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A friend of mine is retiring at the end of this year. He is a guitarist and used to have a strat but it was a heavy ash one and he didnt like it. I have decided to make him a strat and picked the lighter basswood option. I also have an ulterior motive as I would like to test out a vintage butterscotch finish using tinted F&W liming paint. Keeping it standard at the moment and may upgrade things later. The neck fits quite well and the body is good. Here are some pics.
What a nice idea!
Will be interested to see the colour of the F&W.
Good one Stan! Does he know about it, or will be a surprise?
Yes he does know about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
Headstock shaped to roughly a strat but with a slight look of a tele. I hate removing those plastic nuts even though I take extreme care i always chip a bit of rosewood off which I have to supaglue back on.
3 coats of FW liming paint tinted with FW golden teak. You leave the coats on for 5 to 10 minutes and then wipe off. It is sort of a blonde/butterscotch colour but I am happy with the result. Wont know until the the final acrylic clear goes on.
Neck will have wipe on poly for a natural look.
Should look good under clear.
Very interested to see how this comes out. Would also like that finish on a project down the track. keep up the good work and keep us posted.
Looking good.
Interested to see how it goes with the clear coat.
Its been pretty cold in Tassie lately too cold to spray acrylic lacquer. However last wednesday I got the shed up to a balmy 16 degrees and proceeded to spray the acrylic lacquer. Things from the start did not look the same as previous spray jobs I had done and there were quite a few runs particularly on the back of the guitar. Oh well I could fix them later I thought. 24 hours later I carefully got a sharp razor blade and attacked the larger drips. To my dismay vast chunks of the finish just flaked off. In fact all over the body the finish would pull off like peeling an onion. The acrylic would not adhere to the liming finish!. Whether it was too smooth or something in the liming paint (I had read somewhere it might contain polyurethane) prevented adhesion I am not sure. Anyway back to the drawing board as I have to resand and apply the liming finish again as there are parts where the acrylic did adhere such as some rougher parts of the sides and the cut away areas. The recommendation of FW is a poly finish over the liming paint and I may have to go down that route if I want this type of effect.
There have been build that successfully used the FW liming before. You would have to dig back through build diaries from 4-5 years ago. Sorry I can’t remember who did it. But their build diary may hold the secret if you can find it. You could try using the search function on the forum and see what you can find.
Thanks fretworn seemed they used poly to finish it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fretworn
Recovered after much sanding and application of the tinted liming paint again. Thankfully I tinted enough to be able to do it again. Since this is an experiment I am applying straight FW poly with a foam brush as I have found in the past it leaves less marks than a brush. After 3 coats its looks Ok but will need a few more coats with more sanding with finer grits. I read somewhere where people use wipe on poly for the last few coats to get a smooth finish so might try this as well. At least the poly adheres to the liming finish.
That's looking nice.
If you want go that route, just thin the poly your using 50/50 with mineral turps.Quote:
I read somewhere where people use wipe on poly for the last few coats...
It's the same as wipe-on you'd buy but 1/3 the price.
I make homebrew wipe on all the time. It's just the right consistency for my airbrush, which is how I've been doing my necks lately.
Thanks for that will give it a go.Quote:
Originally Posted by McCreed
Great idea for a retirement present. I’ve had the same idea for someone I work with. Looking good so far.
I ended up applying 5 coats of poly with the foam brush, sanding between each coat with finer grits. It still looked a bit up and down so I was going to apply a couple of coats of wipe on poly but instead got a spray can of cabots gloss poly and used that. Put on 2 coats sanding between with fine sandpaper and the result is much better than I thought it would be. It is relatively flat and should sand and polish well in 4 weeks time! What can I do for the next 4 weeks? I have thought a precision bass would be good as I like the simplicity of the design. I have other basses but not a single pickup precision style bass. I told my wife this was the last one what will I do? Ooops too late I pushed the purchase key and a precision kit is on its way.
Wet sanded with 1500 and 2000 grit sandpaper. Polished with Meguiars Ultimate compound and Scratch-X to a nice gloss finish. Some final setup adjustments but almost ready for the retirement party. All standard parts except for a bone nut. Plays OK and sounds reasonable with the standard pickups.
That's a great vintage blonde finish there stansby.
I've got a birthday coming up...
...just sayin' :p
Great finish there. Nice and smooooooooth and shiny.
Hi Stansby, which liming product did you happen to use? There are 2 variants I can find.
Straight liming white https://media.bunnings.com.au/Produc...60d25b8670.jpg
or
Stain and varnish
https://media.bunnings.com.au/Produc...456dc57927.jpg
To Bakersdozen it was the Liming White by itself (the first picture) and I kept adding coats until you got the colour you were after. Then a clear coat finish over the top although I did have problems tying to coat with acrylic lacquer and settled on poly in the end.
Thanks mate! Much appreciated. I love this finish.Quote:
Originally Posted by stansby40