PRS-1TS, my first build

[blinddrew]

Belly cut looks good.

[FrankenWashie]

Very nice work Alexis, I like the belly cut, I may need to do something similar in a long term project I have running.

[Alexis]

Hi guys,

There has been progress!

The frets are now levelled. Due to my inexperience, I took too much material out from the frets, but I think they are levelled. I still need to crown them though.

I shaped the headstock, and glued an ebony veneer on it. This way the inlay will be more shiny. Again it's the first time and I glued it 1 mm off, so I had to sand, make corrections and fill the gap between the nut and the veneer with a little stick of ebony.

I made an "A" inlay out of a mother of pearl piece. It is now fin place and waiting for the epoxi to dry. Let's see how it looks after drying and sanding. I plan to sand and round all headstock edges after this.

I stained the epoxi with black ink, but maybe I should have put more ink... we'll see the results.

[trv]

Nice! I love seeing inlay work on these kits. The MOP has a great contrast to the ebony veneer, and it looks like a perfect fit.

Really nice job filling and drilling the stop tail holes, they look nice and clean. I had to do the same thing on my LP build, good job catching that BEFORE you did your finish and clear coat.

The belly cut looks really good too!

[Alexis]

The epoxi wasn't good and never dried, so after a few days I took the inlay out. I bought a better epoxi and this time it hardened in a few hours. After drying and sanding, the result is OK! Maybe I will stain again the headstock top to be more black.

I made custom backplates with laminated wood and plastic, using magnets instead of screws. I always wanted this in a guitar, so I will make the trials with my first build. It's not perfectly leveled with the guitar surface, but I will adjust later somehow, because the plates are lower height than the body surface in some corners (not higher).

[Alexis]

Hi guys,

I have problems with the staining: some dots in the back and another areas in the side edges are not coloured. I can't manage to impregnate colour, and they remain almost as original wood.

I sanded all body (execpt the veneer top, as it is only 1mm thick). Then applied first coat of stain in the back and sides, waited 24h, and sanded. Result was ok except the dots and areas explained before. Then I applied a second coat, but the blank dots and areas remain (see pictures).

I'm using a water based wood stain. It's a mix of red with a bit black and yellow because I want to reach some dark-brownish red for the back of the guitar.

Should I sand more agressively before applying the next coat? which sanding paper is best between stain coats?

Thank you in advance,

[wazkelly]

That looks like body filler not taking up any stain.
Goof off and a wire brush is the only way to get rid of it but after digging it out you will need to re-fill with timber mate.
Quite common issue on most basswood bodies.

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[Simon Barden]

Alexis, Goof Off is a brand of glue remover (if you hadn't guessed from reading other posts). It's probably not available in Spain (or only for a very high price), but there should be other similar glue removal products available to you.

And 'wire brush' in this context means a 'soft' wire brush with thin, bendy bristles, not one with with thick steel wire that you'd use to remove rust from metal. You can normally get toothbrush-sized brass brushes which are ideal. You want thin wire so that it penetrates the grain, but nothing so hard that it damages it. Nylon toothbrushes are soft enough, but the bristles are normally too thick to get between the grain properly.

[Alexis]

Thanks guys, I didn't know it could be glue or filler, but it makes sense. It is in some areas near the binding, where they must have used glue. The rest will be just a couple of drops from the same glue.

You were right Simon, Goof off is very expensive or they charge 20€ shipping costs. I ordered a bottle of "Goo Gone" which seems like a similar product. I will tell you how it goes!

[Alexis]

The glue spots were gone or half dissapeared, after the Goo Gone and wirebrush technique, plus the "sandpaper damped in stain" technique. The back of the guitar now has no white spots, but it's not really homogeneous. I decided to leave it like this.

The top was much worse, especially near the edges, close to the binding: a lot of glue spots not taking any stain. I used the same techniques and finally it looked good. I wanted to try a cherry sunburst, so I started with a little black to pop out the flamed maple. My black is a bit blue, so I made a mess: after the yellow, it came up green... Then I started to make trials with yellow plus some red drops to have an amber colour, then it turned into something less disgusting, coat after coat. I sanded very very lightly, because I was afraid to sand through the veneer. So finally after the red (1/2 yellow - 1/2 red, because my red is a magenta) in the edges this I found my cherry sunburst kinda finish. Not perfect, but OK for me!

I glued the neck today, so in a couple of days I could start with the finishing.