First build: secret model #6 - single cutaway guitar

Took me a while but... It's ready!
I had a bit of a bad experience with the timbermate wood filler - it was very hard to sand and took forever. I went for the mahogany coloured filler, so it was harder to distinguish between what was wood and what was filler, but it's done now.

I put in a couple of coats of cabot water based poly, sanding with maroon scotch Brite between coats. Waited about 10 days after the last coat to cure, then level sanded with 800+1200 grit, then white scotch Brite. Job wasn't perfect in the top, I had a few poly runs in the back, but decided to keep those as is. I ended with some Meguiar's polish compound and then scratch remover with some foam pads in a drill.

I am in love with the results. Sure, there are imperfections and I think the top could have turned out better, but overall I'm very proud. I think there are some sharp spots on my tailpiece because I have broken some strings at the ball end, but other than that, it's great.

I haven't played it really loud just yet, but will do so this weekend, so I am looking forward to that. Still haven't purchased the pickups for it, so I installed the ones from the kit. Will try and get some more pictures and maybe a video this weekend.Attachment 45290

WOW. Well done! That looks very nice. Great shine as well. You should be really happy with it.

Out of interest, did you use the good kit strings? I have not heard of the tailpiece needing to be filed before!

Really impressed with the results you got! I am thinking of doing something similar. I have a good water based stain and after watching yours, am a bit more confident that it could work well, and that maybe I can avoid using the alcohol dyes.

What pickups are you going to use? It looks great with the chrome covers. Will you use those? I thought just a bit about swapping out the magnets. I looked at the resistance and inductance of mine and concluded that they'd be a bit hot for my tastes...although I haven't actually heard them--which I understand may be important ;-) Hope you'll share about how it sounds!

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Really impressed with the results you got! I am thinking of doing something similar. I have a good water based stain and after watching yours, am a bit more confident that it could work well, and that maybe I can avoid using the alcohol dyes.

What pickups are you going to use? It looks great with the chrome covers. Will you use those? I thought just a bit about swapping out the magnets. I looked at the resistance and inductance of mine and concluded that they'd be a bit hot for my tastes...although I haven't actually heard them--which I understand may be important ;-) Hope you'll share about how it sounds!

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I wired the kit pickups in and have actually enjoyed them. They are a bit hotter than I would want, but they did surprise me. I ended up ordering a custom PAF-like set from Mr Fabulous (the LIX set with alnico 3 in the neck and 2 in the bridge), but that's still a couple of days away. Hopefully I'll get to play it loud next weekend

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Originally Posted by Trevor Davies

WOW. Well done! That looks very nice. Great shine as well. You should be really happy with it.

Out of interest, did you use the good kit strings? I have not heard of the tailpiece needing to be filed before!

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Yeah, both the good strings and a new set of daddarios. I think I fixed it though, just had to file inside the tailpiece a little bit to get rid of what I felt like was a sharp corner. Seems fine now

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Originally Posted by brandfbr

Yeah, both the good strings and a new set of daddarios. I think I fixed it though, just had to file inside the tailpiece a little bit to get rid of what I felt like was a sharp corner. Seems fine now

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I had to do a bit of that on the TOM bridge that came with my similar kit. In my case the one of the posts did not quite fit through the hole in the bridge. Easily fixable with a little emery cloth. I have a feeling that they may have gotten a little aggressive with the chroming process at the factory. That might also result in sharp spots. I have also had the occasional threaded part that needed re-tapping even on pretty high quality bridges.