Until of course you don't want it to...and then it's like shite to a blanket.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Well it would be if I was doing it.
Looks like another GOTM in the wings.
cheers, Mark.
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Until of course you don't want it to...and then it's like shite to a blanket.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Well it would be if I was doing it.
Looks like another GOTM in the wings.
cheers, Mark.
that is looking really good mate. The quality of wood in these guitars is a cut above eh
Sounds like a tribute band to a Maynard Keenan side project.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Very nice work, even with the apparent dust there is a glorious lustre to that body. Really looking forward to the headstock treatment photos. If you hear a "YOINK" its just the FrankenLab stealing ideas!
Didn't quite work. The design is too small for the pattered abalone I was using and the black bits in it confused the design so it wasn't clear what it said. I also routed slightly too deep for the full plan to work. So I've ordered some much lighter pearl sheets. At least I know what I'm doing now, so it won't take long to get another couple of inlays sorted when they arrive. Also going to have a go at doing the outer circle separately to the letters this time. I'll practice on the old abalone sheet over the weekend.
See my bass thread for a picture and more description.
http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...l=1#post162046
Well, I think I've finally had more luck with the headstock logo inlay (after a lot of failed attempts). Ring and letters all done separately. A 'white abalone' ring and 'white pearl' letters (though you can't tell that from the picture). Looking nice and clear even with black superglue smeared on top. Also the letters are raised up enough this time so I can paint the headstock face with a few coats of black and sand back slightly to leave things level. This black superglue takes a long time to dry, so I can put the neck away for a couple of days.
Attachment 25400
Awesome! Can't wait to see the finished head stock.Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Derek.
Sent from my Moto G (5S) Plus using Tapatalk
Neither can I!
Initially, I had this model which I purchased from a company in Utah, USA. I also loved the lightweight quality to it. But when I found a section of binding around the neck broken.......and those 'suspect' Chinese tuning machines, I boxed it up and gave it a ride back to Beijing. So, how is it going with this DIY? I feel you'll appreciate how receptive the wood is to stain. I wanted desperately to keep my Ric copy simple by staining, but after working on it, I had to hide the modifications to the bridge and the humbucker cavities. P.S. The neck for my guitar, if set as is, would have been crooked by at least 7 - 8 degrees right. While trimming the neck-to-body edge, I cut the tuner head at an angle to replicate the Rickenbacker. Good luck, Simon 'ol boy.
thats a real nice bit of staining there Simon you've done that before nice work fella im liking the headstock logo !!Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
Nice work on the custom inlay Simon. This is shaping up to be quite the nice looking project. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
Inlay No2 failed. The stuff I'm using is just too thin. I can't get the whole thing level enough by sanding before I've sanded through the pearl to the backing. It's relatively easy to cut out the shapes with it, but the down-side is lack of thickness. So I've now got a 2mm thick bit of 'pearl' - well 2 small pieces as Rothco and Frost have almost no inlay stock at all - no idea what's going on there. So it's going to be routing time - just waiting for some very small routing bits to arrive before I can give it a go. Also need to rout a 2mm deep recess in some MDF so I can use the Dremel with the StewMac router attachment and have a flat surface to work with.
I'm still waiting for my pickups to arrive, but I really want to get this inlay business sorted before then so I can stick the neck on the body and finish the finishing. If I can't get this to work, then I'll have to resort to some custom decals.
Wow!!! That's amazing job Simon!! you rock! Beautiful color, I love it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Simon Barden
I still think a disc of the abalone, with a waterslide decal over it, cleared, will be the best way to get a pro looking result.
The theory of how you are trying to do it is sound, but its a bit overly complicated and without something like a laser cutter handy its an uphill battle.
But hey, I think it was Edison who said in regards to the lightbulb (allegedly) "I did not fail, I simply found 1000 ways that do not work"
I image Tesla actually said it.....
And I just found out that my router bits are coming from China (I should have checked the delivery times a bit more closely), so that's around 4 weeks away.
I'll think about the decal option, as now I've set my mind on an inlay, I want to do it if I can.
Well, I've weakened and ordered a colour laser printer and some decal paper. Still have to work out exactly how to merge the inlay into the headstock as some levelling will be required but I can't obviously sand the decal. Options so far seem to be:
1) Cut the decal so that it stops at the inner part of the ring, so I have a few mm round the edge to carefully sand up to.
