Hey H, how many coats of Tru Oil did you apply ?
better leave it to cure for at least 2 weeks, sorry mate.
After micromesh I usually polish it with a good auto polish like Meguiars until you can see your reflection
Any pics mate ?
Printable View
Hey H, how many coats of Tru Oil did you apply ?
better leave it to cure for at least 2 weeks, sorry mate.
After micromesh I usually polish it with a good auto polish like Meguiars until you can see your reflection
Any pics mate ?
The longer you let it cure, the better. I let my coats cure for 3 weeks at least, just to be sure. I gave my TL-1Q a very light wet sand with 1200 wet/dry paper after the final coat had cured to get the surface as flat as possible. I then gave it a very light coat of TO, let it cure and then hit it with ultra fine liquid polish and finally some wax. I probably could have done a polish with No.2 polish first but I didn't have any, nor patience for that matter! Hope it helps but be patient.
Haha, yeah, 2-3 weeks before I touch it now! Never used a polish before, just the micromesh, but this one's a lot smoother (less wavy), so I figured it'd be worth a go.
There's... between 20 and 30 coats of tru oil on there. I did 5 or 6 coats, then a light wet sand, then 3 or 4 coats, another wet sand, then 3 or 4 repetitions of "2 coats, then sand back with TO to wet the paper", then 3 or 4 repetitions of "2 coats then a light wet sand", then finally 2 more coats. I lost track at several different points because of life just generally getting in the way.
The light in here's awful at the moment, but here's the best pics I could manage.
http://i.imgur.com/VkydtAB.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NBjjzPh.jpg
Unless the light's right on it, it looks black. I'm pretty happy with how flat I got the ash this time around. It's still got that wavy texture, but not much. I can (just barely) see my face in the reflections from it right now.
Beautiful. Looks very smooth. Nice work.
Yes, looking great.
Looks Great H, very shiny indeed.
WAIT - IS THIS THING FLOATING!?!
How the heck is it held up?
I mean, the finish looks gorgeous - I kinda wish I went down the darkish route with mine sometimes... but now that I think of it... How the HECK is your guitar floating in the air like that!?
Is this the devil at work!?
**Edit** Ohhhh wait, I see.. Never mind.
I see what you mean! Definitely not obvious in the photos.
After mucking around with scrap wood in the neck pocket for the j bass and the tele, I decided it was all too much effort for too little benefit, so this one's just got half a coat hanger bent into a long hook and placed through the output jack hole. It doesn't touch the finish at all, and I don't need to worry about bolts etc. Neck's hanging with a similar arrangement through one of the tuner holes.
Yeah - the simple ideas usually work best.
The depth of that color is outstanding on the guitar. It has just enough grain wave to make it natural, yet "finished".
I like it. I might do my bass that way, come to think of it.
Yeah, 3rd time was definitely the charm on the colour. I'm just not sure I could replicate it given that it's a fix of a fix at this point.
I think the smoothness and depth is mostly because of wet sanding the tru-oil on.
It'd look kinda murky after applying it like that and letting it dry, but then the next ragged-on coat would start to bring up that deep looking shine it's ended up with. When I did the j bass, the ash wave effect would diminish very slightly with each coat/coat/sand. On this one I could easily see it getting much smoother every time I'd wet sand TO on. Still, I don't think I'd be able to get it very much smoother than it is now.
Two and a half weeks waiting, and day off means polishing time!
5 hours later...
http://i.imgur.com/JW31iHT.jpg
It's come up much less black. Pretty happy with it though!
There's a few visible flaws, including a big one off the left of the image a bit where it looks like I sanded through the stain before TO and somehow didn't notice. It's where my forearm's gonna go though, so I'm sure it will look worn there eventually.
Feels nice and smooth, and looks kinda semi gloss which is where I wanted it.
Also I've glued the neck on and am now waiting again, this time in a fairly nervous state. 24 hours? 48?
Ah yes the familiar nervous tension of gluing a set neck. Tick off all that apply:Quote:
Originally Posted by UpperCaseH
- "Did I just bump that?"
- "I swear that clamp's moved!"
- "No, I'm imagining things"
- "Did the break angle look that sharp when I mocked up?!?"
- "Is that a drag mark under that clamp?"
- "Oh Sh*t there's glue everywhere!?"
- "Wait, there should be more squeeze out than that, surely??"
- "Its clamped, but I'm not sure that 4 clamps is enough???"
- "Does that neck look like its off to one side?"
