First built. It may take a while...

[Simon Barden]

Veeeery nice.

[Booooooom]

Four coats of Crimson Guitars ‘’guitar finishing oil’ so far...

[blinddrew]

That's looking incredible.

[wazkelly]

Very nice indeed.

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[Booooooom]

been a bit busy recently but the main hold up is my umming and ahhing as to whether I need to shim the neck pocket or not...? I kept putting off properly investigating by carrying on with the staining and oiling but decided that after 5-6 coats of oil that I'd glue in the neck before applying further coats of oil

So to do that I needed to use some proper strings which meant fitting the machine heads...

At this point I realised that there is a bit of play between the ferrule and the tuning post so I taped three pieces of 1.75mm foam around each post so that I could centre each peg in each ferrule then line up the rear plates and handles to my satisfaction (I'm a bit fussy about things like that!)



Fortunately I'd previously bought the foam to make some soft pads to protect the finish whenever I needed to use clamps. (Here in the UK, Hobbycraft sell an A4 sheet for 50p or an A3 piece for £1 – I have no affiliation!!). I cut four 50mm squares and one 100mm square of 12mm mdf then used carpet double-sided tape to fix the foam then trimmed to size. They work a treat so hopefully others may find this a useful tip.!



So with the posts nicely centered in the ferrules and all lined up I fitted a few screws to fix their final positions as I'll be removing them before the final finishing.




Now with the neck clamped in place (34" nut to bridge saddles) I could at last put on a couple of strings...



ooh – the sustain sounds pretty good! Now to check the string heights properly and decide if I needed to shim or not to shim...

[Hardcoretroubadour]

Looking nice, it is really starting to come together. I am finding the waiting for coats to dry the hardest part.

[Simon Barden]

All looking very good.

I am finding the waiting for coats to dry the hardest part.

One reason to have several builds on the go so you can put one aside to dry whilst working on the next one!

[Hardcoretroubadour]

Yes, that is how the GAS takes hold
Must be why I now have two explorers .....

[BJMtz]

Did you grain fill or is this the basswood body? What did you sand up to prior to staining?

[Booooooom]

No, No filling. Sanded up to 320 grit raising the grain a few times then stained purple (pics earlier in thread). Sanded back so that stain was only only left in the grain to make it pop then stained using two shades of blue. Last couple of coats of oil I've started working in with wet and dry to create a bit of a slurry which is filling the grain to a certain extent.