Imagining the Ocean. Thibault's first build!

[Thibault]

Greetings and salutations from Finland!

My ES-2V arrived today and thus it's time to stop lurking and post some pics!

The figure is great and thank god there isn't too many glue stains on the veneer. There is this big problem with the binding next to the neck joint. I'm thinking that maybe I'll use some wood filler. Any ideas?
I'm quite inexperinced with woodworking so bear with me

[Thibault]

More pics and thoughts:

The good thing is that most of the glue thing disappears under the fretboard.


The angle of the neck is wrong so some sanding there...


Minor fretboard issues.


The nut is horrible but that's to be expected

[Adam Barnes]

Hi Thibault mine turned out awsome good luck

[Thibault]

Now to the fun stuff!
I played with some colors and the goal is to get this ocean like blue. I didn't manage to get quite the color I had in mind. Either the blue was too deep or it had too much green in it. I'm using oil based stuff so that the grain of the wood won't rise up and thus need sanding (which I thought could be problematic with a veneer). Here are some of my experiments:



The underlined color is probably closest to my vision. I guess it was about 1 part phthalo blue and 7 parts of manganese blue hue. I used Gamblin's artist grade stuff, linseed oil for diluting and some terebine driers to help it dry and seal the color.



I took the finishing template from this video series :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMOl9-CFrXY

Here are my step by step notes:
1. Sand the body from 120 to 220 grit

2. Fill the grain (if mahogany/ash/other porous wood)
- Use grain filler or
- 50/50 mix polyurethane/white spirits and sand with 320 wet and dry sandpaper which releases sanding dust. The sanding dust mixes with the polyurethane and the mix fills the grain. If you have 4F pumice you can add that as well.

3. Apply artist grade oil paint. Spread it with terebine based drying accelerator (Japan drier) which also helps the paint to penetrate to the wood

4. Sealing the color in to the wood using 50/50 polyurethane white spirits mix. Cover the body with the mix and wait for ~5 or more hours for it to dry. Make 2-4 coats (and for the neck even more coats). You want to see the mix to build up (at the start it will seep into the wood)

5. Apply even more coats 6-8 of the same mix

6. Sand the surface with open-coat 400p sandpaper. After sanding wipe it out with the same poly/spirits mix. Let it dry for 4 hours. Apply another coat

7. Repeat phase 6 but using 800p open-coat sandpaper

8. Wet the body with the mix and wet sand with 1500 grit. Don't use much pressure and don't linger in any one area too long to not risk sand through. Remove the excess with paper. Do front face, sides and back separately

9. Apply 3-4 coats of the mix, first wetting the surface and then wiping "everything" off with clean cloth. Wipe it lightly in direction with the grain. Building very thin coats. Drying time between coats 3-4h

10. Optional polishing

11. Let the finish cure several weeks

(if you get sand through fix it spreading Japan drier and paint to the problem areas using cotton swab or similar)

Now I just have to figure out how to remove some of the glue stains. In this forum guys recommended using Goof Off! but unfortunately I can't find that from Europe. I ordered some Loctite super glue remover but I'm not sure if that's an appropriate product for this kind of stuff.



Cheers!

[Thibault]

Hi Thibault mine turned out awsome good luck

I assume it's the one in your profile pic. That's fabulous !

[Adam Barnes]

no same as yours

[Simon Barden]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

That neck are gap will be covered up by the neck once it's glued on, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Fill it and sand it flat, but don't worry too much about it. My ES-3 kit is a bit like that.

I wouldn't assume the neck angle is wrong as the bridge is quite tall. I'd clamp the neck in place (if you haven't got any suitable clamps, then you need to buy or borrow at least one to allow you to glue the neck in place), then run a straight edge along the neck and out over the body so you can see what height the bridge has to be to hit the straight edge. The actual bridge height will need to be about 3mm higher than this. If the bridge is going to have to be set really high, then yes you'll need to adjust the neck angle, but they don't often get the neck angles wrong.



Yes, that's a very badly glued nut. But that's easy to remove and re-glue in the correct place, though an upgrade to a bone nut is well worth it.

Those fretboard marks look relatively minor and you can sand the fretboard a bit (with fine grit paper) if you want to try and get rid of them. Also treating the board with lemon oil (the fretboard wood is normally very dry when it come from the factory) will darken the wood's appearance and may help hide the marks.

Good luck with the build and if you have any more questions, just ask away!

[Thibault]

Thanks a lot for the comments!

I investigated the neck angle more thoroughly and my judgement was premature.

About the bridge situation in general I'm planning to use a tailpece tune-o-matic combo. Maybe something like this https://www.allparts.uk.com/products...-1-2-inch-long and
https://www.allparts.uk.com/products...-6mm-post-hole. The specs are quite sparse and the adjustable height is unknown. On the other hand I have never encountered a guitar where the bridge's height adjustment would be a problem so I quess I don't have to worry too much about that as long as I buy a model which is used on hollow bodies.

[OliSam]

Welcome Thibault!
Your observations are spot on and as usual Simon is brimming with intelligent advice.


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[teamjeffo]

Welcome Thibault!
Your observations are spot on and as usual Simon is brimming with intelligent advice.


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I'll second that, Simon has pretty much single handedly guided me through all my stressful moments in my first build so far! I owe you a drink Simon!!


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