Fingers crossed.
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Fingers crossed.
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
Well it appears that the veneer wasn't meant to be. Unfortunately even though I was very careful with sanding back the clear coat I sanded through the veneer.
So gone with the veneer altogether to reveal the ash body underneath.
https://i.imgur.com/G7lb5HN.jpg
I am disappointed because the quilt looked fantastic but it's my first build and I'll learn from this. Anyway, onward now and need to decide what to do from here. I've also noticed this morning some fine cracks in the nitro clear on the back and near the neck pocket which I wasn't going to worry about but now I might address it depending on the route that I take.
Upside is you have some nice ash grain to work with. Looks like a few glues spots still there in a few places.
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....a bit of yellow dye, clear, black guard and done.
Yeah, that's a bugger, but the grain is nice so at least there's a silver lining?
Yep the grain is ok. I'm tossing up between dying the front like the back or stripping everything back and doing a solid colour.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Yeh there is a couple spots left because I ran out of time but I'll get the sanding of the front finished off next weekend.
Yellow and blue would be good from the perspective that I'm an Eagles supporter but I've never been a huge fan of yellow on guitars and cars etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by christodav
Not yellow in your face yellow, just enough to enhance the timber.
Can someone who has done a TL kit confirm whether the front of the guitar has a slight arm cut from the factory? Yesterday when briefly working on it I noticed that it tapers off slightly to the top corner where your arm would sit. I never noticed it before now and wasn't sure whether it was there from factory or whether it happened when I removed the veneer.
I did the same kit as you and there is no arm cut. However, I didn't remove the veneer.
So after my previous post where I removed the veneer I thought quite a bit about which way to go from there. In the end I decided that I'd have a go at a solid colour finish.
So more sanding to remove the lacquer and most of the colour from the rest of the body. Then grain filled and now ready to spray some primer.
https://i.imgur.com/Y9Rrqv3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/aobKEDB.jpg
All primed up.
https://i.imgur.com/5perMMF.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cNnpo7a.jpg
Then I start block sanding the primer to make sure it's flat before the colour. Then many many swear words when I looked down the body towards the neck pocket.....
https://i.imgur.com/KFXHf1k.jpg
Somehow I had managed to concentrate on one area too much while sanding and unintentionally create like a mini arm cut. Pulled out the calipers and measured the difference to check it wasn't my imagination.
Now I'm thinking, what do I do now given I don't have that many tools. I contemplated things like thicknessing the body (assuming I could find somewhere that had a thicknesser) and then gluing on a cap. In the end I pulled out my hand planes first to have a go at getting it close to level and see how things went. After some careful work with the planes and then a little sanding it was looking very close to level again.
I then test fitted the control plate to check the clearance for my switch. As I suspected I no longer had enough clearance. So out with the dremel and increased the depth of the cavity slightly. Neck pocket at this stage I'm hoping won't need any modification.
Time for some primer again and then sanding.
All sanded and ready for colour.
https://i.imgur.com/yzQGhHC.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/cJOMdBk.jpg
And here's the colour (it is Ford Nitro Mica).
https://i.imgur.com/HHRSZ8h.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/qFQjoKw.jpg
It's been a frustrating couple of weeks and even now, despite putting a lot of work into the body, I have a couple little blemishes on the front but I have decided to accept that. It's my first attempt and I'm doing the best I can with whilst learning along the way.
I'll let it dry and then scrape the bindings before the I spray the clear.
I may have to gently sand the body as well to remove a couple of droplets that have landed on the body. What grit do people usually use at this point?
Looking good.
Suspect you will need to lower the floor of neck pocket. Something I needed to do on both my Tele's as the action was ridiculously high and with strings sitting way above the deck & pickups.
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Cheers Waz, to be honest I'm not 100% happy with it but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and have decided I need to accept some minor defects on the first build otherwise it'll take me years and cost me a fortune. As far as the neck goes, yeh will see how things look during assembly and make some minor alterations if necessary.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
So I decided to accept the minor defects in the metallic colour coat because I didn't want to repaint again.
