Also the sanding of the veneer around the edge of the body was a bit uneven
This was taken care of by carefully sanding the edges of the body with a sanding drum to bring them back to the veneer edge.
Looks like the truss rod is trying to escape
Don't think it will be a problem (please correct me if I'm wrong).
First step with the headstock was to remove the veneer, came off pretty easy and sanded to tidy up. Thought I might as well straighten up the tuner holes, they weren't quite in a straight line. Dowelled up and redrilled.
How many clamps can you fit on a headstock?
Probably should have cut the new veneer to shape before glueing, but got a bit excited. The reshaped headstock with its new face
The veneer offcuts have come in handy, glued a small piece in the short side of the neck pocket to tighten up the fit. It could just be the shape of the pocket but the neck had a bit of sideways movement. Nice and tight now.
Hi Wokks, looks like a few people tried to grab this one, must have clicked the mouse a just the right time. Tried to get the 12 string RC but didn't type fast enough.
That was a tongue-in-cheek question about the clamps, these were all the small clamps I had.
I bought two quilted maple headstock veneers from guitarAust, about $8 each I think. Got two in case I stuffed one up.
Next, sanding.
Body sanded to 320
Grain filled with ebony Timbermate to exaggerate the grain
Then made up a witches brew of colortone stains. Started with vintage amber, added a touch of medium brown, lemon yellow and a drop of cherry red, reduced with a little metho.
Two coats of sealer
Had to put more coats on than intended because the grain fill took on a green tinge. A bit darker than planned, but still looks Ok to me.
And now the body veneer.
After reading about how thin they are I was already a bit wary. There were some sanding scratches on the arm cut and some more by the horn on the same side. Very carefully sanded with 400 to remove as much of the scratches as I was willing to.
Don't have all the colortone stain colours, so got hold of the Ubeaut stains for the front. Wanted to pop the grain, diluted the blue with water and put on the first coat
To say I wasn't impressed would be an understatement. The left-most glue mark was visible on the raw veneer but it looked like part of the quilting, the rest were a complete surprise.
Unfortunately (fortunatley?) Pabs had a similar problem with his TL and Weirdbits offered a possible solution of pin pricking and restaining with a cotton bud. Tried this, I did it a touch heavy handed, but heading in the right direction.
The original plan was to try a PRS style fade. Now will have to rethink the colours as the bottom edge may need to be almost solid colour to hide the marks. I'll keep playing with it and see where it ends up.
Not this time Wokks, just wanted to put this up and acknowledge Weirdy for helping even though he didn't know it.
Yeah, the ebony really makes the grain stand out. When it's finished, you gonna take the iceman with you when you visit DB?
The colours were going to be dark blue at the bottom going to a green/turquoise/aqua at the top. Currently thinking maybe purple at the bottom and work out the rest from there.
This is where I'm up to with this one, no more updates tonight.