TL-1HA - First Build

[Jules1991]

I got my kit a while back but have been moving houses and have been delayed. Finally getting around to doing more than looking at (and smelling) the guitar on my table.

The plan for the kit is to keep it all pretty stock as it's my first build.

With the finish, i'm going to attempt a blue stain finish with a bit of a black base coat to make the grain stand out... lets see what happens though...

I'm not a hugely experienced wood worker and so far a lot of what i've done is buy the basic tools i'll need!

i guess i'll kick this off with a question...

When do i drill the holes for the bridge? Before sanding, after sanding or after the finish is applied?

Cheers!

[Simon Barden]

Hi and welcome.

The TL-1HA has an alder body. Alder is a closed pore wood so does’t need grain filling. It’s also a wood where stain take-up is pretty even. So using a dark stain first to try and ‘pop’ the grain does’t really work on it like it does on flamed or quilted maple. You’ll most likely just make the body colour darker. To ‘pop’ the grain, you need wood where some of the grain absorbs the stain to a greater depth than the majority of it does. You then sand back the surface so that you expose the unstained wood, but the areas where the stain had gone deeper remain darker. You can then stain the surface the planned colour and most of it stays that colour.

I’m not saying you won’t get any effect at all, but by the time you’ve sanded back, it’s unlikely to be anything like the effect of popping maple. But all bits of wood are different, so you may get a better result than I’m suggesting. If you want to try it, I’d try the dark stain out on the back first, and see what’s highlighted after you’ve sanded back.

There’s no right answer as to when to drill the bridge holes, though it’s generally best IMO to do it after the finish is applied. A lot of kits have the holes pre-drilled, so you have to finish over them. But if you plan to wet sand the finish, the fewer holes there are the better.

If you do the finish first, put masking tape down and mark up the bridge position and hole location on that to prevent marking the finish.

What there should be though, is a hole under where the bridge goes, leading to either the control cavity or the bridge pickup goes. This is for the bridge ground wire. The kit pic doesn’t show one, so you may have to drill this yourself.

As the hole needs to be drilled at an angle, it’s easiest to drill this before any finish goes on in case of slippage. I drill a shallow hole to start with with a bit slightly larger than the bit for the angled hole, so that the tip of the bit has something to bite into and doesn’t skid all over the top due to the shallow angle.

It’s normally necessary to buy an extra-long drill bit for this, so that the drill itself is kept away from the body and lets you drill at a shallow angle. I bought a cheap set of 300mm drills from Amazon for this. I use a 3mm drill as a compromise between drill rigidity and the smallest hole size needed. 2mm should be big enough to get a wire down, but long drills are very bendy and the thinner they are, the bendier. I rest the drill bit on a block of scrap wood of the right height to get the angle I want.

[Jules1991]

Thanks mate!

Yeah i did wonder about that. i guess ill just give it a crack and see what happens. Might try something different if it does... Better get used to sanding!

Yep, bridge grounding hole is drilled and landing pretty much smack band in the middle of where i measured the bridge to sit.

Thanks so much for your help here Simon!

[Simon Barden]

The PBG site’s kit photos are often many years old for some of the long-term models, so it’s often hard to know if what you get will be exactly like the photos. I’m glad they are now drilling the ground wire hole as it’s not the easiest thing to do yourself.

[Jules1991]

Heastock has been shapped and cut and filed and sanded. Looking pretty good so far. Might work on it a bit more to get it a little bit smoother!

I've started sanding the body. Anyone have any recommendations for how high a grade i should sand it for staining?

also, the majority of the body is looking really good. But the base of the guitar (where the strap would fix) is getting... cloudy. Is there a trick to sanding the end grain?

Thanks everyone!

[Simon Barden]

I’d stop at 180 grit to ensure the stain is evenly taken up on the body, though you can go a bit higher on the endgrain as this will tend to absorb more stain and look darker. Though you can also use a weaker stain solution on it and a stronger one (or more applications on the rest).

Make sure you are sanding in the direction of the grain on the end grain. You can’t do more than that. Sanding across the grain at an angle will leave far more visible sanding marks, which may be why yours is looking ‘cloudy’.

[Jules1991]

hahahahah, so i did a couple of coats of Dingotone stain and then intensifier over a couple of weeks. Went away for a week and left it hanging before i could get to the top coat and... the colour has disappeared...

there are some little bits of colour but it's mostly just gone a kind of mildly stained wood colour.

Anyone got any thoughts on that? haha

[Trevor Davies]

Hi Jules1991,
do you have any photos of the original stain colour and the final colour?

I'm thinking I had a similar issue when I used Dingotone Karijini Red on the AG-2 build - but I blamed it on the Tru-oil coats I added.

Do you have any more of the stain and intensifier to add more coats? I would possibly start again, or at least try adding more intensifier coats. You have nothing to lose.

Otherwise, as I did on my AG, it is sand back, start again with a different stain and final coat. There are lots of other options available.

I assume you have your heart set on blue! I used a Blue ink for my SSCM-1 build and then used a wipe on poly for the top coats. That worked well when the ink was brushed on - but I was after a very dark blue.

[Jules1991]

hey Trevor!

Thanks for the info. I've been trying to upload some photos but am struggling to upload due to file size (all 3 mins of trying...).
Yeah was thinking of having another crack with the stain and then if it still does nothing get the sander out and go to town.

This is my first build, so learning heaps with each mistake or challenge, so all is not lost, hopefully it just means my next build will be that much better!

interesting on the ink. blows my mind how many options there are for finishing a guitar!

Thanks again for the info

[Trevor Davies]

To upload photos they cannot be too large a file.

There is a forum post about it at https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ll=1#post49426.