So bindings are now scraped.
https://i.imgur.com/ZVl3lQS.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VB7gBFu.jpg
Another lesson learnt....never again will I freely choose to build a guitar with binding. Pain in the ass and couldn't get it to look as good as I wanted on the top.
Now I'll spray the clear coat when I get a chance. Will just need to run over the body with a tack cloth or something to minimise the surface contaminants.
Have to agree with you about binding. Not a big fan and unless well prepped and taped off stain still has a way of getting in where it shouldn't thus magnifying imperfections in the stuff.
Hey Woltz, what sanding sealer did you happen to use?
So I'm too much of a perfectionist so I've removed the binding and sanded back to the primer. I'm now tossing up between thicknessing and putting a new top on the guitar (book matched piece of Yaka sitting in my shed) and going solid colour or stain without binding or cut the binding channel to fit the new binding and then stain or solid colour. The dilemma is that I don't have a router or a routing bit for doing binding channels.
Hi Bakers, I used Behlens Jet Spray Sanding Sealer and then Behlens Jet Spray Clear Lacquer both aerosol cans. They aren't cheap for a can (especially when you make an error and have to sand it all off haha) but I found they sprayed a lot nicer than the primer and colour aerosols I used from Supercheap when I went to the solid colour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bakersdozen
When I refinish this build for a 3rd time (hopefully for the final time) I'm actually contemplating whether I get a spray gun because I have an air compressor and water trap etc already and a spray gun would give me more control than an aerosol can.
I would round over the edges similar to a Strat, as done on the Swampy Tele in my signature.
Looks and feels so much better and allows you to go back to a stain finish.
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That's what I'm leaning towards Waz. To do that I'll have to thickness the body down and glue on the new top because I think the alternative of routing the roundover to remove the channel would mean quite a large roundover. I'll upload an image of the Yaka tonight.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
I did mine with 80 & 120 grit sandpaper as you are only taking off the square edges which shouldn't affect the thickness which is usually around 38mm?
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I've removed the old binding already so I have the empty binding channel that I'll need to get rid of. If the old binding was still there I could've probably done the roundover on the top of the old binding as you suggested. But it shouldn't be too much of an issue if I'm going to glue on a new top.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
Presume binding channel is about 1.5mm to 2mm deep and around 5mm high at 90 degrees to top face of body?
Removal of maple veneer probably removed 1.00mm to 1.5mm thickness from the top.
Proposed rounded edges should take more off the sides in the 90 degree plane and not reduce overall thickness. By adding another layer of veneer on top that requires lots more work and most likely fresh binding to protect edges where it sits on top of sides. Sure it could look schmick but will take more care and patience.
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Ah yep the channel is around 1-1.5 x 5ish now. If I were to do a new top, the pieces of timber I have are actually around 7-8mm thick so not a veneer. I would just have to take some timber off the top of the body first (which would actually remove the binding channel as well). Just not sure what it would look like having a roundover and the join between to timbers without binding.Quote:
Originally Posted by wazkelly
There lies the challenge.
I would use sandpaper to round over as whilst it takes longer you can keep a watchful eye over the progress being made before things have gone too far.
Check out my MMB4 as that had very square edges to begin with.
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The binding channel to deal with
https://i.imgur.com/pbIL0iJ.jpg
And the piece of Yaka that I have.
http://i.imgur.com/DVlO5ab.jpg
Yeah, can understand why you want to use that as a top.
Square edges may look best as side on that will look like an artificial binding.
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Whoa! That’s a ripper! NSFW wood porn dude.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woltz
though if it were me, I would be looking to use the foreground version but reverse the direction of the body, as then the dark grain structure would kind of carry through to the taper of the neck. I may however be totally overthinking that.
Thats nice
I'm going to use it on my semi-scratch tele build which is going to be a double f thinline with no pickguard. The grain is too good to cover up. But it'll be a tough decision on which orientation to go.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankenWashie
If only my guitar playing was a good as the grain I'd be stoked haha.Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam Barnes
Update time after a long break over christmas and new year. I decided to rebind the guitar, so I ordered some White Pearl binding and got it glued on.
https://i.imgur.com/sZwSGJc.jpg
I then sanded it down level with the body and removed the rest of the blue paint as I'd changed my mind about colour.
