FS-1 build

Been tinkering with this one for a while and finally got around to starting a build diary.
Pics of front and back dampened with gum turpentine.
Attachment 19460Attachment 19461
Flame top is really nice and have only found a couple of small glue spots. Speaking of glue, unfortunately some has run along the back of the body inside the bass side f-hole. Haven't tried to remove it yet, just hope it hasn't stained the timber too much. Still scratching my head as to why someone at the factory would put a pencil thru both f-holes and mark (sign?) the back of the body.
Attachment 19462Attachment 19463Attachment 19464
These are minor annoyances and the kit is far too nice to even think about sending back.

cont...

The store pics show it as having a stop tail , but yours seems to have a trapeze , is that correct?

There is an odd little hole in the neck pocket which will need to be filled
Attachment 19465
The tuner holes aren't straight so some plugging and re-drilling required, also some contouring planned.
Attachment 19466Attachment 19467
cont...

Yep, you're right Dedman. The one that came with the kit didn't do much for me, found one the net but didn't realise the bracket was curved already.
Attachment 19468
I knew would need to make a spacer for either one to fit squarely on the angled shape of the body. Decided I didn't want mess with bending the bracket on the tailpiece and possibly ruining it and went with a stop piece instead. Best I could tell the centre block is about 100mm wide, wide enough to drill the post holes.
Attachment 19469Attachment 19470Attachment 19471

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by neverwas

There is an odd little hole in the neck pocket which will need to be filled
Attachment 19465
The tuner holes aren't straight so some plugging and re-drilling required, also some contouring planned.
Attachment 19466Attachment 19467
cont...

---

Immensely frustrating with the tuner holes, what have you planned for the contouring?

And because there isn't much modification that can be done to the body, the headstock got some tweaking.
Attachment 19472
Took a couple of mm off the top end and made this curious looking template for routing the recess to make it a bit more like a real one.
Attachment 19473
Used a round nose bit with a guide bearing to make the recess 2mm deep. Did need to adjust my template to get cut line where I wanted it. Made the lower area a bit wider than maybe it should be as I'll put a name or logo there instead of trying to fit one around the string tree I'm planning to use.
Attachment 19474
Left the high e tuner hole and plugged the rest and redrilled new holes that should make the string pull a bit straighter (wasn't that bad, but while I was at it figured it wouldn't hurt, did make sure the tuners still fit).
Attachment 19475
For a final touch, added a flame maple veneer. It would have been far easier (and quicker) to put the veneer on first and then rout the recess but may have got a little carried away and routed prematurely.
Attachment 19476
cont..

Hope that last post answered your question Franky.
Also needed to add a veneer to the back now the tuner holes have been moved. It's more yellow than the rest of the neck, might try to colour the neck to match or just leave it as a feature, haven't decided yet.
Attachment 19477
Took a while to work out which pups to use and went with these (their name may appeal to you Franky), Pabs has made some dress rings to suit.
Attachment 19478
Now it's sanding time, yaaay.

Grant

Love the headstock neverwas. Frankentone eh? I bet they are going to sound so sweet.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by neverwas

Hope that last post answered your question Franky.
Also needed to add a veneer
Took a while to work out which pups to use and went with these (their name may appeal to you Franky), Pabs has made some dress rings to suit.
Attachment 19478
Now it's sanding time, yaaay.

Grant

---

FrankenTones eh? Igor approves. Nice contour work and the tuner holes and veneer look schmick! Great Job.

Thanks Andy and Franky.....and Igor.
The pups measure at 4.7k, so about what you would expect for that type of pup.
Spent some time today reshaping the neck heel. The before shot shows a gap between the heel and body which goes away with a little clamping pressure.
Attachment 19499Attachment 19500

Grant

Lookin' great, Grant! The contouring and the PUPs are both spot on.

Thanks John.
There has been some progress, albeit a bit slow. Spent a weekend afternoon glueing small squares of 150 grit sandpaper to the end of pencils so I could sand inside the f-holes to remove the pencil marks and glue stain. Pencil came off OK but the yellow stain from the glue is there for good, did make it a little less noticeable though. There were a number of pencil casualties.
Attachment 21198Attachment 21199
Sanded the side up to 240 grit and had to spend a bit of time alternating between using Goof-off and a small brass brush to remove as much of the glue mark as I could. Then polished the binding with 1500 grit paper and masked up front and back of body.
I'm using Colortone stains I have left over to try to do a tiger eye effect, my test piece of maple veneer came out alright but wasn't able to get the contrast between light and dark colours I was hoping for but hopefully still resembles what I'm after.
First step, a coat of black diluted with metho, covered the glue mark so was happy about that.
Attachment 21200Attachment 21201
cont..

Then used a cloth dampened with metho to pull some of the black back out and in doing so made some of the black bleed under the vinyl tape, just need to hope I polished the binding well enough so it will scrape off.
Next step was to make up the orange by mixing 4 ml of lemon yellow and 1ml of cherry red and diluting that with 50ml metho. Wiped on six coats which also helps pull some of the black out as well. The black is now more of a deep brown with the orange highlights where the curves change direction.
It is darker than my test piece but that may be a good thing if I need to do a burst to cover up the glue stain on the back by the binding. First pic raw stain
Attachment 21202
After two coats of vinyl sealer
Attachment 21203Attachment 21204
Little bit of an oops on the back but that should cover up.
Attachment 21205

Grant

Nice work mate. Very classy.

That does look good.

Looking great Grant! Pickups look awesome as well.She's going to look amazing when done.

cheers,
Gav.

