Good work Simon.
How do you do your bevelling? Scrape, sand or file?
A bit of each?
Printable View
Good work Simon.
How do you do your bevelling? Scrape, sand or file?
A bit of each?
I filed, medium and fine files, then sanded using a small block of wood as a backing. I was planning to try a router with a bevelled bit, but I never got round to making a suitable template. I would also have probably needed to make the template slightly oversize to allow for the material almost certainly not sitting right on the very smallest part of the bevelled bit.
And the scratchplate is safely stored inside, wrapped in paper towel inside a plastic bag to prevent scratching.
I don't know if I dreamt it, but I'm pretty sure you can get a 45 degree follow bit for the Dremel to use with the table attachment. Or angling the table at 45 and going carefully with the drum sanding attachment.
Wish there were more mini router bit options for the Dremel, I know some exist but they are freaking expensive ..
Well I've now got a few offcuts of the material, so I'll spend some time playing about when I have the chance. I need to work out how to cut nice straight lines in pickup cutouts for my next two pickguard creations.
Though on Monday I'm off down to Cornwall for a week, as crew on a small 24' yacht for Falmouth Week. Covid means it's just the yacht racing this year, no big festival in the town, which is a shame. So today will hopefully be final clear coat spray time for several guitars, allowing a weeks drying whilst I'm away. But it really is a bit on the hot side to spray.
You didn't dream it.
Some of my Dremel bits. I use the 45 pattern follower for bevels, as the rounding bit is too subtle on 2-3mm plastics:
Attachment 36917
For the 45 bit to work you need a wooden template for it to follow (3-4mm ply is fine) as there's no bearing so it'll melt plastic almost instantly. And the template needs to be on the back of the pickguard/plastic with the 'good' side face down.
Attachment 36918
Works pretty well as long as you're willing and/or have the time to make a template even for one-offs.
Very cool, thanks Weirdy
I've got some of those bits. So it's going to be template making time.
If you don't have a router, dremel or sanding drums; it can be done with a DIY scraping tool.
I've posted this pic before relative to scraping binding, but it can also be used for bevelling pickguards.
You can adjust the blade to whatever angle you want your bevel and go along the edge with the dowel. I recommend clamping the p/g to the edge of your bench or work area.
It does take time, but compared to making jigs and templates and so on, it's probably not much difference (unless you're doing mass replication). Also, once you get a rhythm going it's not bad and kind of therapeutic. With a good sharp blade, you'd be surprised just how quickly the material peels off.
Note: a safety razor blade is fine for binding, but I recommend a Stanley knife blade for pickguards.
Attachment 36920
Well, got up to about 33°C today, so another warm one. A few flaws kept appearing that needed sanding back during spraying, but at least it didn't take the lacquer too long to dry hard enough to do some rough sanding. But I was getting into the flow by the end of the afternoon, so I've resprayed the EX-1 white (again) as my decals part-peeled off when I removed some masking tape (grrrr) but at leats it's now a uniform white again.
And more importantly, I've finished the clear coating on the GSJ and GSM.
Attachment 36926
I should have been at this point weeks ago, but things conspired against me. But they are now done, so need to hang and cure for a couple of weeks at least. They are both very similar colours, the GSM just looks a bit darker because it's further away from the garage side door and the light. So I can relax a bit and then I've got the three other guitars to concentrate on now when I get back from sailing.
Looking great! Love how they turned out!
Those colors are fantastic
Looking spot on Simon. Enjoy the sailing!
The GSJ is almost finished. This was taken at 10am this morning. Going out visiting has stopped final stringing up, testing and setting up (still out ATM).
Attachment 37162
I’m going to finesse the pickguard shape and make a 3-ply truss rod cover as the 1-ply black one is a bit uninteresting. The finish is OK, not perfect, a few small flaws but not bad.
Looking absolutely stunning Simon !Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Looks nice Simon. I agree that a 3-ply TR cover would really stand out better.
Is your logo a decal or an inlay? I can't remember.
Also, that 5 string bass in the background looks interesting. Have we seen that one before?
I'm pretty sure I haven't, and I've been there! Mind you I'm sure I've only seen a smallish subset of Simon's guitars.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
I noticed the 5er also.
