Transfer worked great.
Printable View
Transfer worked great.
Sssshhhh, don't tell this dude about your guitar.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...df9af5e3cb.jpg
Bluey sure beats My Little Pony, which the current obsession in these parts.
Our latest craze is Super Wings. If your kids don’t know it, don’t introduce it haha
A little more progress. Neck is sprayed with 7 coats of SCA clear (acrylic lacquer):
Attachment 35230Attachment 35231
Now begins the long wait before I can polish the surface. The first coat raised some stray wood fibres so before applying the decal I gave a light sand with 400 grit using barely more than the weight of the paper itself. After that, the back of the neck felt fantastic so I will keep that in mind during final finish as I do prefer a satin feel when playing.
I am very happy with how the colour came up from just the clear with no stain. And the level of smooth glossiness is much better than my first attempts on the body. It should polish up nicely in a few weeks. The hard part is just letting it hang there for all that time.
There was one minor mishap when removing the tape. A small section (just 1 or 2mm next to the fretboard edge) of lacquer came away with the tape in one place near the body end of the neck, but unfortunately not where it will be inside the neck pocket. I don't want to remask everything to paint again so I thought I would try the same method I used to apply the CA. I sprayed some lacquer onto printer paper folded into a brush shape, and used that to carefully apply clear to the small area of exposed wood and smoothed it out. If I remember to sand extra carefully in that spot it might be OK. I will add another application in the same way in an hour or two.
Headstock looks great...was thinking of leaving mine like that but thought why not use stain and stuff something else up lol.
So I took a good look at the fretboard today. The CA has really helped the feel of the board, but there are still some larger cracks and holes (mostly around the nut) that the thin CA didn't help. I think I will try filling them with more viscous CA tomorrow. The whole board could probably do with a second application of thin CA, as I think I have oversanded in some places. And the frets still have scratches in them as I was much more focused on the board itself. I don't want to sand the board any more though, so when I get to the frets I will mask again so I can finish the frets without worrying about the board.
Ah, engineered rosewood, I am sure you seemed like a good idea at the time to someone...
There's good engineered stuff and bad engineered stuff.
That's only really because you haven't got the right tools to hand.
OK, advice needed.
I haven't sanded the edge where the clear meets the fretboard yet (just hitting the two week mark since I finished spraying). Today I noticed a small chip where the tape has lifted away a spot of clear. It was hard to get a good photo so I had to enhance the edges and draw a circle around it. The chip is about 5mm long.
Attachment 35571
Is the best repair to mask everything but a small section around the chip, sand to feather the edges and roughen the surrounding clear, and then respray? Or is there a shortcut I could take. Really hoping for a shortcut, but not expecting one. At least waiting another two weeks to finish will give me time to complete all the pedal builds...
Are you using acrylic lacquer? I'd just rough it up a little around the area and give it a couple of quick sprays, leaving a few minutes between each. I wouldn't tape as that will give you a hard edge you'll need to address, if you are light on with the spray it should feather and blend in fine with the existing finish.
Just spray and sand ans Sonic says. For cracks, I tend to use a paintbrush and dab the finish in, but if you've only got rattle cans (as opposed to a spray gun and bottles/tins of spray paint), then that's not an option.
If it was an older neck with a chip, then filling with CA and sanding and polishing would be a good option as well, but as it's all new, then might as well get it right now.
The lacquer can't have adhered well to the wood to pull away like that, so it does need roughing up within the chip to key it in.
You may have to sacrifice the brush though if you haven't got appropriate cleaners, so don't use anything expensive. Cheapest of the cheap Amazon or eBay brushes will do.
I've had luck before with a few chips. If you pool up some spray finish as mentioned before. You can drop fill it using something firm and thin. Toothpick, paperclip or some wire. Just keep dropping it in slowly till it kind of wicks its way around inside the chip and starts to fill it up. Pretty much how you would do with CA, but use the laquer itself.
So many ways to skin a cat
Thanks everyone. There was some loose lacquer still attached, so I picked that away, sanded, tack-clothed, and then resprayed the clear. If I get problems again I will probably go for the CA as I am somewhat impatient with having to wait for yet more lacquer to cure.
There is still a bit of a bump where the chip was, as I haven't resprayed anywhere near as many coats. If the weather holds tomorrow I may put one or two more on.
After the spate of recent horror stories about stock kit screws breaking I decided to replace mine with something sturdier. Real Parts was out of stock of a few sizes that I needed, so I went to the dread green shed:
Attachment 35912
As near as I can measure, and recognizing that since I haven't drilled pilot holes I have more leeway, these should do for pickguard/jack, bridge, and neck. I know they are zinc plated not nickel or chrome but they should be a lot sturdier. Plus a pack of 50 was the same price as ~8 screws from Real Parts.
Other progress since last post has mostly been in the pedal building area, but I have filled the chipped lacquer on the neck (not perfectly though, but enough to stop it worsening) and applied a bit more CA to some fretboard spots that needed it.
Not ideal screws, as they aren't the normal dome head countersunk type. Also more for softwood rather than hardwood with those coarse threads.
I'm using similar for the bridge on the 'Mustang' The size is 5G 15mm.
Probably not the ideal, but geez luxury after the cheddar cheese one's they replaced.
cheers, Mark.
Hmm, I matched them to the ones that came with the kit, and the thread pitch looked quite similar. Admittedly I didn't measure the pitch as the battery in my digital calipers is flat. Or by "coarse" are you referring to the thread depth (outer to inner radius) rather than pitch?
It's a basswood body if that helps, which I think is quite a lot softer than ash or alder. Oh yeah, except for the maple neck :(
I agree there is no dome head, but isn't that more for appearance than structural integrity? And to prevent sharp edges if the screw isn't perfectly straight?
Turns out that I need to put in an order with Real Parts anyway, because the volume pot in the G&L died tonight after 7 years valiant service. I soldered a bridge across terminals 2 and 3 as a temporary fix (simulates max volume more or less). And it turns out that no matter how many pots I have stashed, I still never have the right values.
Slowly progressing on this build. I have suspended all my pedal building efforts for now while I get this done.
I mentioned before that the bone nut was too thin compared to the plastic kit nut, and thus a very poor fit into the slot. Today I measured with calipers. Plastic kit nut is 4mm thick while the bone nut is 3mm. I have emailed Adam to see if I received the wrong nut or if my kit neck had an unusual nut thickness. Nut width and string spacing look correct.
Thanks to BakersDozen I have some thin veneer that I could use to shim the nut, but matching the colour to the rosewood might be tricky. Would I be better off buying some bone nut blanks on ebay? I do have a set of nut files.
If I do get some bone blanks, can the 12" radius sanding block be used to radius the top curve on the nut? Or is it a different profile that is higher on the bass side, and thus needing a different approach.
Some small research suggests that 4mm thick is uncommon. Looking at Real Parts, all the pre-shaped/pre-slotted bone nuts are 3mm thick. All the pre-shaped/pre-slotted Tusq nuts are 3.4mm thick. Blanks in both are thicker, so that's looking like the only option other than shimming to get a snug fit.
Hey JD. Have you tried Ace Guitar Parts. I've bought quite a few items from them. The service is good and parts are good quality. They have screws, bone nuts and everything else.
P.S. I had the same issue with the bone nut I ordered and I just shimmed it with paper. Once the nut was glued in I trimmed the paper and you can't even see it.
P.P.S. There's a pic of the new nut on my thread in the Build Diary forum.
Thanks. I actually read your thread earlier today and commented on the photo rotation issue. I didn't pay close attention to the nut at the time. Is the closeup photo showing the shimmed bone nut? I have 1mm to make up which is quite a few sheets of paper. I guess it is strong in compression. Better not get it wet though!