2) Put several clear coats over the inlay before fitting, so there is some surface that can be sanded, though it's obviously easy to over-sand this if one isn't careful and the inlay height compared to the headstock paint surface isn't quite right. There's always going to need to be some filling round the edge of the inlay which will need sanding.
I usually just put the decal down,and start clearing over it. After 3 or 4 coats, a light sand, rinse, repeat, in no time its all level.
Both my metal inlays were far from level, but layers of clear levelled it all
The penny has just dropped. I was planning to put the decal on the inlay roundel first, then put that into the recess in the headstock.
Instead, I put the pearl or abalone piece in the headstock first, fill the edges than paint and level everything off, then I add the decal in the middle, then clear coat over the whole thing. I'll still have to add several layers of clear to be able to level the whole thing, but it's a lot easier way to do it (and far more likely to work) than than my previous ideas.
There are times when I really am very thick!
Now I'm thinking that I could use a decal for the whole headstock. I'll have to see how black the black prints out on the decal paper.
It will save having to build up multiple coats of clear just to match the decal height.
Just catching up on lots of builds and enjoying reading about this one.
Red is a tricky colour to get right due to how much orange or blue/maroon tones you are trying to achieve. Being slightly darker than a typical cherry ES should look better in my opinion with lots of bright hardware to add some sparkle.
Have to admire your tenacity with the inlay, just goes to prove there is more than one way to skin a cat. One way to disguise the decal is to cut out the sheet so that it is slightly bigger than whole of headstock and attach the lot, trim it up with a scalpel or razor blade once dry, and there should be no visible edges that you get by dropping a smaller cut-out logo on top. Several clear coats to add some protective layers and also seal the edges off is probably all that it would need to finish off.
Cheers, Waz
Yes, I agree. Hopefully be able to catch up a bit of time with that method as well. Had to tidy away all my workspace, but can get it all out again tomorrow.
Well, I ordered a laser printer and some decal paper. The laser printer is here and installed, just waiting for the decal paper to arrive.
And then the custom wound dog-ear P90s pickups arrived today from Creamery. There is something about me and pickups. I'm not having much luck with them.
The bridge pickup is fine. The cover sits nicely over the mounting ears and flat against the top of the bobbin.
Attachment 25547
The bridge pickup I like. It's a lovely pickup for the bridge position. As soon as I saw it, I said, "Hello! What a lovely pickup for the bridge!"
However, the neck pickup is another matter.
Attachment 25548
Attachment 25549
Those with good eyesight may have spotted the issue straight away. For the rest of you, I will point out the large gap between the mounting ears and the underside of the pickup cover. So when installed on the guitar, a) there is a big gap between the cover and the body and b) the pickup sits too high on the body, so even if the cover was deeper, the top of the pickup sits far too near the height of the neck for comfort.
Attachment 25550
Attachment 25551
The cover height is about right for the location of the pickup, so it's the height of the legs for the mounting ears that's incorrect.
Looking back at the bridge pickup, you'll see that the legs are very short, but the cover is correspondingly tall. In comparison, the legs on this neck pickup may be described as of 'medium' length, when in fact they need to be 'long'. (Note that the neck is only loosely fitted and not glued in, and that the neck rout need to be enlarged backwards by 1mm as the cover doesn't quite fit in against the end of the neck).
These are handmade custom wound pickups, so I fail to see how their maker got it so wrong and still sent them out. I ordered these on 30th Jan, so have been waiting quite a while for them. A(nother) complaining email sent and am now awaiting a response (Creamery is a one-man outfit, so emails take some time to be responded to).
I got my neck pickup back from The Creamery. Jaime had just bent the base plate ears so that the pickup sat lower, which now gives me a perfect fit.
The transfer idea over the abalone disk on the headstock worked very well. I'm now just recovering form an ill-fated attempt to add some lettering on the face of the headstock, where the glue I used to try and stick a reversed transfer on wasn't clear enough and also attacked the paint. So at the moment I'm just adding TO coats to fill in the pits it left.
This was with the abalone disk stuck on and 4 coats of black paint sprayed on to build the level up to that of the disk (paint scraped off disk surface):
Attachment 25772
Another 4 coats and the paint level matches the disk. This was it before scraping and levelling the paint:
Attachment 25773
And here's the headstock with the decal over the disk. This was following a sanding level to remove all teh sunken grain lines. It's then had a quick cover with TO that has attracted quite a lot of dust and looks rather gritty.
