Getting into a semi-hollow for my second build, and adding a burst colour scheme to up the complexity.
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Getting into a semi-hollow for my second build, and adding a burst colour scheme to up the complexity.
Hi and welcome JonT.
What colours are you using for the burst?
Hi, thanks for the welcome! I'm going to go with a blue burst.
I've done a few color samples - need to learn how to post a photo - so this weekend, it's dive into the deep end and start!
I finished the soldering last weekend. Gave the frets a dressing. Checked the fit in the pocket... Time to do something irreversible!
Colour samples for the quilted maple. Picturing an azure darkening to navy blue. Used 3mm white mahogany plywood as a sample board.
Attachment 44018
Soldering is done!
Attachment 44019
Glad I did a continuity check. The switch tabs, volume pots and jack were all sounding a tone together on the multimeter! I had a stray strand of solder bridge across the the jack. Needed a magnifying glass to see the problem and scraped it away with a knife point.
Pity, looks like my photo progression from yesterday got lost.
Went back to touch up the burst this morning.
Attachment 44025
The Saman stain - for the darker colours - has a lot more solids than the turqoi- turqou- turquoise. For the surrounding blue, I thinned it with water to let the grain show through. Yesterday's first application was kind of muddy (despite the photo) so I used a spray bottle to move some of the blue towards the edges where I'm going for the abyssal look.
Another pass later today with more turqo- turq- blue-green ; ) Maybe, just maybe, a sanding pass over the muddy blue areas to try to accentuate the grain...
...Where I'm going to take full advantage of the high solids in the stain is the neck and mahogany panels! I thinned the stain for the maple quilt and moved on to the neck while I still had the workspace set up.
Attachment 44026
It's going to take a few more applications at that rate. We'll see how the full strength stain takes to the rest of the wood to get a solid coverage.
I still have the photos, even if the original post is lost. A quick progression showing raw to burst on the quilted ES-1Q.
Raw.
Attachment 44027
Base coat for grain 'pop'.
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Sanded back.
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Aaaand, burst!
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Water based stains let you play with the burst a lot. This is more or less what I had in mind but the quilt starts to get lost in the blue sooner than I pictured. Catch-22: add another coat of stain to get more vibrant colour, or sand back to see the quilt? Decided to stop adding and subtracting and move on to the clear coat.
Attachment 44065
First coat of water-based clear coat was half-dabbed, half-brushed, because I expected the stain to move around. Sure enough, it did! I brushed from the pale center out to the edges so nothing that hurts the burst.
I did have to follow up with a wipe around all the binding to remove the clear coat that picked up some stain and dripped over the edge. And when it dried, I realized I should just scrape the binding all over again. Handling the stained body had transferred some pigment into the binding.
Attachment 44066
There! Done. Colour coat is done and set with a clear coat on top.
I trial fit the neck of the ES-1 to the body back when I first got the kit. It was straight to the body but always had a bit of a wobble that would change the bridge height.
Finally sat down to decide how I would shim the pocket on Glueing Day. Turns out the shoulder of the neck would pivot on the face of the body. I could set the heel of the tennon into the floor of the groove, or I could rotate the neck back a couple degrees to sit flush to the toe of the groove and seat well around the side wall.
Back and forth, pros and cons. The bridge and action sat better when the heel was shimmed so I dry fit enough splintered veneer to pivot that way. Also shaved the fulcrum off the shoulder of the neck to sit all the way down into the groove. AND had some more veneer ready to shim the sides of the groove that weren't perpendicular to the floor of the groove.
So a lot of fine tuning and dry fits! But once you rehearse it enough - even down to what order to cinch up the C-clamps - when I realized I can't get back to to build for a couple days... Well, I hadn't planned on setting the neck today but *shrug, here we go!
Lay in the glue, set the shims, hand fit the neck one last time, check the wobble is gone, fit the first clamp and veneer covers for the jaws, arrange the second clamp, reset the first clamp, check the angle is right, then stuff veneer and more glue into the remaining crevices [panic just a little that I'm sure I put enough glue in there?], and then gently, gently set it back down to cure. And check the mating surfaces are mating as I expect, again. [And I'm going to check again after this post!]
Attachment 44067
And that's enough for today.
Looks nice with the first layer of clear coat!
That's gorgeous!
Please tell me what you did before the first application of stain - I have the version with the trapeze tailpiece, and want to go for a deep sunkist-yellow transparent stain.
I tried a few application methods on a veneer plywood offcut. Full strength, diluted, 5 minute soak, 1 minute soak and rub off, sand back with 320grit...
Eventually found the combination that left enough colour in the wood without being too dark. (I was looking for that sunlit look but I didn't want to sand through the veneer.)
I did use an orbital sander to sand back the center of the burst - but only about 30 seconds. I was really nervous about sanding through!
YouTube advice suggested using a brown stain rather than a stronger, darker black base for a tobacco burst. I used the darkest blue in my burst as my base coat to minimize sanding.
Is the veneer thick enough to use a orbital sander? May I know What grit pad did you use?
Continuing with clear coats to build up a base before wet sanding. I'm using a water based lacquer that's really thin and I was getting brush strokes in each coat.
Attachment 44074
The product suggests laying it on 'generously' so I gave it a go. Better! It levels itself when there's more of it. I realized the viscosity would be influenced by temperature so I plugged in a brick heater to get the ambient temperature of my workspace up 10 degrees or so while I'm working there. That seems to be having the desired effect.
