This is the Feast Watson jarrah stain. It was the U-beaut sanding sealer (which I'm sure is their shellac diluted to 10%).Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
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This is the Feast Watson jarrah stain. It was the U-beaut sanding sealer (which I'm sure is their shellac diluted to 10%).Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
I somehow had the feeling it would be an Australian product I don't have access to. It looks great over the sanding sealer.
I think the Shellac based sanding sealer allows the stain to penetrate into the wood. It is meant to help with reducing blotchy uptake of stain, and reduce the stain darkness on end grain.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
Some other Sanding Sealers I have tried will not take any stain. Great if you want natural colours.
Sprayed on the burst today. I had a few issues with the paint running!
Today I have scraped the top binding and the f-hole binding to remove some of the polyurethane from the black burst. The f-holes have cleaned up well. The blades glued onto pop-sticks worked well as scrapers - I'm still impressed with them.
That is really looking cool. Very different vibe than the last one. I like the simplicity of the popsicle stick scrapers. Of course, I like pretty much any excuse to have a popsicle.
Thanks fender3x.
Sprayed on 3 coats of Cabot's water-based satin poly.
Added my logo using a vinyl sticker cut with a Cricut machine. Then gave the headstock another coat of poly (this may be the last spraying opportunity until next spring :( as the temperature here is dropping to low 20's (and high humidity)).
Also created a 3-ply pickguard. I made an MDF template and then used the router table with a pattern following bit to cut the pickguard. Also added a 30 degree camber to the edge.
Finish looks great! Interesting shape of the pick guard. Should look really nice mounted. I think you have answered this before, this is going to be fully acoustic like the last one, right?
Sent from my CPH2655 using Tapatalk
Yes, full acoustic. I have purchased some 12 to 54 strings for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
Perth was about 25 degrees today - so I got in another couple of coats for the body and neck. This will be the last coats. I will leave it a week or so and give it a polish.
The final coats have had about 6 weeks to cure!
Had some time today, so I have glued on the neck. Always quite a scary task, but all went well.
Looking good. I didn't know you were using finishes that take that long to cure. I have finally started some final sanding after waiting 30 days for full cure. I read that Cabot's only takes about a week. BriteTone says 30 days and my previous finish said 4 weeks...Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
The Cabots final coats did not need six weeks to cure - but I have been away and unable to work on this (or any) builds.
Polished the headstock. Fitted the tuners (Grover 135Gs), truss rod cover, pickguard, tailpiece.
I’ve just read the diary. What an amazing build and outcome. Outstanding work, Trevor. Very envious of these guitars!
Thanks Mark.Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkMark
Strings are now on - I'm trying Heavy Gauge electric strings (12 to 54). I still have some fine tuning for the setup.
It's impressive when something looks both unique and classic. I really like the way it looks. How do you like the way it sounds?
The sound is OK (but this may be my playing style!!). It does not sound as nice as an old Fender Acoustic that I have - which has a larger body cavity and typical acoustic strings. This may be due to the f-holes, basswood body, the floating bridge or maybe the neck not perfectly fitting the neck pocket.Quote:
Originally Posted by fender3x
But I like the feel of this build better - possibly because it has smaller body, electric strings and a lower action. I never play the Fender as I don't like the feel when playing it!
I still need to do a bit of tweaking with the action. And I may need to add some string grooves on the bridge saddles.
Also, thinking back to the angle of the neck: I went with 4 degrees. I possibly should have gone with my first calculation of 5 degrees, as I have the bridge as low as possible to get a good action.
I have very limited experience with fully acoustic archtops, but my sense is that in general you don't get as much volume or bass response from them as you do from a dreadnought or other similarly sized folk-style guitar. Also they don't have as much sustain. They do have charm, though, and basswood is a decent tonewood that should improve over time.
My main acoustic since 1985 has been a Fender F265C which was made in Japan. My only gripe with it for a long time was the action. That was somewhat mitigated by the fact that over time it has gotten better and better sounding. These old MIJ Fender accoustics used good tonewoods. Mine has a solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides, and it's really well constructed. It seems true that the sound gets sweeter as the guitar ages. A while back the nut sort of disintegrated and I installed a new one. That led to doing a full setup and it has made a world of difference. Still thinking about doing a bit more work on the bridge, but even as is, it's easier on my fretting hand. If you like the way yours sounds, I would recommend doing a new setup on it. It may be that you can get it to play the way it sounds.
The nice thing about these old Japanese Fender acoustics is that some are really well constructed and good sounding, but also not valuable enough to keep you from working on them yourself. I did get it a better case, tho, when I realized what it would cost me to replace it with one that sounds as good and plays as well ;-)
With regard to the archtop, when I have seen people adjusting the action on flat-top acoustics they generally shave a bit off the bottom of the saddle to lower the action rather than slotting. Not sure what difference it makes, and your bridge is different than a typical flattop saddle. Tune-o-matics are often slotted, and it's about the only way of adjusting the height of the inner strings. I don't know if any of this makes a difference...other than that I should do more reading ;-)
Thanks for this information. It sounds like this guitar is behaving as expected for an acoustic archtop then! That is good to know.
The action is good. I was thinking shallow bridge slots may keep the strings in position as they tend to move a bit. This may settle after a few days. I will leave it for a while before I do any more adjustments.
That sounds worth a shot, and it should be fine. The one thing I wonder about is wonder if the break angle is steep enough to put enough downward pressure on the saddles... As long as you don't get a buzz it's probably fine.Quote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies