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Upgrades:
- Bone nut
- Tonerider TRS1SET Pure Vintage Set
- Grover Chrome 6 Inline Mini Locking Rotomatics (406C)
- Wilkinson WVS50IIK 2 Point Pivot Floating Tremolo Stratocaster - Nickel
- White Pearloid pickguard
The STA-1M is on backorder. Not sure when it will arrive.
The plan is to do a fairly traditional strat build. Metallic blue body and front of the head stock and Fender head stock shape.
Any comments on the upgrades would be welcomed.
Wilkinson tremolo arrived.
Attachment 36541
Might change the colour to the red that Mazda are using. Vibrant.
I've also got the STA-1M on backorder. From the last I've heard, the ship should be arriving in Freo in about a month's time.
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My kit arrived last week.
Upgrades:
- Tonemaster pickups
- Wilkinson trem
- bone nut
- pearloid pick guard
- locking tuners
Latest thinking on colour is a pastel. Maybe blue, mint or something similar.
Question: some of the frets are not properly seated. they are sitting around 0.3mm off the fret board. I can push them in, but they don't stay pushed in. How can I fix this?
I have assembled the guitar, without finish and made sure the bridge is drilled in the right place. All good so far.
I made a couple of annoying mistakes - did not drill the holes for the 2 bridge pivots properly. One hole was too small and it put a fine split in the timber. The other hole was not deep enough and when I forced the insert into the hole until it was flush, it damaged the wood in the back of the guitar where the springs are. Annoying mistakes from not being careful enough. All fixed though.
The other mistake was that I broke off a piece of the neck when removing the nut. Also fixed.
I am painting at the moment. Battling the grain holes in the ash body. I tried Feast Watson Sanding Sealer, but only a few coats. It looked fine, until I sprayed primer filler, then all the holes showed up! The latest trial is to spray on primer filler then use and old ID card to smear it into the grain. Tried the same with the Sanding Sealer (I used a brush first time). I will give it a few days to dry and see whether the grain holes re-appear.
I am painting the face of the headstock. No issues with grain filling because it is maple. I have painted colour and one coat of clear. Waiting for decal paper to arrive so I can apply a decal before finishing the clear coats. Then it is on to applying Organoil to the fret board and neck.
Sanding sealer is fine for wood with smaller grain holes to fill, but for the larger grain patterns in ash, then a proper grain filler is easiest. Otherwise you'd need to apply many coats of sanding sealer to do the same job.
It's never easy knowing what size holes to drill for posts. You don't want to make them too large so the posts re loose, yet too small and you run into the problems you've encountered. A hole about 0.5mm smaller than the splines seem to work for me, at least with 12mm diameter posts. If there's a section of the post at the bottom with no splines on it that's a smaller diameter than the splines, then that should be the ideal hole size.
But good news that you've managed to fix the splits and other small accidents. I'm hoping that one day I'll have learnt enough from my mistakes to build at least one guitar without any mishaps and with everything going as it should. I'm not holding my breath!
Howdy folks.
Bit of a problem with the inkjet decal. I sprayed one coat of clear (auto acrylic) after I printed it so it would not run when I soaked it in water. Then I soaked it in water and applied it. Everything was fine at this stage. When I sprayed 3 coats of clear, the decal wrinkled up.
Suggestions?
Attachment 37535
How long after applying the decal did you spray it?
About 12 hours I think. Overnight. And I did not heat cure it.
Should have been long enough to dry, though with a layer of acrylic already on the top of the decal, it may have remained slightly wet and not fully stuck. It is the decal itself that’s wrinkled, and not just the layers of acrylic on the top?
These days I use Decalsol (model kit stuff) to help stick my decals down and I’ll normally wait a full 24 hours for small decals and at least 48 for bigger ones. I use nitro sprays, and with a couple of coats of that over the decal before it’s applied, I know it could take a while for all the moisture to dry out from underneath it and I don’t want to trap it i n when I then spray more clear over the top.
I haven’t used acrylic over decals, so can’t really suggest anything you could try to rescue the situation.
I could either keep spraying clear coats until I have enough build up to W&D it back flat, or I could block it back, taking off the decal in the process then try again.
I sprayed over the wrinkled sticker - about 5 coats of clear - and the sticker flattened out perfectly. No more wrinkles. Hopefully it will stay flat while the clear dries.
Can't believe it.
....but it didn't. The wrinkles came back, although not as bad as before. Perhaps the answer is to keep spraying clear coats until it does not come back at all.
Another problem surfaced. The black ink on the inkjet decal bled a little.
Here is the first photo of the head with bad wrinkles:
Attachment 37552
Here are some photos after the coats of clear. You can see wrinkles from some angles, but from other angles it looks great. The edge of the decal is prominent, but I am hoping it will be less so when I block it back with W&D.
Attachment 37561
Attachment 37562
Attachment 37563
After the recent post from Adam offering free SixStringSupplies pots for people to try and report back on, I went to the SixStringSupplies website and orders pots (push pull volume), 5 way switch, orange drop and cloth wire so I can do their 7 tone wiring set up in the wiring diagrams on their site. Should be arriving soon...
The main thing I needed was the push pull pot, but I thought I would upgrade the whole setup.
I am accumulating a few spare parts that I did not use in the kit builds. Maybe I can do something weird with them.
Update: I sanded back the headstock to get the clear flat on top of the decal. I ended up sanding through to the decal. So now I have taken it right off and I am back to base coating. I might do away with the decal. Black does not look ideal - I would prefer a creamy white - but that is not easy with waterslide decals. Anyone got any suggestions here?
The body came up well. Overall it looks flat, reflects well and looks good. However there are several imperfections and if you look close you can see scratched, pin holes and the grain pushing through yet again. I don't mind the grain though. You have to look close to see it and it reminds you of what is underneath. The finish feels super smooth after polishing.
Here is the body before polishing. You can see plenty of orange peel and grain showing through.
Attachment 37595
This is an overall shot after polish. Looks fine I think.
Attachment 37596
Here are a few imperfections. I don't want to try to W&D them out because I am worried I will go through the clear. Besides you have to look close to notice them.
Attachment 37597
These marks are interesting. I put the body down on a the cardboard box it came in. Even though it had been several days since clearing, the paint was still soft enough to make a mark. Even though the clear is blocked flat and polished the mark still shows, so it must be in the colour coat. I don't mind it though.
Attachment 37598
And here you can see the grain showing through. I left it for about 5 days before sanding. After sanding it was perfectly flat and since then the grain has pushed through a bit. Again I don't mind it because you have to look close to see it, and it reminds me that it is wood underneath.
Attachment 37599
I love the colour and how shiny it is. Great work.
Thanks TD. I am happy with the colour. I followed Phrozin's instructions on painting with cans.
Wilkinson bridge is great. Whammy bar is nice and snug
Tonerider PUPs have sweet tone.
7 way with push pull volume pot using Six String Supplies pots, switch and wiring.
Bridge pickup is wired to the same tone pot as the mid pickup.
I am very happy with the tone, aesthetics and head shape.
Looks great, and good to hear it's also a player!
Similar aesthetic to my last build with the metallic blue and white pearloid. You gotta love pearloid.
**Nodding**