- 'Wait, was that the Fish glue, the hide glue, the Titebond or the epoxy?"
- "Why is there lanolin hand cream in this glue bottle?!"
- "20 minutes clamping time, I'll just give it an extra hour. Two Hours. 6 hours. Overnight. Screwit, A week."
- "it's been 2 weeks, maybe I'll just crack a clamp and see?"
Etc, etc.
Looks pretty schmick H, just back up from it and don't go microscope detail on it because you'll always find something.
Look at it in totality, I think any blacker than that and you might have lost some of that wonderful Grain patterning across the face.
The overall effect is looking very similar to what I have got to work with on the EXA-1, so I'd be interested to see how they compare at the end, DT finish Vs Naughty Oil. Great Job!
looks awesome H and I can't really see any area that looks sanded through, just looks like lighter ash grain.
24 hours for the neck glue to cure is usually plenty. Just don't over tension the strings.
Thanks everyone!
The bit I sanded through isn't in the pic above, it's off camera to the left - which I didn't do on purpose, I was trying to get an angle with some light on it. It's very obvious and quite large - In the weeks where I was apply tru oil I must have mentally written it off as "lighter grain", but somehow the polishing process has made it incredibly obvious. Like I said, not too worried and it's in a high wear area anyway, but yeah, it's definitely there.
Glueing the neck is the scariest thing I've done so far, but I'm sure it'll be fine. 24 hours isn't that long to wait... right?
I went to take another pic, but where it's sitting for the glue to dry there's no good light. So here's one of the tiny amp and 8" cab I made while waiting for the TO to cure. Cab's getting a grille, I'm just waiting for the mesh to arrive.
http://i.imgur.com/VRupc6h.jpg
wow what a cool amp H, you must know a fair bit about electronics. Was it a kit mini amp or did you source the parts and casing ?
I've been teaching myself electronics for a little bit longer than I've been building guitars. The amp's a 0.5 watt thing that runs on a 9v adapter (could also use a 9v battery but it'd last about 20 minutes). Parts were all from Jaycar, including the project box. I got the plans from http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.ca/ - this one's the "noisey cricket II".
Building on stripboard is super easy, but I'd probably be lost if I had to go straight from a circuit diagram, and making my own PCBs is still beyond me. I'm inexperienced enough that I get pretty lost just troubleshooting if something's not working right. Also, while the outside looks OK, you don't want to see inside - it's a rat's nest of poorly planned wiring :)
I want to build up the skills to do a tube amp, but with my current level of knowledge I'm not going anywhere near 240v so it's a "one day" thing. A guy who's done a few told me that the way to get started if you don't have any background was to make, modify, and troubleshoot 9v effects, so that's what I've been doing.
The cab's just a box, but it's the first thing I've planned out and scratch-built from wood, and it seems to have come out OK. Mostly it was a test run to see if my ideas about putting something like that together would work.
Clamps off, neck looks fine to my eye, but I've run into a problem.
I roughed some of the blacking off the bridge pieces (not sure what they're called - ferrules? - the bits that go into the body and receive the screws) so that I'd be able to ground properly, then stripped the ground wire, put it through the holes, and hammered the poles in...
Which snapped the ground wire off. Now I have no idea how to ground everything to the bridge - these bridge poles are not coming out.
edit: I think I'm going to strip the end of the earth wire back quite a lot, then press it hard up through the hole so that it makes contact with the pole, then tape or glue it in place so it doesn't come out. Sound reasonable?
I think they're called Post Anchors. You can try and wind them out, find a bolt with the same thread, a wide washer that fits it and a block of wood with a hole in it, slightly bigger than the anchor piece. You engage the bolt a few turns and then once its threaded in a bit, use a wrench to turn in it and draw the anchor out. Maybe? It should come unless you had ridiculously tight anchors.
They're ridiculously tight. I had to hammer them in quite hard. I probably should have thought about that before I did it, but I didn't foresee the ground wire just snapping like that.
I'll try to get the one of them out and see what happens.
Yeah, go easy and pad the heck out of what ever you use to lever against eh? Last thing you want to do is put a ding in your guitar top.Quote:
Originally Posted by UpperCaseH
Hi H, worth trying to remove the bridge post bush that the earth wire will make contact with. There are a number of video's on Youtube using different methods to remove the bush. Just try and protect the finish where your PVC pipe or whatever you use to anchor/lever the long bolt that will remove the bush. If the guitar isn't earthed properly you will never get rid of an ugly buzz/hum.
