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Was lucky enough to get this kit at the summer sale in Feb and have started to make some progress with it.
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It seems I've been inspired by this kit in a similar way to Dave E, in that I'll try to do an inlay (never tried to do one before so this will be a learning curve). Gav's tutorial has come along at the right time.
Timing is EVERYTHING!! :)
The 'vintage-y' part comes from deciding to do a sunburst like you'd find on a jazz guitar.
Body sanded with 240, 320 then grainfilled (twice) the long open pores in the laminate surface and sanded with 400.
Made a 50-50 mix of Colortone vintage amber and lemon yellow for the main colour
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and used cherry red and black for the burst.
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It now has two coats of sanding sealer on it and I have a few hours of cleaning up binding ahead.
You're right there Gav. I've gone for a straight lined geometric shape, trying to be art-deco. It might work or might not.
Grant
holy cow, Grant, you've nailed the vintage jazz burst look, terrific job
That burst is so well done. Awesome work man
Good goddamn. Perfection.
mmmm... jazzy. Very nice.
Thanks Stan, Nick, Pabs and Weirdy.
To give you an idea where I'm going with the inlay here is a pic of a D'Angelico headstock.
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I'll try to use the 'sword' part of their inlay in my design and put an art deco fan shape on top.
I'm liking the stairstep truss rod cover as well.
Wow excellent looking burst Grant. Good luck with the head stock inlay
O.M.G.
That is just amazing work...
One of the best looking bursts on the forum. Awesome work.
Very, very nice!
Thanks very much Wokks, DB, Gav and Fretty. Got most of the binding cleaned up, just have the fiddly f-holes to do.
Looks amazing neverwas!
D'Angelico make great looking guitars. love those headstocks
Wow, that looks amazing neverwas.
I love all things art-deco, this should be an awesome looking guitar.
Great stuff!
I need to learn a lot more about this grain filling subject.
Thanks for the encouragement guys. Update time.
The body has four coats of acrylic lacquer clear and is being left to cure, will need to be sanded and re-cleared.
Lots of work done to the headstock. The inlay pieces have been cut and filed to shape and the recess routed.
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Then went about reshaping. I'm with Stan, the D'Angelico head stocks are really cool so I made my own approximation of one. Started by drilling the two holes and then used a coping saw to get the top profile, then a sanding drum in the drill press to tidy up and shape the sides and small files to finish up, also used a profile gauge to get both sides even.
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And with the inlay pieces in place
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There is no way I could rout a straight line, so I got as close as I could then used some wood carving knives I got off the interweb to straighten the lines. There are a few gaps but should be able to fill them in and not be too noticeable.
Oh my word, I've missed this build what a stunner of a burst and awesome inlay!
Then I had a go at routing the channel for the binding and purfling. Don't really have the right bits so made do with what I have and do a bit of improvising. Needed to make a caul (not sure if thats the right word), a piece to stick to the top of the head stock so the router could get right up to the end of the fingerboard and had to use some packing strap to space the router bearing out far enough to get the right rebate size.
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After a bit of tidying up
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Not sure if it shows up clearly, but there are sections where the inner ledge for the purfling need to be built back up, my lack of experience showing. Maybe sawdust and glue should do the trick?
Hope I didn't get anyone's hope up with the art deco inlay design, it looks fairly simple but the plan is to scribe some lines to better define the shape, if that makes any sense.
Grant
Cheers Andrew. If the kit came with a flamed veneer like your beautiful Es-1G, that would be the icing on the cake.
Hey Grant. Love the headstock inlay.
Are ypu using a plastic binding ? You can make a paste by putting small pieces in acetone to build up any low spots or gaps
Thanks Wokks. Yeah the binding is plastic, ABS I think, and have noticed Arzi used that technique on his build. Only need to have a 0.5mm ledge for the purfling (2mm deep binding and 1.5mm purfling). Doesn't sound like much but it needs to be there to keep the top edges level.
Looking great Grant! Love the inlay and I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the binding. Props for some mad skills dude!
cheers,
Gav.
That is awesome work mate, plenty of people with more than hand tools can't do that, very nice result
that headstock is a work of art!
Dedication there Grant. Good work!
Thanks a lot everyone. Just to be clear I did use power tools as much as I could and hand tools for the fiddlier bits, I'm not in Rob's league of hand tools only. There was a LOT of head scratching before I was game to start the shaping.
Didn't mention that to get the rebates for the two circles at the top, started with a 13mm forstner bit for the purfling ledge, then ground the end of a 11mm drill bit flat to get the binding ledge (made an awful noise when drilling) and then a 8mm brad point bit for the through hole, all in the drill press.
The plan for the binding is to use one strip of black-white purfling and then binding. Bought some white binding but the binding on the neck more cream in colour. Have ordered some ivory coloured binding to see if that is closer to what's needed. Worst case is will need to try and stain the binding to match. May also need to preshape it to get it in the contours at the top edge, all new to me.
Thanks again.
Grant
Looking fantastic Grant! Great work!
Thanks Brendan. Made a bit of progress.
The inlay is epoxied in and sanded, tried building up the purfling ledge with the binding paste method but found it less messy to use epoxy and then trim it back to make the ledge square(ish).
Purfling and binding glued on and roughly scraped (with a cabinet scraper) to being a bit proud of the timber. It looked not too bad when I took the tape off, but now can see a few gaps and some of the purfling joins don't quite match up. The gaps should be able to fill with the dissolved binding paste. Also the new binding needs to be made the same colour as the neck binding, needs to be not only a bit cream but also green as well. Not sure how to do that yet. Pics
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I did order some ivory coloured binding but it ended up being more yellow than the timber so just used the white instead. Still need to clean up excess glue and try to fill the gaps then sand to level with the timber. Anyway, thats where it's at.
Grant
Grant that looks amazing well done, you do all these new techniques first time and do a very good job. You are really a natural at all these difficult tasks, I'm impressed.
You know now I have had an ES-3 kit sitting for ages I am going to have to try something like this !
actually a mighty fine headstock mate, nicely done
Thanks Wokks and Stan. There may be an element of beginners luck involved although I used about four times the amount of binding you would expect (lots of mistakes pre-shaping pieces).
If I can get a half decent result then you should easily be able to do a classy build Wokks :)
Dang Grant. That headstock is looking great.
Fantastic headstock and inlay, great job!
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I love this guitar. Maybe one day.
Wow Grant, that headstock is stunning dude. That's some mad skills you are showing off there. Amazing job! Can't wait to see the finished product.
cheers,
Gav.
Thanks Fretty, Andrew, Gav And Tadeo - you're doing a great job on your first build, keep at it and you'll do your own no probs.
Couldn't leave the binding alone, had to fiddle with it, ended up re-doing it all to get the fix the joins I wasn't happy with. Bonus was this time used the right cream coloured binding (should have done that the first time) so it matches the fretboard binding. Some bits are better, some aren't, but not doing it a third time.
Then came the stains and went with bursts to match the body and sealed it.
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Used a cotton bud to get the colour into the contours along the top edge, might need to use a brush to get the clear in there as well.
Tried to tape up my binding but the tape didn't want to stay put so have a bit of scraping to do.
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Now to check for bits I've missed, touch up if needed and clear it.
Grant
Wow that neck is amazing!