Thanks guys. Gav, it's a shame we won't get to see your FS-1 finished as that burst was perfect.
More colouring done. Sanded the back with 400 to remove some random sanding marks and then stained with the diluted black and then 6 coats of orange.
Attachment 21573Attachment 21574Attachment 21575
Have previously extended the neck pup cavity roughly 3mm to get the pup and dress ring to fit properly and keeping the neck at the right spot for the scale length.
Attachment 21576

cont...

Then lightly sanded the front with 400 to again remove some sanding marks from the factory, then black and orange
Attachment 21577Attachment 21578
Attachment 21579
The glue marks I knew about weren't a problem but new ones have a habit of popping up, along the centre veneer join and just to the right of that below the tailpiece post holes.

cont..

Picked along the veneer join with a sewing needle to dig out the glue and then went over that with full strength colour the same way Kick did on his Red Widow.
Attachment 21580Attachment 21581
Also had a spot to the left of the left f-hole , it was glue because it shattered when picking at it. Spot filled with natural timbermate.
Attachment 21582

cont.

After dabbing and wiping on the stains ended up with 9 coats of orange in total
Attachment 21583
Repair spots are still noticeable on raw stain but with 2 coats of vinyl sealer seem to have blended in a bit better
Attachment 21584Attachment 21585Attachment 21586
The back is lighter than the rest at this point, it may even out a little when the top coats go on, just need to decide on gloss or satin for the finish.
Now have lots of binding to scrape.

Grant

Well, it's been a while and there is actually some progress on this one (had other boring household projects to get done).
Cleaned the binding up as good as I could but my way of applying the coats of stain meant it bled into the cracks around the upper horns, my preparation wasn't good enough.
Sanded the sealer with 400 grit and then sprayed 4 thin coats of acrylic lacquer. I am going for a gloss finish at the moment but that could still change. Pics are a bit flattering as far as the contrast between light and dark shades goes but you get the idea.
Attachment 25600Attachment 25601
If you can't get a clear pic of the flaws, does that mean they don't exist?
Attachment 25602
Will let this dry for a month and then sand and spray more clear coats.

Grant

Nice colour.

Bugger about the binding.

I'd just keep scraping at the binding with a sharp knife.

Thanks Waz

Simon, have already scraped the binding quite a bit and the stain is in there for good, only way to fix is replace it and can't see that happening any time soon. It is a nuisance but one of my own doing.

Grant

Rude words. Just wondering if there's any sort of beach that would get the stain out. Either that, or mask the body and spray the binding white.

A bit of this on a cloth/rag works too.

Attachment 25603

All our Meths/Metho in the UK is coloured purple to show it's been adulterated with a poisonous additive (otherwise it is just ethanol) to discourage people from drinking it and to avoid any alcohol duty.

It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.

I had the same problem on my ES-3 and couldn’t get it out no matter what I tried and yes Simon there were rude words spoken.
Unlike Weirdy’s words of wisdom, which are very nice.

Really does look great. The binding scratches do look pretty deep. I'd be tempted to keep scraping. I'm not sure you'd get anywhere with bleach or solvents.

Otherwise, depending on what you are using for clears, you could go to a modelling shop and buy some bone or ivory coloured paint and touch it up very carefully with a small brush. Once you build up clears over it you will never notice, provided you find a close colour match.

Appreciate the feedback guys.
Yes Simon, there were may rude words uttered that day.
Thanks Joe, when it's time to sand the clear will try that.
Wayne, didn't have a problem with the binding on the body of my ES-3, only what I put on the headstock.
They are not so much scratches as stress cracks Sonic. I may have to look into painting those areas, good idea.
And Weirdy, that's a bit too profound for me and am not well read enough to know where it came from.

Thanks
Grant

Sorry, Simon's comment aout the purple Metho and drinking made me think of the stained lips of Mentats, hence the Dune quote.

Thanks for clearing that up Weirdy.
Finally got back to this one, the JMA had my attention for a while. Sanded the clear with 600 grit followed by 800, may have been able to flatten out more of the grain marks but wasn't willing to risk sanding through. Went with Sonic's idea of touching up the binding by painting it, not the whole thing just the affected bits. All taped up, took ages
Attachment 26925Attachment 26926
And hey presto, nice clean looking binding.
Attachment 26927
Coz I'm using acrylic clear, played it safe by finding a suitable colour in acylic lacquer. The smallest amount they would mix up was 250ml so now have a lifetimes supply of binding touch up paint. Even though I'm fixing up a problem that was mostly self-inflicted it still feels a little like cheating.
Attachment 26928
cont.

Then sprayed another 4 coats of clear, may need to do more but will wait and see.
Attachment 26929Attachment 26930
Attachment 26931
Trying to come up with something to do for an inlay on the recessed part of the headstock, this is the current idea. It will be white MOP on a black background.
Attachment 26932

Grant

Hi neverwas, looks fantastic so far.

Looking good. If I were to do a hollow body I'd probably pick this one. Great work on the headstock and binding fix.

Wow, that finish looks unbelievable, well done!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by neverwas

Then sprayed another 4 coats of clear, may need to do more but will wait and see.
Attachment 26929Attachment 26930
Attachment 26931
Trying to come up with something to do for an inlay on the recessed part of the headstock, this is the current idea. It will be white MOP on a black background.
Attachment 26932

Grant

---

Oh my, that is looking amazing NW. Wonderful job.

Lovin this build, I have one in my sights "one day"

Cheers Guvna
Thanks Sonic, if I remember correctly you love your offsets, this could be the kit for you.
Thanks Andy, there are still grain marks that will most likely polish out or will have to do more clear.
Thanks FW, it's getting there very slowly.
Cheers Deddy, by "one day" does that mean you have one on the way and will most likely have it finished before I even get the neck glued in on this one?:p

Grant