark colour to POP the grain, the chances are that this dark colour is also going to POP your scratches if you didnt remove these later with your sanding with the grain.
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Yes looking sweet Dan. Love the effect first pitbull build I've seen with this look. Look forward to finished pics
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Always sand with the grain man, especially if staining and not doing a solid colour
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Beautiful. Looking really great.
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Wow amazing colour! It doesn't look spalted at all though, but I really love flamed maples!
Also, is it just me or are there some tiny little pits at the bottom of the guitar's top?
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Yes they are pits you can see. I had to fill some bigger pits and cracks in the thin Spalted veneer. That's just the nature of highly figured veneers I suppose. Sounds worse than it was .
I didn't grain fill the top, I was worried about sanding through the thin veneer. So I am going to try a technique of wet sanding the oil after a few coats have built up to act as a grain filler. I've done 1 wet sand coat today and I can all ready see a lot of the low spots levelling out. I will put a few more coats on to build it up again, then I will wet sand and rub the slurry into the grain and low spots.
The Spalted effect is more noticeable in person. The flame stands out in the photos and the Spalted figure kind of disappears.
As for progress I've cut the headstock shape, just the standard LP shape. Levelled and dressed the frets. And stained the headstock and neck.
Tomorrow ill start some coats of oil on the neck and keep adding coats to the body.