The predrilled wire hole is from the electrics cavity to the top of the ferrule on my lp-1mq. Logic escapes how to solder the wire to the ferrule then squeeze the wire and the ferrule into the hole. I drilled a hole from the cavity into the bottom of the ferrule hole. Hoping that soldering onto the bottom of the ferrule will be easier. That's the theory anyway
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregLane
You actually don't need to solder the ground wire to the ferrule, all you need to do is just bare the end of the wire, poke it through the hole till it comes through to the hole that the ferrule fits in, making sure that the bared end of the wire protrudes from the side of the hole, next bend the bared end of the wire so that it points towards the bottom of the hole that the ferrule fits in, and then push the ferrule into place, the ferrule should then make contact with the bared end of the ground wire.
You don't need to solder the earth wire on to the post anchor. Just push it through the hole and bend it downwards so that it's flat against the side of the hole. The hole itself only needs to be a bit smaller than the post anchor itself, and certainly larger than the central section of the post anchor excluding the 'fins'. It should end up pushed into the wood a bit by the post anchor, but making contact with it. A multimeter between post anchor and the control cavity end of the earthing wire will tell you how well this has worked once the post anchors are fitted.
The holes are probably drilled a little deeper than the post anchors, so by simply putting the wire at the bottom of the hole, there is no guaranteed contact between wire and anchor. You could of course (if using single core, not stranded, wire) wind the wire into a conical spring shape so that it would sit on the floor of the hole and push upwards against the anchor.
If you feel that the post anchors are going in too easily, then you can always smear some PVA glue/Titebond on them to hold them firm. If you really have to hammer the posts in, and you should only really need 3 or 4 taps at most, then the hole is too small and needs enlarging slightly.
Another trick learned. As others have said recently " You guys are incredible". Thanks
Check out this post to see a way of removing bridge bushings: http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...ead.php?t=5568
I forgot to run the wire and had to get the bushing out.
Was super easy.
OK, so I couldn't get the post anchor out.
Instead, I slightly widened the hole for the negative wire, pushed a solid piece of wire up through against the post anchor, fed some solder through the hole, and then heated the wire until the solder melted and formed a connection, then soldered a regular earth wire on to that.
I thought it hadn't worked, but after I scraped some of the black coating off the stop tail piece, my multimeter confirms that there's connectivity from the strings stoptail, the stoptail to the post, the post to the post anchor, and the post anchor to the ground wire. So it's definitely grounded properly.
That said, it's quite noisy. The cavities are shielded. I confirmed with the multimeter that each pot is correctly grounded to the shielding, the strings/bridge are grounded, and that there's nothing touching ground that shouldn't be (eg, hot wires from pickups are not touching ground). The noise mostly stops when I've got my fingers on the strings.
Any ideas why it'd be noisy? Did I miss something?
Is there noise in all switch positions? Does adjusting the tone or volume controls have any affect on the noise level? Do all of your solder points look nice and clean/shiny, no dull crinkly solder points on ground connections? Maybe post some pics of your wiring and cavities if you can't find the cause.
A twin humbucker guitar shouldn't be particularly noisy to start with, even without cavity shielding. In addition to WeirdBits suggestions, check the potentiometers for smooth travel. It's possible that you may have overheated one or more of them when soldering the ground connections to the casing. They normally end up feeling a bit rough and scratchy if you have. I've done it before, despite trying to be careful.
But it still could simply be that you are testing it in an electrically noisy environment. Any other guitars/basses that you can use for a noise comparison test? Any nearby electrical equipment that you can turn off (including lights - especially fluorescent lights or those on dimmers)?
Thanks for the replies and advice!
It's noisy in all switch positions, but the noise is different.
Adjusting the tone and volume controls changes the noise. It's loudest when the tone controls are between 60% and 90%.
I don't think I've got any bad/cold solder joins. I'll check everything out with a multimeter and also redo anything that looks visibly dodgy.
It's noisier than my other guitars and basses. Not much in a low-gain situation, but very much more noisy than even my tele once the gain's up and/or there's a distortion pedal on.
It's entirely possible I cooked a pot, it wouldn't be the first time I've managed it, although it'd be the first time I've done it in a guitar. A couple of the pots are a tiny bit scratchy and one of the tone pots doesn't travel smoothly. If all else fails I'll just replace them all.