Not sure what you mean by flaws... It looks like EXACTLY the finish I have in my mind's eye of the ideal SG finish. Agree about the truss-rod cover. I am pretty sure I remember being intimidated when Simon was showing how he made the logo inlay ;-)
I gave up on the abalone disks as even with stacked layers of the thin sheet, I couldn’t get a smooth surface without pits as the thin material must have come away when sanding. So I swapped to using a nice and thin pearlescent silver self-adhesive vinyl film, that I cut as a circle, and stuck that on a flat headstock surface. Then a self-made laser printed decal in black on top and then just layers of clear-coat. The silver still retains some 3D-action, a reduced depth of clear-coat would have retained more, but I wasn’t going to risk sanding through as I’d redone and touched up these headstocks so many ****ing times that I couldn’t face another sand-back and refinish. This one has a slight mark in the logo where I tried to remove some dust with a scalpel point which left a mark that didn’t go away when filled with clear-coat and levelled/polished. See above for acceptance.
Great looking guitar. I love the colour of the stain.
It’s actually stain and then some vintage cherry tinted lacquer on top as well. Various sand-through at the edges required touch-ups, and I thought the central join line quite prominent, so I added a couple of tinted lacquer coats to help blend the fixes and pull everything together. As always, the lacquer ends up darkening as it dries, so it’s darker than envisaged, though I’m not displeased at all and I like it a lot It’s just that it and the GSM should have been near-identical guitars, but the GSM has turned out a lot brighter.
Will be a lot more pics along later, but want to finish stringing and setting up the guitar first.
Hmmmmm. Basic set-up done except for intonation. But the pickup is too far from the strings. Need a pickup shim as it's a dogear. I've raised the pole pieces up by about 3mm but not a huge improvement. Sounds more like a twangy tele than a ballsy P90 Jr. Could be the Artec pickup as it reads a bit under strength at 7.2k and is supposed to be 9k-ish. I'm sure its the same as the Vanson one (which would be a re-badged Artec) as the written specs are identical. But first the coil needs raising up closer to the strings. Temporary cardboard shims will be fitted to see if that improves things (just though of temporary shims whilst typing so haven't done it yet). Tone pot (CTS) needs replacing as it works OK but it's not got a smooth travel and is quite stiff in a couple of places.
Bear in mind DCr is also a matter of winding wire gauge. Tele neck pickups measure high DCr compared to equivalent bridge pickups despite a small winding pack and less winds due to 43awg. Also not all ceramic mags are equal. This no-name Firebird blade mag is stronger than the P90 Epiphone magnet
Attachment 37166
Here's a good way to get height adjustment in any P90.
Attachment 37167
Supposed to be Alnico V magnets. No wire gauge is given, but I doubt it would be 41AWG, as 42 is the standard for P90s. Bridge pickup should be 9.4k.
I've got a set of Gibson P90s that came from my gold top LP (which currently has MojoTone noiseless P90s) , so may think about swapping back-plates over and fitting the Gibson bridge pickup.
Here's a good way to get height adjustment in any P90.
Attachment 37167
Chunk of foam on bottom.
But the end of the base-plate dog ears sit against the body, so it would only be a temporary measure (which is I'm sure what you meant), otherwise the pickup and cover would sit a few mm above the body with a visible gap (which is what a shim fills). But a simple measure, so thanks for that. I have a large stock of hard foam sheets of different depths. Will do that.
(Comment made for clarity for other thread readers who may not fully understand the limitations of height adjustment in dog-ear P90s and which is why P90 soapbars became the norm in solid-body guitars. Not sure why Gibson didn't use soapbars in the Jrs, but they were probably using up old stock on 'beginners' guitars as they'd almost switched entirely from P90s to PAF humbuckers for their jazz guitars by the end of the '50s).
Well, raising the overall pickup height certainly improved the sound and output, but it's still not sounding that special. I've lost motivation for today, so will give up and look at the Gibson P90 tomorrow, try it out in soapbar form first before taking it apart.
The headstock finish is still pretty soft, despite now having at least least 3 weeks curing time now, probably due to excessive depth. The truss-rod cover has marked the finish underneath it so I'll leave it off until it's had time to cure and harden further then reflatten and polish that area.
The sun hasn't got its hat on today, so no opportunity to take photos outside in good light.
