Thanks FrankenWashie, problem solving is all part of the fun.
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Thanks FrankenWashie, problem solving is all part of the fun.
Question, I’m going to do a natural finish with gloss poly on the body and satin poly on the neck. What grit sand paper would people suggest I sand the body and neck down to? Would if differ between a solid body and the hollow body kits? Thanks in advance.
probably no finer than 320 or 400, you still want the clear to have something to hang onto.
Ok, thanks Dedman. There are a couple of big scratches, but apart from them the body looks good. Shouldn’t be too much of a chore.
And the guitar has a name.
Haha, no shortage of nuggets from DarkOscar, but wrong.
Challenger?
Nugget removed to reveal its name. Wiped with some methylated spirit to get an idea of how it should look once coated.
Just need a couple of pixies or fairies, Peter Pan style, to finish it off.
Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk
Methinks it's probably a nod to the great ballad recorded by many greats.
Including Willie Nelson.
cheers, Mark.
King Casey’s on the money, one of Hoagy Carmichael standards (‘Georgia on my mind’ really the only other one I know from memory). My daughter helped me pick the name, she’d be quite happy to add some fairy’s and pixies. I thought the gold glitter was fitting.
Three separate pieces of purfling across the top. Four more pieces to go to finish the headstock.
Headstock needs a little tidy up and truss rod cover complete.
Now that's impressive!
cheers, Mark.
Stunning! Great work
Thanks guys, if you’re unfamiliar with attaching purfling it’s actually quite easy to do and it can hide some ordinary wood working skills.
Ohhh that's really pretty. Nice work.
Some nice work here, headstock looks great
Very nice work there. Will it be shiny or satin?
Thanks everyone. I’ve got satin and glossy wipe on poly. Back of the neck will be satin, I really did not like Tru Oil polished finish on the back of my ES-5V neck, I had to rub it with steel wool. Glossy on the body and headstock...I think. I’m not really sure how either will look. I’ve got some time off work next week so I might get some time to test both of the poly’s.
What do people think would be the minimum number of coats you could practically use on the neck of the guitar? I’ve put three coats of satin wipe on poly on the neck and I feel like I don’t want to put much more on. An advice based on experience?
I’m also considering sanding around the 600/800 grit and giving it one or two more coats.
Personal record keeping.
11 coats on the body.
8 coats on the neck.
First wet sand 1200 grit.
Dog hair gone.
Might need a few more coats for when you end up sacrificing some of them to the 1500 & 2000 wet sanding gods.
After wet sanding today I’ve come to the same conclusion. The wipe on poly has gone on quite thin and I’ve cut back to timber in a couple of small spots. Having said it’s a really smooth base to build up from now as I find it hard to sand the surface of these hollow bodies flat due to the nature of the grain on the surface. Neck feels good after sanding, can’t imagine I’ll do any more to it after it reaches the 2000 grit wet sand stage. One good thing I’ve learnt is the thinness of the wipe on poly seems to avoid a lumpy ridge build up I got using Tru Oil.
Thank you JohnH. The corners... The purfling needs to be pre bent a bit into shape. I don’t have a heat gun so I used boiled water to heat a small strip of purfling, quickly bend it back on itself about 180 degrees and hold it in place with one of those black paper clips with wire handles used to hold lots of papers. This formed a U shape to go over the bumps. By now I had to heat the purfling sticking out of the clip again to give it a gentle bend by hand curving around in the opposite direction. Left that overnight. Removed the clip, cut the purfling at the ‘U’ bend to fit the bump and accommodate the tight bend. It will overhang past the edge of the headstock which can be cut after attachment.
I kept the headstock off cuts, glued them in position onto a strip of wood, wrapped them in aluminium foil to prevent sticking. You can see in my photos I have a square piece of wood with dowel glued in place to fit in The turner holes. I use acetone to glue my piece of purfling into position (I also use a little acetone/purfling slurry) quickly place headstock off cut mould into position and clamp into position using G clamps against the back of the mold and edge of the square piece of wood. Leave overnight (probably not necessary) and repeat the process for the other side. Curve the piece for the round middle section and join to the two edge pieces using the mold (seen in photo). Made some molds out of dense polystyrene for the rest of the edges. Three separate pieces of purfling across the top, two pieces down each side.
Acetone melts purfling and is good for joining edges. If you don’t understand my bending process I can mock something up and post a photo.
Hope this answers your question and thanks for your interest.
That headstock looks amazing, I keep coming back to look at the pictures
I'm curious how you did the logo. Did you rout it out and fill it with a mixture of epoxy & glitter?
Hi Trv, how’s that awesome LP going?
I printed out the text and sticky taped it into position (there has got to be a better way), engraved the text using the smallest engraving bit I could find. Removed the paper/sticky tape mess and finished it off (all hand held dremel tool) copying a second print of the text. It’s got to be a little deep as you sand to remove the mess you make on top.
Carefully fill the engraving with glitter followed by a quick drying Super glue. I added more glitter after the glue to try and make sure I got enough into the cavity. This also made it easier to sand back as it turned out (super glue is super hard). Sand back until all signs of glue are gone, and there you have it. I even re-engraved and repeated a couple of spots to get a little more glitter in where it was lacking.
I got the idea researching alternative inlay materials. MOP was not going to be practical for me, dissolved purfling was not giving me satisfactory results. I saw epoxy and coloured sand used on YouTube, gave it a go with the kids white sand pit sand - goes clear. Glitter occurred to me. Tested with gold, bright gold and black glitter. Gold is what I used. Bright gold reacted with the glue and turned rose gold. Black reacted with the glue to form a solid black inlay, looks cool if that’s what you want but doesn’t look like glitter. In other words you must test first to see how it’s going to turn out.
Thanks for the interest and praise. When completed I’ll add it to the new headstock thread which i am enjoying very much.
OK, that makes sense (I think). I might give it a whirl on a bit of scrap timber. The results looks really wonderful
Personal record keeping.
22 coats on the body.
18 coats on the neck.
Wet sand 1500 grit.
As for Fretworn, two drinks is about my limit these days.
I had trouble finding a wiring diagram for a single humbucker. I’m sure those with a little more electronics background would of had no problem figuring it out. Anyhow, I contacted Tonerider and asked for a diagram and received one over night. Here is a hand copied version of what they sent. Good service.
Looks good.
Personal record keeping
32 coats on the body.
30 coats on the neck.
Aggressive 1500. Grit wet sand.
My goodness, so many people doing guitar builds at the moment.
Neck is glued on and now it’s having a little afternoon sun bake.