Attachment 44075
I'm going to get a few more coats on the sides then let it sit for a week or so - as long as I have the patience! - then figure out 'wet sanding'...
After 7-8 layers, the clear coat is about as smooth as it's ever going to be. I've been knocking down brush strokes between coats with 320 grit to keep it level. This coat had a couple runs down the side that I could shave with a boxcutter knife. Let it sit for a week...
[Tom Petty was right: the waiting is the hardest part.]
Wet sanding is a whole new thing for me. Never done it before. I've used 600 grit wet-dry sandpaper to get a good finish on metal parts but soaking the paper...? Actually using water on the clear coat...?!
Well, the guitar is well protected so...
I soaked 600 / 1000 / 1500 / 2000 grit paper (all North American grades) for an hour.
I used a small block and fingers to follow the contours of the ES-1 body.
I used a small spray bottle to add water as I worked my way around the body.
I rinsed my paper regularly to shake off the sanding product.
It didn't take long to see a change! The first change was scary: your gloss coat goes to satin as you add all the sanding marks. But the brush marks slowly disappear. You can feel when the paper engages in a rough surface and you can see the removed material clouding your water bowl. All very satisfying!
I dried it all off regularly to see the progress. Then started again. Eventually I was starting with the 1000 grit, then focusing on areas with the 1500 grit. Then taking long wipes with the 2000 grit. I even used a slurry of toothpaste for a rubbing compound!
It's still not perfect. I can see ripples in the surface when I hold it to the light, and there are micro-scratches when I look close enough. But this is my first try on a gloss finish. The surface is smooth and relatively consistent. If I wanted more, I would need to go back to applying clear coat and sanding back with 320 until I removed all the ripples from the rough coat.
The Blue Dot isn't perfect but it's looking like the image I had when I started. Time to lay on some polish!
Attachment 44121
OK, compromise! I went back to sanding with 2000 grit. VERY gently and/or using a worn paper. Working over those micro-scratches until they fade back. Now I need to lay on some polishing compound. Ahem, toothpaste. The tartar removing, whitening stuff. It's actually working!!
Just going to go back to it over a couple evenings to remove the 2000grit scratches. Finer than the scratches from before, but giving a 'grain' to the semi-gloss that's coming up. Then I'll go to the Meguiar's polish and a clean micro-fiber cloth.
Ready to start pulling the wiring harness into the body but... WHAT is going on???
I'm getting continuity at the jack again. Suggests I have a stray wire, right? Bad jack, bad switch...? But continuity changes based on the VOLUME pot!!
It's a 2V-2T with 50s wiring so the volume wiper goes through the .047cap to the tone pot - so it goes to ground eventually. So maybe there's some logic to this.
But how do I test the circuit? I'm going to put it aside for today and have a very close look at the wiring diagram tomorrow. Try a couple other tests, search through the forum to see if there's something else I can do.
Attachment 44141
Reading through some advice on the Wiring Pickups tab. I'll try measuring resistance through different parts of the circuit so I can differentiate between zero, infinite and pot resistances.
I think I'll also step back and include the pickups to get the 'real' circuit.
Spent the evening dressing the frets and treating the fretboard with Dunlop lemon oil. (I put that stuff on all my fretboards!) The build is all coming together well!
Theme night: the Blue Dot guitar, Joni's Blue on the turntable and a Blue Buck bzzr at hand.
Attachment 44142
Yes.. Please use a multimeter and check the continuity of the ground between all circuits. There could be a shortQuote:
Originally Posted by JonT
I was getting continuity readings everywhere with my multimeter, so this week I desoldered a few joints to check individual parts. The soldering matched the 50s wiring diagram. The neck and bridge circuits were routed the same. I suspected the jack or switch were shorting.
Socket: OK. Switch: OK. Pots: OK and responding 0-500k as expected. Which made me realize: OF COURSE I'll have continuity to ground via the open pots. That's what they do.
So I rechecked all the circuits with 20M resistance, not continuity. Now it makes sense! You can see the legs of the volume pot change resistance opposite one another.
To be sure, I wired a humbucker into the circuit and plugged into a practice amp. When volume goes up and switch is selected, I can hear the screwdriver tap on the amp. When volume goes down, no tap. When the switch isn't selected, no tap. I did this weeks ago and it worked then.
On to fishing the wiring harness into the f-hole. Again. And again. (I keep tangling up with wiring and the fishing lines! I think I need to toss out that neat horseshoe of ground wires between the pots and just get two pots in at a time. We'll see... try again this week.)
Attachment 44174
This is stunning. It looks like Lake Tahoe. https://upload.travelawaits.com/ta/u...98-800x750.jpg
I backtracked and soldered in quick connects to simplify pulling the wiring loom (after the third try!). Tucking aside the ground, pickup and jack wires while I stuffed the pots was much easier! And now I can swap out pickups in the future without removing the pots.
Anyways, once I pulled the wiring and installed the pots, I had to string it up to see the finished work! It still needs a proper setup but introducing: The Blue Dot.
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Great job, ive never done a set neck only screwed ones so i consider you very brave. Good luck with the build, the colour is looking great.
New noise maker on the block!
Setting up The Blue Dot. Filed down the nut. Adjusted the truss rod. Set the action. Lifted the pups...
When it's set up and running through a 20W amp, the stock pickups have a decent range from a warm chime to a gravel growl, depending on volume and tone adjustments.
Attachment 44640
The Blue Dot looks great! & Love the strap!
1+ My favorites are often the hotrodsQuote:
Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
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