One question that's maybe silly when referring to guitars - Are all the "ground" connections supposed to be the same? As in, does the ground on the output jack connect to the ground on the bridge connect to the ground on the pickup wires connect to the shielding? Or is the shielding supposed to be kept separate from the bridge/pickup/pot/output grounds? Or are the bridge/string/shielding grounds supposed to be kept separate from the pickup/pot/output grounds?
Because I've got them all connected ont he guitar, and I know on some effects units the circuit ground wire connects to the output ring and you get problems if it touches the case or the input ground.
With all that said, I'll pull it back apart tomorrow and check and re-check everything, re-solder anything that's not right, and test it again. If I need to replace the pots, eh, at least they're fairly easy ones to find.
Every ground should connect back to the same main ground point, the ring connection on the output jack. It becomes slightly more complex with shielded cavities as they can also act as the ground connection between pots and it really is best not to duplicate ground paths. For reduced noise, it's best not to connect the ground in a ring. I know that this is often the case in house wiring - but then it's a safety ground, not a signal one. That's why when you look at pictures of vintage Gibson control cavities, the bare wire often soldered as the ground connection between the backs of the pots is in a U shape, not a circle. If you've got copper shielding, that should act as a ground connection between the pots and you don't actually need separate earth connections. Likewise, with a standard metal Tele control plate, there shouldn't be any need to run a ground wire between the pots (but it's certainly worth using a multimeter to check that this is the case before omitting it, as not all pots are created equal).
I'd try and sketch out how you've run your ground wires. If you've followed a standard schematic there shouldn't be any real issues. I've been taught that star-wiring the grounds is the best way to do it (so that every ground connection has its own wire back to the jack ring connection). But that means lots of wires and is very messy. So the next best way is to do it in a tree-branch type network, so that everything connects back, but there aren't any cross connections between the different branches - there's only one path back from any connection to the main ground point.
It's also worth checking that things like the jack socket is firmly screwed down onto its metal fixing plate (if it's not a plastic one). If it's loose, there can be a high resistance connection to the metal, which can allow RF noise into the ground signal. Sounds silly, but I've often found a loose jack fixing nut to be the cause of excessive noise.
Thanks Simon, wasn't too sure about how to ground everything properly and I didn't know that about the socket at all.
Took the covers off and spent half an hour with the multimeter trying to see if anything was disconnected or connected where it shouldn't be, and I found the problems.
Slightly dodgy solder on the ground wire from the 3 way switch. Fixed that up and the problem lessened so I kept searching and found the main culprit. A single strand of wire from the connection between the neck volume and tone pots was loose from the solder and was bridging pins 2 and 3 of the tone pot. Clipped that off, and the problem went away entirely. Pots are still a tiny bit scratchy, but definitely not something I'm going to worry about.
Now I'm gonna go play the hell out of it for an hour or two :)
+1 I always learn new stuff here, they are really amazing, so much wisdom in one single forum lol XDDDDQuote:
Originally Posted by GregLane
Aaaaaand pictures. Looks kind of flat in low light, black in dim light, and apparently in sunshine it transforms completely.
http://i.imgur.com/iQdW8Cv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/XSWsAOs.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/OxjGgRX.jpg
Nice. No more noise problems (except the kind you want it to make)?
Yep, no longer noticeably noisy in normal use.
Being mostly a bassist I have no "real" guitar amp, just my home made one. So I've been plugging into my interface and playing through Guitar Rig 5 and Positive Grid Bias. Sounds fine through anything "normal" on those, but gets a bit noisy once I start getting into the super high gain stuff that I'll never afford in real life anyway (like, crazy bi-amp stuff with heaps of fuzz and distortion). But as I understand it, pretty much anything's gonna be noisy in that scenario.
Finished axe looks good H.
Really glad you got the noise issues sorted.
I can see the finish issues that you mentioned on the upper rear body now. A real shame about that little bit, as the rest looks really professional and well done. So you'd better start playing it a lot and adding your own wear marks to it!
Haha, yeah when I first saw the flaw I was thinking about antiquing/relicing/weathering/whatever the guitar, but then I thought "nah, this'll be the one that I leave sitting next to my desk, take out places, play while drinking heavily etc and it'll look worn soon enough".
Speaking of worn guitars, I've got my first real electric guitar still sitting around. It's a yellow yamaha super strat from the '90s and the finish is in fairly poor repair. I've got some ideas about re-doing it in somthing other than bright yellow. Is this an appropriate forum to post a diary/log of refinishing a store-bought guitar, or is there a better one?