And you are right, I was thinking I needed to colour match the fretboard but matching the nut colour makes more sense.
I will check out Ace Guitar parts now. Thanks again.
Yes that's shimmed Mine was tight with two sheets of paper. You may need something more like a business card? Yeah the rotation thing is a bit of a mystery. Thanks for the input though.
Hmmm, seems the nut slot on your kit is a little over exaggerated - one would have hoped that if anyone had this problem before on their kit they would have chimed in by now. Hopefully Adam might have had this come up before and can offer a solution. In regards to nut radius - I think it is more the height you have to worry about for each string rather than make it uniform. If you do end up cutting a bone nut from scratch, then you could ensure the heights are right, then round it off accordingly afterwards to match aesthetics if that makes sense. Shimming with white paper or cardboard could certainly be done and a few drops of ca glue wicked in could firm it up somewhat? Remeber that whatever adjustment is made at the nut, may have an impact on bridge and scale length. Although 1mm isn't really a huge deal there, just be wary of that if your bridge is already located.
I spoke to Adam today, and he is going to see if they have any nuts that are closer to 4mm thick. Fortunately I haven't placed the bridge yet, but I planned to have the shims to the tuner side so the distance from nut to bridge wouldn't change with the shims (assuming this is measured from the front of the nut and not the middle).
Wicking thin CA into the paper shim might strengthen it but it also might mean I would never get the nut out again without a battle and possibly major damage.
I still have a while to go before I need to decide this.
Tonight I did more work on the neck while watching Warrior Nun on Netflix (not a bad show). First I spot/strip sanded down a few runs with 600 wet and dry, then knocked down the orange peel by dry sanding with 1200 wet and dry. This didn't take long and gave me a smooth but matte finish. I then used micro-mesh working up to 6000. With each grade, I had to wipe away small particles of lacquer after a few passes with the mesh. By the time I reached 6000 the finish looks good to my eyes. A pleasing level of gloss with no obvious scratches.
For the back of the neck I stopped at a much lower grade so it's smooth but not so glossy. More of a semi-gloss. But whatever it's called, it feels good.
I will probably buff the headstock, but honestly, I would be happy to leave it as is. This opinion might change once I inspect in sunlight.
For the body I would like a shinier gloss, so will use the same approach but go higher on the micromesh grade followed by cutting compound and polish.
I know most people wet sand, but based on my results tonight I think this dry sanding approach will work fine without risking water getting into the drilled holes.
Not sure if this is possible just because I let the lacquer cure for a few months.
Just a quick note on the nut placement. I shimmed the tuner side for the reasons you mentioned and only used two little blobs of PVA to hold the nut in. This could then be tapped out later if need be.
Good news, I might not need to shim so much. Adam put a new nut in the mail today :)
Awesome! Fingers crossed it's a better fit [emoji16]
Polishing the well-cured finish in progress. Still quite a way to go, but so far so good.
In sunlight there is still some orange peel remnants visible, mainly on the front. But it seems confined to areas that will be under the pickguard so I might leave it alone rather than risk sand-through.
Also, metallic paint seems hard to capture well in photos. IRL there is quite a lot more sparkle going on here.
Attachment 36428Attachment 36429
Neck is pretty much done except for fret polish. I will leave that until almost last as I am sure to scratch them. There is some bubbling of the decal on Bluey which is dissappointing but there is nothing I can do about it. The decals have bedded in nicely though.
Attachment 36430Attachment 36431
Looking wonderful. I can already see a good sharp reflection coming off the body [emoji16]
It's getting there. With a bright light at a low glancing angle I can still see plenty of marks and fine scratches that need work. I am less than halfway through the micromesh grades though, and will follow that with cutting compound. I am experimenting with micromesh as an alternative to wet sanding. So far so good.
Finished working up through to 12000 micromesh. The last 5 grades were quite subtle, but I can see the difference. I could watch TV in the reflection after the final grade. Next up, cut and polish the old-fashioned way: lots of elbow grease!