While I'm waiting for the Tru Oil to dry on my Tele build, I figured I might as well have a closer look at the ES-3 (also a Sunday Night Special) I ordered and give it a quick sanding to see if any new issues came up.
I knew this kit was going to required some work, being a factory second, but Adam listed it for a great price and I knew I'd rather get the hang of building these kits on something that wasn't pristine - if I totally botched it, I wouldn't feel quite so bad.
So..... on with the show. One of the issues Adam listed was a discoloration on the back and front - he wasn't sure what caused it but was pretty sure it wasn't glue. I'm happy to say that I'm not really finding any glue residue that will need to be dealt with. I don't know what the discoloration was either, but the first round of sanding with 220 grit seems to be taking care of it. Here are some shots of the areas on back and front. In the shots of the back, I have sanded all but the bottom right portion so you can see the improvement. The front hasn't been touched yet.
That's the good news. The bad news is I've got a bit more patching to do than I hoped. I knew about the one chip in the veneer on the top of the neck cavity but there's considerably more work to do below the neck cavity. As you can see in the pictures below, there seems to have been a few places where the wood was just a bit too short to match up at the critical point. Not sure just yet how I'll deal with those issues yet but the smaller chip on top I might just use some wood filler - it'd be pretty hard to get a tiny piece of veneer in there.
more in the following post.
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