Anyway, some intermediate build pictures from the last few days.
Body after it's been polished (it's actually had quite a few remedial polishes to remove scratches I've added. But it is pretty shiny. Not perfectly flat, but not bad:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/Bi0dA4.jpg
Headstock after some initial polishing. Getting there. but still a few marks to remove. You can see the annoying flaw at the bottom of the headstock logo:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/iNGCMs.jpg
After full polishing, it was time to fit the bushings for the Kluson tulip-key tuners. The holes were reamed out until the bushings just started to fit the very top of the holes. Then I knocked up this bolt-based bushing istaller which pulls the bushings down into the headstock from the rear, under full control, unlike hitting them in with a hammer and a block of wood. I saw it on YouTube, so I can't take credit for it. M6 nut and bolt, a couple of washers, a small piece of 6mm MDF with a piece of adhesive cork sheet stuck to it, and a couple of suitably-sized spanners. It works very well indeed. The bolt keeps the bushing nice and vertical with no risk of it going in at an angle (I've had that when using the hammer method) and you can easily control the progress so the bushing just touches the surface and doesn't pull into the finish (well at least the last five did and the first one only went in slightly).
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/Xl9aio.jpg
Headstock with bushings inserted and bone nut fitted:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/cDWF7y.jpg
Front of body with bridge studs inserted and pickup cavity copper shielded. As the rear brass plate of the P90 dog-ear is grounded, I didn't need to run a dedicated ground wire for the shielding, but once I'd drilled the two mounting screw holes for the pickups at either end of the pickup rout, I ran some more tape up to the holes, so the base would sit on the copper and ground it through direct contact:
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...922/Y5jkam.jpg
Rear of the body with the control cavity shielded. The bridge ground wire can be seen dangling. Its a shame taht the GSJ-1 doesn't have a smaller control cavity given that it's only two pots and the output jack in there. And the siting of the holes for the controls means that a protruding body lump (designed for one of the the control cover fixing screws to go in) stops the tabs on the two pots facing each other for an easy neat connection with minimal wire length. The tabs ended up having to face into the cavity, requiring longer wires and less optimal wire routing.
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/8...923/yazIrp.jpg
wot no pics?
I like the bushing jig, that's neat.
Looking good.
When you've got them done send me a recording and I'll put a bass part on with the ESB-4. Use "Sand Through Blues" as a working title...
Indeed, it is. I added the extra washer on the top of the bushing (I don't think it really needs one for function and the YouTube vid didn't use one IIRC), but it does stop the spanner from slipping down onto the headstock finish.Quote:
Originally Posted by JimC
Only really clever people can see them. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by blinddrew
But I'll hold off with final bridge on and fully strung pics until I can get some good ones. Today is turning out to be a day to leave things well alone.
Wow, I just got cleverer. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
The finish came up a treat Simon! I just went through your post to remind me what you had done re: grain filler. I'd never heard of it until you and Andy mentioned it. By time I saw that I had finished my SG.
I ended up ordering a EXA. I know the grains won't be matched but I'm going to have a go at staining it a similar colour to your Junior.
Well the sun came out for a bit (gone again now), so I took some quick photos of the fully-strung GSJ-1. One thing taking it out the bright sunlight has done is show me several areas of finish that still needs attention. I think I'll wait a while for the finish to harden further before doing those (it's been 3 weeks so far but longer always help as some of it has quite a few layers of finish due to repair work).
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/o9aU6w.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/9je3Iq.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/TNctbp.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/AJrsbX.jpg
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/HX3TsS.jpg
Can't find where I put the Gibson P90s, so I may even have to do some clearing up to find them!
Lovely! But, does the 48 say you have built 48 guitars so far?! :eek: wowza!
No, it's a YY BBBM format, so 004 is build no 4, and 8 is for August completion.
Phew! :-)
But they look so professional, I would have believed you if you said yes :D
Nice work on the finish. Looks factory. I like your decals too. Is that a backpaint reverse?
No, it's a thin pearlescent vinyl circle with a laser-printed decal over the top. And then lots of clear coat so I could get a flat finish (though the vinyl and decal really don't add any height, maybe 0.2mm at most). It does shimmer slightly when you move it, but less now than before the clearcoat went on.