Greg's First Build - LP-1MQ #151

[Simon Barden]

Great job, Greg. I'm sure you're happy with the colour now.

Don't worry about writing an essay. It's important for others to know what you did and what went wrong and what went right. We're all still learning here.

Not sure about the shiny/satin/matt theory. Your guitar is certainly reflecting quite a lot of light in your pictures, but I can still see the grain and in different lighting conditions, I'd be able to see more grain detail through a shiny finish than a satin or matt one.

But some guitars e.g. most PRSs, are a bit too shiny for me and I probably prefer the look of guitars with a bit of the shine knocked off them through use/age. But certainly I like a look that's a lot shinier than a straight satin finish. I've normally polished up any 'faded' finish guitars (as much as I can) to give them a semi-gloss look.

But that's just me. I'd put it more down to personal preference than anything else and it's good that we all like different things, otherwise it would be rather boring. Imagine going into a guitar shop where all the guitars were finished in exactly the same colour and level of shine.

[wazkelly]

Hi Greg, well done mate. What a stunning finish and I think we can all learn something from you with the 50% turps trick. Did yu use just everyday normal mineral turps or something else?

I recall Andrew Osbourne (aka Ponch) doing a wet sand of the TO as he applied each coat by using TO as the lubricant/wetting agent. Great idea as that acts as a grain filler in the same action too and probably the method I will attempt on my next build but still curious about your diluted with turps outcome.

[GregLane]

Simon - Yes I like a shiny oil finish on timber and use FW Scandanavian Oil on home made furniture. It is less glossy than polyester (estapol) high gloss. TO is somewhere in between. The beauty of the oil finish, I find, is they are so easy to repair.

Waz - I thought the 50/50 turps and TO was standard practise as the final coat as I found plenty off references on the web when I was doing my initial how to do it research. Check this links and the finish on the lapsteel guitars.

http://www.thegearpage.net/board/ind...-finish.711780

The turps is plain old turps from the green shed. I use a cotton ball wrapped in t-shirt cloth well dipped into the 50/50. Goes on nice and thick without marks and dries shiny and thin as the turps evaporates. Love the stuff.

I had been shying away from wet and dry finish as I have never used the method on timber. But after using the turps and micromesh in desperation to remove the fluff prior to the last coat is was magic. I didn't know what I was missing out on. Between all my coats on the mahogany back and quilted cap of the guitar I used the Norton equivalent of a scotch pad (1000-1200) to take the shine off. It is a lot softer and less scratchy than equiv wet and dry. However the Norton was a bit too soft to take off any hard bits, timber whiskers and grain etc. So after about 6 coats I use wet and dry (1200 dry) to sand quite a bit of TO off (very carefully and nervously). That was very scratchy. Now with my newfound knowledge I will use turps and micromesh (wet and dry maybe??) much more.

[wazkelly]

Thanks Greg, that link has some great ideas and photo of a stunningly finished lap steel guitar.

[Simon Barden]

The real trick to using wet 'n' dry when wet sanding is to let it soak in water overnight - or longer. The water should have a tiny drop of washing-up liquid in it to reduce the surface tension of the water. It then becomes really soft and follows any curves a lot better.

Whilst you can use it dry - and unless you've got a waterproof finish on the wood then you can only use it dry, it does work a lot better when used wet.

Good wet 'n' dry paper shouldn't be scratchy. The problem with cheap wet 'n' dry paper is that:

a) The tolerance on the grit size used is larger than on better quality papers, so you get some larger pieces of grit on the paper than really should be there. These larger bits of grit obviously create bigger scratches.

b) The grit isn't bonded as well to the backing paper, so that pieces of grit become detached and get caught between the paper and the surface. These pieces then gouge larger scratches into the finish.

The overall effect of using really cheap wet 'n' dry (and I've bought some myself from eBay to try) is that the grade of paper is really a lot coarser than that of a good wet 'n' dry paper, e.g. a cheap P400 wet 'n' dry paper might be equivalent in effect to a good P240 wet 'n' dry paper.

[GregLane]

HELP!! My knobs are working backwards.
I have checked the wiring and cannot find a problem except the knobs are working in reverse.
The only thing I can think of is the wiring diagram a view from the cap or back. I wired it as if I was looking at the front/cap because that is the way the components are laid out on the diagram.

[WeirdBits]

Just swap the connections on outside two lugs of the volumes.

Most diagrams are wired 'from the back', but with some components like pickups drawn from the front to be more recognisible. Which diagram are you usng?

With volume pots for LP style wiring, viewed from the back of the pot with the lugs pointing down, the left lug goes to the pickup, the middle goes to the switch and the right is the ground connection. For tone pots, viewed from back with lugs down, the connections are on the middle and right lugs.

[GregLane]

Thanks for your quick reply Weirdbits.

I am using the Pitbull LP diagram. 2 Humbucker, 4 Pots & a 3 way switch. After your comment about diagrams are usually viewed 'from the back', I am a bit confused by the PB diagram as all the components are in the wrong spot if it is viewed from the back.

When I was about to start wiring I used the computer to flip the diagram over so I could just follow the wiring on the flipped over guitar. If the original diagram is as viewed from the back then I guess I have everything A over T.

[wokkaboy]

Hi Greg, just ignore the position of the pots in the diagram and just follow where each wire connects to and from. As Weirdy said just concentrate on the correct pot lugs to connect to looking at the back of the pot.
I often get some cardboard and push the 4 pot shafts through that, and mark on each pot what they are - VB for volume bridge, TB for tone bridge etc.
Then I make a hole in the middle of the cardboard for all the switch and pickup wires to come through and rest it on the control cavity. When the wiring is finished just rip up the cardboard and pull the pots out and put into the corresponding cavity holes.
A good tip is to get your switch 4 wire loom from the switch cavity to control cavity before you put the pickups in, done that so many times had to remove the pickups to put the switch wire loom in ! I usually solder the 4 wires to the switch with the switch in a vice it's easier doing the soldering when the switch is out of the cavity, then feed the 4 wires back to the control cavity. Don't forget the all important earth wire from the bridge bush to the control cavity before you push the bush in place.

[WeirdBits]

I should have said the pot connections are viewed from the back. We tend to want to see components how they are positioned from the top/front/face, but need to see the connections how we actually wire them... which is from the back. Most diagrams have some sort of compromise like this.

Basically, if you can see the back of the pot in the diagram then the connections are being made from the back of the pot even though the component positions/layout may be drawn from the front.