Attachment 25774
It then has several coats of Tru-Oil, a sanding flat, then attempts to add some decal lettering down the middle like a LP headstock ('Three Thirty' in a script font). I should have done this before sanding down the headstock spray paint, but I wasn't thinking ahead and was more interested in seeing what the decal over the abalone looked like.
It should all work well in the end, but that will be a few days off yet (grrrr). At least its a clear sunny day here, as opposed to the week of light to heavy rain we've just had, so I can go outside and do some other things.
Logo looks pretty rad. Shame about the grit but hopefully a good cut back will smooth it out.
It does smooth out after a sand.
The logo looks awesome!! Do you do your own decals or outsource them?
I printed by own. Just bought a Brother colour laser printer (so cheap these days!) and some decal paper. One big benefit with lasers is that the toner doesn't dry out over time like the ink in inkjets does, so for me, it's ideal as I don't do much printing at all. The colour printing on transparent decal paper gets really washed out when on a black background, so I'm trying the reverse printing method with an outline filled in with a metallic gold Sharpie, and once the headstock is in a suitable condition again (almost there), I'll be adding that decal (as long as it sticks OK).
In future, I think I'll use the same method for any headstock lettering when I'm doing a black headstock; a thin piece of inlay as the backing for the lettering, then build up with paint to the same level, flatten it all off, add a black outline decal over the top and then clear coat the lot.
So this is the headstock with the text. I just hope I can get it to blend with the background. I've a little bit of tidying work to do with the black Sharpie, as some of the metallic gold ink has spread outside the black outline. No Tru-Oil over it yet, so there's a difference in reflectivity at the moment.
Attachment 25789
Simon, have you used Creamery pickups before?
Its a way off but I have something else from his range in mind for my next build so would be interested in your thoughts on them.
I love the headstock. Heck of a lot of work but the sort of touch that really makes the guitar your own.
No, first time with Creamery. Jaime is a bit disorganised. He sent me an email about soime alternate metal pickup covers, to which I replied immediately, but then he modded and sent the pickup back before even checking to see if I'd replied. But his prices are very reasonable for custom pickups; you'd pay the same (or more) for Seymour Duncans.
I think the lettering will work. It's got a couple of coats of Tru-Oil on now, and once I've built-up enough to hide the step round the decal, it should look fine.
But the next one, the ESB-4, will have the lettering done in the same way as the logo, with a white pearl veneer behind it rather than the abalone of the logo.
Thanks Simon. I look forward to your opinion on how the pups sound when the time comes
I'll be interested to see how it's finished.
What's the reference to 'Three Thirty'?
Not the time to be walking into the barber's?
cheers, Mark.
It's a wannabe ES-330.
Looking good Simo, I’m glad you got the pick up issue sorted. I hope they sound as good as they look.
Wayno.
The logo on the headstock looks great. Had you not mentioned the decal I would have thought it was an inlay for sure!
The reason I have been fairly quiet recently is that I have been taking a rest from the guitar building side of things after a most annoying setback. I should have had the ES-1/330 complete by now, but when I went to do a 1200 grit wet sand sand before polishing the body, this happened on the bulge of the top horn on the front:
Attachment 26308
I'd hardly touched it. I'm sorry, but my experiment with Tru-Oil is over and I'll never use it again. It's not like there were only a couple of coats; there must have been 30 on all the surfaces and I'd waited about 10 days since the last coat went on. There's no way that I could patch that up and have it look presentable. So it's sand everything back time and see if the body will re-stain. If not, it's solid colour time. The weather's warmed up, so it will be back to the nitro.
So today I started on the back:
Attachment 26309
The really annoying thing is that the finish on the back is very hard, and it's taken over 3 hours to get the back stripped back, even using power sanders. A heat gun was of no assistance. Never mind, here it is almost finished:
Attachment 26310
I completed the back (camera battery is currently recharging so no fully sanded pic at the moment) but I've now run out of decent sandpaper (ordered more), so I've stopped for today. The next few days are forecast for sun, so guess what I'll be doing over the weekend! Just hope I can sand the front back without going through the veneer.
Mmmm many bad words at high volume. Fingers crossed with the front veneer mate.
Ah man, so sorry to see that. It was looking beautiful.
No doubt that you will be able to resurrect this baby, but I can imagine how disappointing this is.
Sending good vibes your way.
Cheers, chaps.
Wouldn't be due to 'water based' stain mingling with the Tru-Oil?
I've gone over my Epi Junior recently with (admittedly) finer grade sandpaper with no detrimental effects.
cheers, Mark.
Gutted Simon. Hope you can resurrect something out of it.