Then primed it (for like the 3rd time, this build is testing my patience).
https://i.imgur.com/VicArH1.jpg
I then sprayed the colour but ended up with some hairs in it so rubbed it back and sprayed again.
Here it is after spraying the colour.
https://i.imgur.com/zB1bPlb.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DmYRga8.jpg
I then removed the tape off the binding. This weekend I'll scrape the bindings to clean up a little bit of paint that got on them and then I'll spray the clear (hopefully for the final time, fingers crossed).
Yeah, we've all been there with finishes. Black is my curse, an EXA-1 where the dingotone didn't behave and a Black LP that sits unfinished in its box. Mocking me.
On the plus side, red guitars play faster! ;)
Yep and I can't let it go because then I feel like I wasted money if it's not perfect haha. There are two things that I've decided I need if I was doing lots of builds. A really clean booth to spray in and a spray gun instead of aerosols.Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankenWashie
Well the clear is sprayed. There are a couple little blemishes but unless I discover something more major when I inspect it after it has dried I'm just going to have to make peace with the fact it's not perfect. Anyway here are a couple of photos.
https://i.imgur.com/mBXM5LI.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VzuPDD7.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ClyEv0x.jpg
And a close up of the binding that I put on there after I removed the factory plain white binding.
https://i.imgur.com/4jmHZWz.jpg
I'll give it a week to dry and then I'll wet sand and polish to remove the orange peel. Fingers crossed I don't sand through the clear.
Looks pretty good! Amazing what a cut and polish will do to reduce the look of little errors. Binding looks cool, nice to see something a little different.
This thread has been a real roller coaster ride; all 3 iterations of this guitar have been stunning. That pearl binding looks great. Good luck with the sand & polish!
I have use 800 to sand off drops and drips. I don't do the whole body, just the drip itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Woltz
Cut a long thin strip of 800, maybe 6-8 cm long but only as wide as the drip, or a little less.
To sand the drip off, lay the strip over the drip, and hold it down and in place with a little finger pressure, and while maintaining that pressure, pull the strip through carefully. You should be able to sand 'just the drip' and not anything around it....
Best to practice a bit on some scrap first and get your pressure and 'steering' right.
I'm a bit late to the party, and was loving the blue !!
That new binding looks beautiful !
I went with that binding because I have a white pearl pickguard for it as well. Hopefully those elements of white pearl combined with the chrome hardware and the Emporer Red Pearl paint it'll come out nice. Probably not GOTM but a reasonable first effort after the setbacks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonic Mountain
Haha trv you're telling me. I thought about getting a waterslide headstock decal saying "Patience" because it has certainly tested mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by trv
Thanks wcieslik. I'll definitely keep that in mind for when I do a black strat for my wife at some point. Oh and the blue was just a can from SCA.Quote:
Originally Posted by wcieslik
Hi Woltz, Epic build. I feel your pain as I had one that took me all last year to do.... and stuff up, redo, more stuff ups, etc.
Hey what was the blue dye/stain you used on the original maple? I loved that finish!! I'm about to start on a flame maple Thinline and that was one of my choices of colour.
Cheers
Jeff
Hi Jeff,Quote:
Originally Posted by djefster
The first version I did Ebony Timbermate to highlight the grain then sanded back (very carefully on the veneer), then Angelus Blue (040) Leather Dye to stain. Then I sprayed with sanding sealer (Behlen Jey Spray Sanding Sealer) and sanded to get it level before I sprayed the nitro clear (Behlen Jet Spray Clear Lacquer). The spot where I made the error was I should've done more coats/thicker coats of the Sanding Sealer and then block sanded more to be sure it was flat before I sprayed the clear coat.
Are you in Australia? I got the leather dye off ebay (although also available from Adelaide Leather & Saddery Supplies) and the nitro aerosols from guitarAust.
Thanks Woltz. Yes, I'm in Oz.
I'll check out the dye. The one I'm trying just isn't doing it for me!!
This guy goes through a large number of the Angelus Leather Dye colours so you can see what they look like.Quote:
Originally Posted by djefster
https://www.youtube.com/user/thebigdguitars