H's LPA-1. How much more black?

[UpperCaseH]

Two and a half weeks waiting, and day off means polishing time!

5 hours later...



It's come up much less black. Pretty happy with it though!

There's a few visible flaws, including a big one off the left of the image a bit where it looks like I sanded through the stain before TO and somehow didn't notice. It's where my forearm's gonna go though, so I'm sure it will look worn there eventually.

Feels nice and smooth, and looks kinda semi gloss which is where I wanted it.

Also I've glued the neck on and am now waiting again, this time in a fairly nervous state. 24 hours? 48?

[FrankenWashie]

Also I've glued the neck on and am now waiting again, this time in a fairly nervous state. 24 hours? 48?

Ah yes the familiar nervous tension of gluing a set neck. Tick off all that apply:
- "Did I just bump that?"
- "I swear that clamp's moved!"
- "No, I'm imagining things"
- "Did the break angle look that sharp when I mocked up?!?"
- "Is that a drag mark under that clamp?"
- "Oh Sh*t there's glue everywhere!?"
- "Wait, there should be more squeeze out than that, surely??"
- "Its clamped, but I'm not sure that 4 clamps is enough???"
- "Does that neck look like its off to one side?"
- 'Wait, was that the Fish glue, the hide glue, the Titebond or the epoxy?"
- "Why is there lanolin hand cream in this glue bottle?!"
- "20 minutes clamping time, I'll just give it an extra hour. Two Hours. 6 hours. Overnight. Screwit, A week."
- "it's been 2 weeks, maybe I'll just crack a clamp and see?"

Etc, etc.

[FrankenWashie]

Looks pretty schmick H, just back up from it and don't go microscope detail on it because you'll always find something.
Look at it in totality, I think any blacker than that and you might have lost some of that wonderful Grain patterning across the face.

The overall effect is looking very similar to what I have got to work with on the EXA-1, so I'd be interested to see how they compare at the end, DT finish Vs Naughty Oil. Great Job!

[wokkaboy]

looks awesome H and I can't really see any area that looks sanded through, just looks like lighter ash grain.
24 hours for the neck glue to cure is usually plenty. Just don't over tension the strings.

[UpperCaseH]

Thanks everyone!

The bit I sanded through isn't in the pic above, it's off camera to the left - which I didn't do on purpose, I was trying to get an angle with some light on it. It's very obvious and quite large - In the weeks where I was apply tru oil I must have mentally written it off as "lighter grain", but somehow the polishing process has made it incredibly obvious. Like I said, not too worried and it's in a high wear area anyway, but yeah, it's definitely there.

Glueing the neck is the scariest thing I've done so far, but I'm sure it'll be fine. 24 hours isn't that long to wait... right?

I went to take another pic, but where it's sitting for the glue to dry there's no good light. So here's one of the tiny amp and 8" cab I made while waiting for the TO to cure. Cab's getting a grille, I'm just waiting for the mesh to arrive.

[wokkaboy]

wow what a cool amp H, you must know a fair bit about electronics. Was it a kit mini amp or did you source the parts and casing ?

[UpperCaseH]

I've been teaching myself electronics for a little bit longer than I've been building guitars. The amp's a 0.5 watt thing that runs on a 9v adapter (could also use a 9v battery but it'd last about 20 minutes). Parts were all from Jaycar, including the project box. I got the plans from http://tagboardeffects.blogspot.ca/ - this one's the "noisey cricket II".

Building on stripboard is super easy, but I'd probably be lost if I had to go straight from a circuit diagram, and making my own PCBs is still beyond me. I'm inexperienced enough that I get pretty lost just troubleshooting if something's not working right. Also, while the outside looks OK, you don't want to see inside - it's a rat's nest of poorly planned wiring

I want to build up the skills to do a tube amp, but with my current level of knowledge I'm not going anywhere near 240v so it's a "one day" thing. A guy who's done a few told me that the way to get started if you don't have any background was to make, modify, and troubleshoot 9v effects, so that's what I've been doing.

The cab's just a box, but it's the first thing I've planned out and scratch-built from wood, and it seems to have come out OK. Mostly it was a test run to see if my ideas about putting something like that together would work.

[UpperCaseH]

Clamps off, neck looks fine to my eye, but I've run into a problem.

I roughed some of the blacking off the bridge pieces (not sure what they're called - ferrules? - the bits that go into the body and receive the screws) so that I'd be able to ground properly, then stripped the ground wire, put it through the holes, and hammered the poles in...

Which snapped the ground wire off. Now I have no idea how to ground everything to the bridge - these bridge poles are not coming out.

edit: I think I'm going to strip the end of the earth wire back quite a lot, then press it hard up through the hole so that it makes contact with the pole, then tape or glue it in place so it doesn't come out. Sound reasonable?

[FrankenWashie]

I think they're called Post Anchors. You can try and wind them out, find a bolt with the same thread, a wide washer that fits it and a block of wood with a hole in it, slightly bigger than the anchor piece. You engage the bolt a few turns and then once its threaded in a bit, use a wrench to turn in it and draw the anchor out. Maybe? It should come unless you had ridiculously tight anchors.

[UpperCaseH]

They're ridiculously tight. I had to hammer them in quite hard. I probably should have thought about that before I did it, but I didn't foresee the ground wire just snapping like that.

I'll try to get the one of them out and see what happens.