The Clueless German got herself a GR-1SF kit

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Still on the strange quest to sand a curved thing flat





My shielded wire has arrived, that means I could actually make a template and start to soldering it up. I'm bit miffled because I bought 8 meters of wire and got 8 single packets with one meter each. D'uh.

I don't like the black pickup surrounds it came with. Any suggestions what would look better? Not sure about getting chrome ones, because if everything is chrome, nothing is chrome as well. Hm....

[blinddrew]

Cream to match the binding?

[JimC]

Gretsch do do guitars with white/cream pickup surrounds and black pickguards. It seems a reasonable option, especially as according to the photo its s B/W/B sandwich pickguard. A logo or decoration engraved into the black guard into the white middle layer might be really cool, but it would be beyond my skill to do.

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Both good ideas! Noted, thanks! :-)

Currently starting to solder the harness while the guitar is drying, and I'm bored (husband is out with the guys). However, the kit came with 2x A and 2x B pots. I guess as there are 3 volume controls on the guitar, and only 1 tone pot, I would need 3x audio taper and 1x linear taper, right?
I think I have a few spare pots laying around, so hopefully they fit...

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Currently, not progressing as happily as I wanted.

The shielded wire is really not nice to solder. It's pretty stiff and likes to break away from solder joins. The neck pickup is working fine, but no noise from the bridge pickup. The switch is working, tone and volume pots are working, solder joins are fine but pup is dead. Will try and solder another pup in, if this is working, I know the pup is bad, which would be a shame. If the replacement is also silent, I know the problem is somewhere else.


Also, I spent 3 hours yesterday sanding flat the guitar. It was all looking really nice and and I was on my last pass with grid 3000 wet, when I noticed brown traces on the paper - I sanded through the poly. On BOTH sides. It's becoming a tradition for me, I guess.
Luckily, no visible damage to the stain, also no idea WHERE I sanded through, but still..... I was THIS close to polishing it, fuuuuuu

Now, I'm spending a few more days wiping on more poly. Finishing really is the least fun part of the game.

[Simon Barden]

You'll probably find that the first layer of poly took up some of the stain colour. so you've sanded down to that, but not through it. I do it all the time. I don't want to, but it happens.

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Oh, that sounds plausible, thanks Simon! How do you judge how thick the poly is, or if there is enough left for polishing? I really struggle with this. On my last build (the single cut style with the blue top), I polished through the top coat and it took a while to recoat it. I didn't polish it as much as I'd like to afterwards because I was too scared to mess it up again. So it would be really annoying to polish through the poly on this build, too.

[McCreed]

How do you judge how thick the poly is, or if there is enough left for polishing? I really struggle with this. On my last build (the single cut style with the blue top), I polished through the top coat and it took a while to recoat it. I didn't polish it as much as I'd like to afterwards because I was too scared to mess it up again.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I think you may be trying to get the top coat too perfect before moving to the polishing stage.
If you try to remove every single orange peel dimple, rag stroke or imperfection, you will sand through before you reach Nirvana - that perfectly flat blemish-free coat. (unless the coating is incredibly thick, and that has problems of its own)

I have been guilty of this myself until I realised that there is an acceptable level of orange peel and imperfection that will still polish to the point of a mirror shine, and I will bet real money that 99% of anyone wouldn't even notice.
Even high-end automobiles will have some degree of orange peel in their finish.

I've come to realise that OP is broadly misrepresented and misunderstood. That it's not necessarily as bad as it is just a reality.
I reckon if you can get to 85-90% before final polishing, you'll still end up with good looking finish.

Learnt this the hard way. I also started looking closely at a lot of paint work, on everything from refrigerators to sports cars. If you look close enough, you'll find something.

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Mh, you are probably right. But, being objective, and not from a perfectionist's eyes, there are quite a few dimples and dips in the top coat right now. How would I proceed here best? Is it the best to FILL these or sand the rest of it flat? I just don't really know.

I tried to polish it a little, but now it's a mixture of shiny and shitty. If there are tiny dust spots in the coat before polishing, they just become shiny dust spots, they are not polished away. Are you guys using some more aggressive way of polishing? Or what am I doing wrong?

I usually sand everything as flat an perfect as I can, then use Meguiar's cutting compound and then Meguiar's polish. I use a polishing pad that I mount on a drill.

[JimC]

If there are tiny dust spots in the coat before polishing, they just become shiny dust spots, they are not polished away. Are you guys using some more aggressive way of polishing? Or what am I doing wrong?.

Maybe your eyes are just younger than mine, and all that stuff is there and I can't see it any more... Are you using a sanding block of some kind at the 600 grit stage? I don't see dust spots after that stage. Unless, I suppose, wildly speculating, you have the wrong sort of dust... Ordimary house dust is going to be, well, lets not go into the ghastly details, but mainly stuff that's relatively soft and will sand away readily. I suppose it must theoretically be possibly to have airborne silt particles that would be silica and not be abraded so readily, but dammit, you're not on the edge of the steppes, I don't know why your dust should be worse than mine 750km to the west...