Hello World! My first guitar project

[ross.pearson]

In my previous post I should have mentioned that you will need to remove as much of the wax off the headstock as you can before applying the shellac. I think the shellac will go over some residual wax ok, but probably not a thick layer of it.

My preferred finish for necks is satin polyurethane (from the BSG) I used to spray acrylic lacquer but have grown to dislike the feel.
If you do want lacquer, and don't have spray equipment, you can get acrylic lacquer in rattle cans from SuperCheap Auto. They're pretty much everywhere AFAIK. Septone is a good brand, an dI've heard good things about the SCA brand but never used it myself.

That makes sense, thanks for that. I'll likely try on some scrap wood and see how it works out before taking it to the guitar if I decide to.

I have some of the Feast Watson Wipe On Satin Poly from the BGS, that should probably be okay for the neck yeah? Or would you suggest a spray?

In a couple of years I should be posted up in my own shed with all my tools out of storage and set up, planning a makeshift spraybooth so I can get the airgun running at some point. Until then I'll have to make do.

Thanks for the advice, it's invaluable!

[ross.pearson]

What do you guys think of Jarrah for a fretboard?

[ross.pearson]

Well, I have a new job I hate doing.



The wax had to come off before approaching it with sandpaper. This would have been slightly easier if I knew what box I'd packed my cabinet scraper in, but in the end it worked well enough. I got as much wax removed as I could before hitting the body with the random orbital sander.

After that was loads of hand sanding up to around 220. I tried metho scrubbing, but the tiny amounts of wax in the grain won't budge. There's so little of it there I don't think it will make a difference.



After that it's back to the kids craft box for the IKEA paints.



I've got the blue down, when it's dry some time tomorrow I'm going to slightly water down some black and see if I can do a burst effect by hand. It might work, it might not. If it doesn't I'll attempt a black wash intead to see how it goes.

[ross.pearson]

My kingdom for a shinto rasp

[ross.pearson]

Guess who is carving a forearm contour with a $20 bunnings block plane and sandpaper.

[McCreed]

Guess who is carving a forearm contour with a $20 bunnings block plane and sandpaper.

Well you shouldn't have to worry about going too hard too fast with that method!

My angle grinder makes short work of it, but it can be very unforgiving. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong very quickly!

[ross.pearson]

Well you shouldn't have to worry about going too hard too fast with that method!

My angle grinder makes short work of it, but it can be very unforgiving. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong very quickly!

I'm vaccilating between "this is almost like I'm a real woodworker" and "why am I doing this to myself??". I think next time will be angle grinder time just so I can get that experience under my belt.

[ross.pearson]

Welp, my jewelers saw arrived, and I bought a cheap coping saw as well. That came in hand for roughing things out and removing excess waste.

I made a simple bench pin from an old cupboard door that was sitting around. Just a fostner bit and a handsaw, I should have made the mouth of the hole narrower, but I can easily knock together another one. It worked great, just clamped to a painters horse. I did modify it to narrow it a significant amount on one side after this photo though.



I'd sanded the jarrah down to about ~2mm thick, and even then it had a tendency to basically shatter randomly.



A bit of CA glue to set it up and then flood the cracked areas and it should be all good. I'm going to try and sand these to be a bit thinner on some plate glass, I'll see how that goes. I used fret slotting files to clean up inside the a and k, that seemed to work, but things are still a little wonky. Eh, first time, so I'm relatively happy with how it went.



I've got a plan for transfering the shape to the headstock. I'll be carving by hand with scalpels, so I'll "masking tape and ca glue" the pieces in the correct locations, and then mark them out very carefully with a scalpel. That should give me a pretty decent guide for where to carve out.

[ross.pearson]

The plan of using the scalpels to transfer layout lines didn't work as well as I'd hoped. You can see them, but it's pretty tough to work with.



I ended up using a mechanical pencil to draw in the outlines. I think that's going to give me better results.



Working with scalpels isn't too hard, it's definitely more forgiving and less prone to making catastrophic mistakes. It's really slow going though. Just doing the "I" has taken some time and it's still not 100% correct. I've got a couple dremels sitting around, I might test out some engraving bits to see if I can freehand without too much problem. On scrap wood, of course.

[McCreed]

That makes sense, thanks for that. I'll likely try on some scrap wood and see how it works out before taking it to the guitar if I decide to.

Testing for compatibility on offcuts or scrap is always a good idea when using new products.

I have some of the Feast Watson Wipe On Satin Poly from the BGS, that should probably be okay for the neck yeah?

FW and Cabot's are used regularly around here. I use the Cabothane (stupid name) poly and have had good results with it.
Since you already have the FW wipe-on you should be good, but for future reference, I always recommend buying a small tin (250ml) of "regular" oil based poly and thinning it with turps to use as a wipe-on. It's way cheaper than buying the stuff labelled specifically as wipe-on poly. What you pay for is basically pre-thinned poly.

Between a 50/50 to 60/40 poly/turps mixture is a good starting point. You can adjust as desired from there. I use 60/40 with my mini gun. I've never used water based poly, but I know it's not recommended thinning beyond 10% as it's quite thin to start with.

What do you guys think of Jarrah for a fretboard?

If you're talking about just staining the fretboard, it might be difficult to get a clean line where the two meet on an all maple board and back. I've never tried it so can't say firsthand, but I would think bleed from the fretboard piece to the back carved piece might be hard to control.

That said, if you can pull it off, it might look pretty cool.