Tweaky's ES-3 build...Blonde's have more fun?

[Tweaky]

I took the frets out for two reasons, the first was to make sure that the entire fretboard got dyed Black evenly, and the second was that I intend to put pearl inlay fret markers at the 21st and 23rd frets, I wouldn't be able to route for those with the frets still in place, so since they were defiantly coming out, I thought I might as well take them all out.
The original frets came out so easily, and without damage, I could easily just reset the originals back in again, but compared to the new fret wire, the originals do seems quite a bit softer, so probably not.

Yeah, needs some work is a understatement, I'll give it a shot.
I do have one other option that I haven't mentioned, and that is to totally fill the void with replacement strips of wood, then create a cover plate for the whole headstock out of thin sheet brass.

I intend to make a scratch plate out of the same.
This was a idea I had ages ago, and have been reading up on how to do.
I downloaded the free design software Inkscape, and am going to create a Art Deco design for the scratch plate and truss rod cover, print this out at 1200dpi with a mono laser printer onto Press -n-Peel PCB Transfer film, Iron that onto the brass to create the masking relief, then etch the brass sheet in a solution of Servisol Ammonium Persulphate.
All supplies available from Jaycar.
http://www.jaycar.com.au/Service-Aid...er-Aids/c/020B

Once the design is etched, I want to fill in the etched portions with dyed epoxy resin, in theory, it should give the same effect as enamel jewellery, but be far more durable.

If it works for the scratch plate, then repeating the process to make a cover for the headstock binding debacle should be easy, probably a improvement over what was originally intend.

PS: You can get suitably sized Brass / Copper sheet from Hobbyco or most well stocked Art supply stores

[wokkaboy]

sounds good Tweaky. There are only 22 frets so I assume you would put an inlay in 19th and 21st fret ?

the brass pickguard and headstock cover sounds cool

[Tweaky]

Yeah, my bad, 19th and 21st frets.

I'm not going to leave the body and neck solely Blonde.

Since I put the heel extension and the small piece of wood on the top bout, they tend to stick out and not make clean lines.
I can solve that by spray painting the neck heel, back and front of headstock, and portions of the top part of the body's shoulders Black.
I then intend to put Gold trim around that using very thin auto painters tape.
I bought this 24k Gold spray paint last week for the job.


What with the Brass and black epoxy scratch plate / truss rod cover, Gold hardware, it should come out alright.... I just hope it doesn't end up looking too much like it came from the Versace fashion house.... but then again, a bit of bling never hurt anybody.

[wokkaboy]

plans sound good Tweaky, should come up a treat

[Dedman]

You say Bling ?

[Tweaky]

Sort of similar design lines as this Art Deco look, should look good with the finger tailpiece.



And use similar sort of design elements from the likes of below for decoration around the neck heel and headstock



If that ends up looking OK, I might paint a strip of Black straight down the centre of the front of the guitars body, about as wide as the pickups, this would offset the gold hardware so it really stood out.

[wokkaboy]

sounds good Tweaky should look very cool

[Dedman]

should be stunning

[Tweaky]

OK, I attempted to cut some small fillets of 2mm Maple veneer to help fill in for the over routed headstock ..... basically it's not going to work, it's too uneven a surface to stick the wood on.

So, I went back to my other thread where I asked for help regarding this and re read the posts, I saw that Dedman had suggested using epoxy like somebody else had with their fretless bass build, after searching for the build diary I saw what he meant.....that got me thinking about doing it to fix this, as I already have casting resin and hardener, building a well with tape was doable, if not ideal in this instance, but then I read about that build suffering from the resin coming away from the fretboard, and that he had to source proper boat building epoxy which finally worked.

Not the easiest thing to find when you live pretty much in the Sydney CBD, plus the minimum amount you can get tends to still be quite expensive..... I needed to find a way around this.

A few searches at boat building forums came up with Selleys Knead It, multi purpose Polymer repair Compound as a suitable substitute.

http://www.selleys.com.au/putty/epox...multi-purpose/

It's epoxy resin in putty form, comes in a tube, the resin is rolled around the catalyst, and you just break a piece off like you would Plasticine and roll it together in you hands to mix the resin and catalyst, mold it on to whatever you want, shape it and let it dry.
Put what you don't want to use straight away back into the tube.

Dry rock hard, is sandable and paintable ....No mixing resin , No worrying about bubbles in it, No need building a well or waiting ages for it to set.

So I've just spent this afternoon removing all of the Timbermate that I possibly could, and will try this epoxy putty out as soon as the timber dries off [needed to wet the Timbermate to get all of it off]

If this stuff works, which I see no reason why it shouldn't, I think this could actually be used to solve one of the major bug bears of the ES-3 and other semi kits that have that annoying little gap between the body and neck at two places.

I'll post back to tell and show the results.

[wokkaboy]

good luck Tweaky hope it works, so will you have a clear section of resin on the edges of the headstock then you will put a veneer over that ?