Oh right, I did no know that. Definitely something to remember. I'm really loving the look of this wood with the paint and finish I've applied, so I'm considering doing a second one. I'm thinking about doing a complete "hand tools only" build, but I'm still missing some key tools. I'd want a router plane, spokeshave, brace and bits. If I went down that route at least I won't need to worry about tools burning and blowing out the wood!Originally Posted by Woltz
It took a while but I successfully hand routed the cavities with scalpels. Overly successful in fact as you'll see. I glued them down with CA glue and clamped with a cork sanding block under the headstock. The CA didn't take successfully in a bunch of spots, so I had to run more in. I was hoping not to get any CA along the edges so I could fill the gaps properly, so this might mean more work in the future.
I have a backup plan if this all ends up looking awful.
Everything is glued in now and my chisel is pretty sharp. I started paring away the top to level it all down. You can see how badly the hand routing came out. With way more practise and time I think this is entirely possible, but I'll never be doing it again. I've ordered a set of 0.6 - 1.5mm dremel end mill bits and a precision router base.
Pared pretty flat here. Loads of gaps on the edges. Not really very happy with it to be honest, but I have a couple of contingency plans available.
I've gap filled and washed the entire headstock with a very watered down cedartone wood putty to try and get some colour consistency with the gaps.
There are some issues that will need to be addressed, I still need to sand flush and likely stain with the putty again to see how it looks.
The main contingency at this stage is to impress a small channel around the lettering to embed brass wire or thin sheet into.
At the end of the day I'm planning to paint the headstock, so it might not look too bad when all is said and done.
Last edited by ross.pearson; 17-08-2021 at 04:12 PM.
Welp, I may have stuffed up slightly. Yes the dark wood is a good contrast to the bright maple. But it's a crappy contrast to the paint which matches the body. I tried various combinations and strengths of the paint, including even sanding the inlay with a fret eraser, and no bueno. Me no gusta.
So, I'm down to two options. The first thing I'll try is a brass wire outline for the lettering. If that doesn't work I might veneer the headstock.
Option three is to get/make another neck I suppose =) I was considering making one anyway, just so it could be a "complete" scratch build...
I'd suggest a veneer and inlay into the veneer. You could do the inlay with the veneer off the headstock (so you only waste a bit of veneer if it goes wrong) and then stick the inlaid veneer on the headstock. You've also got more control over the inlay depth as well, as it's the depth of the veneer, so you only need to worry about the outline. You could probably cut that out of the veneer with a scalpel. You'd have to cut small pieces out of veneer to fill in the middle of Os and As etc.
I had actually considered doing that, and I think it would work pretty well. I'd probably try and make a veneer from some leftover tassy oak from the body build. I'm going to try the brass wire route first, and might stain the inlay darker to see if that fixes things. The brass wire would fix a bunch of issues including the bad edge gaps and contrast/legibility problems.
Nice work mate. You've got some skills !!
Hi Jim! Welcome to the forum! And thanks for the kind words, maybe one day I'll have skill, but today I have only passion. Passion, and an unsettling habit of absolutely sending it.
After a significant amount of time spent in the Idiot Lab™ testing a bunch of different materials and methods, I concede defeat on the wire inlay front. The gauge of wire I was looking at for the right looking thickness was around 23 to 26 gauge, around the 0.5mm mark. I tried regular round wire and had some success, but getting it to stay flat was almost impossible.. Flat wire (around 0.6 x 4mm) seemed promising, but I couldn't get anything that was malleable enough to work on the tight corners. Flat silver wire would probably work, but I didn't want to fork out for something that I might not be able to get working.
In the end I decided to carve a small channel around the lettering with scalpels. I found that the round scalpel was the best for this, as you could roll it around corners follow curves easier. It looks awful up close.
I bought the cheapest two part clear epoxy at the big green shed, I think it was about $2.50. I mixed it together with a drop of the same black craft paint I used on the body and slathered it on. After a while I pared it away with a super sharp chisel. I was testing on some scrap wood, but decided screw it, there's nothing else I can think to fix this inlay up so I may as well just put it down. Turns out I put wayyy too much paint in the mix. It screwed with the epoxy setting time by a huge amount, so it took a few hours to set off properly.
Since the test seemed successful, I painstakingly carved out the rest of the channels and mixed a new batch, this time more epoxy and way less paint. I was worried there wasn't enough paint in there as the mix was still slightly translucent, but I laid it down anyway. I scraped the wet mix with a flat edge, and it came out great.
Once it's completely dry I'll probably take to the whole headstock with a razor. I may need to do another epoxy mix as this sunk a bit, I probably should have left the excess on the channels and then sanded back later, but I didn't want it too thick. And it's super easy to do if I need to do it again.
I know it's not perfect, but it really helps the legibility of the logo. I should be able to hard wipe on some black/blue paint to the headstock and keep the legibility of the logo now. So... I think I saved it.
And the body is at 27 coats of wipe on poly. I'll finish tomorrow at 30, I think that will be the end of it, then I'll leave it hanging somewhere safe for 3-4 weeks before wet sanding. I'll probably start at 800 grit and see how that works. There's some trouble spots but thankfully mostly under the pickguard. I'm apprehensive about the edges and corners, but I'll go slow and see how it goes.
You can see an area on the horn that is a lot lighter. I did a not super hard 400 grit sand trying to fix some small problem spots at around 15 coats, and it went straight through to the wood there. Really not sure why, as the same pressure on the rest of the guitar didn't do that.. So that's a concern. But I left it since like I said, nobody will see that with the pickguard on.
I'm planning to paint the cavities with a flat black once the clear coat is cured, then hit them with a light brushed on coat of clear to seal them. I bought a tin of spray poly for the neck, so I'll be spraying that. Maybe. I'm not happy with how long it's taken to finish this body, not even including the hardening time.
Last edited by ross.pearson; 21-08-2021 at 06:31 PM.
All looking good and kudos for persevering with the inlay. No, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. The real test will be what it looks like with the paint on.
If you are going to foil screen the cavities, there's not a lot of point painting them. Could just save a bit of time. Or else use a graphite screening paint for the black. Or just go straight for a gloss black and do it matt + clear in one go!
Sand through is never normally logical. Somehow the finish is thinner there, or the wood surface just a bit more raised than the surrounding area, despite you putting the same amount of finish on or sanding the body flat. Both my GST-1 and Harley Benton JB builds have been plagued by sand-throughs, which along with a poor UK summer with lots of rain, has really slowed my builds down.
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