April Guitar of the Month (for Guitars and Basses finished in March 2018)

[Joe3334]

Nice job with the finish Lukas, very nice.

[FrankenWashie]

Hi Guys here is some photos of my first build. EX-1 kit Bass wood. Antique white Nitrocellulose finish.
I started with the frets levelled crowned and polished.
Then sanded and shaped body neck and headstock with 320.
Set the neck in place.
Applied 5 coats of Sealer primer with a light sand with 600 between coats.
Applied 5 coats of top coat and left for two weeks to cure.
Flat sanded the finish with 1200 then sanded with 1500 then 2000.
Polished finish with Meguiars ultimate compound.

Fitted a set of EMG active pickups HET SET,Gotoh tuners(cosmo Black) Tusq nut.

That is so naughty it needs spanking. Great job Lukas, how does the Het Set sound? And where did you hide your battery?

[Lukas]

Frankenwashie the hetfield emgs sound really good. And the battery fitted in the control cavity just.

[FrankenWashie]

Frankenwashie the hetfield emgs sound really good. And the battery fitted in the control cavity just.

Wow, I used the ZW set on mine with the connector bus and it was TIGHT! Good job to get it all in man, I had to rout a battery box into the side below the control cavity on mine.

[Gary B]

And a few more pics







Thanks for looking,
Gary

[phrozin]

quite like Garys Bass lovely and even stain with nice extenuated grain nice job

[Gary B]

quite like Garys Bass lovely and even stain with nice extenuated grain nice job

That means a lot coming from you. Thanks man!

[Simon Barden]

It's difficult to mask binding well, especially when staining, as some liquid always seems to creep under the binding. Standard masking tape tends to allow seepage under the edge, so use something like Frog decorator's tape that's smoother and seals better. Some bindings develop small stress cracks in the surface (from being bent - especially on the sharper curves) that you can't see with the naked eye, but stain can find their way into the cracks and look very obvious with a dark stain. Of course if you just try staining a pat of the guitar at the time, it's easier to wipe the stain off the binding as you go along.

It is quite easy to scrape the binding, it's just quite time consuming.

However it's a lot easier to mask the binding when spraying than spraying and then scraping the paint off. You can scrape it easily if the paint is only a couple of layers and it's still fresh, dry enough to handle but nowhere near cured. The longer you leave it the harder it gets, and the harder it gets to scrape it off. Even so, you'll have to do it quite a few times to do it as easily in the StewMac (or Gibson) videos.

Even so, it it's only 0.5mm or 1mm wide binding showing on an edge, then I would always scrape that edge rather than try to mask it.

If you are just masking the binding, then I'd suggest using 3M 3mm or 6mm wide 'fine line' masking tape as it's a stretchy plastic and it is actually pretty easy to follow the binding with it (look online, or auto stores normally carry it or similar products). Just beware when using it (or even standard masking tape) on concave curves, that it needs to be use din short lengths. Any attempt to stretch the tape here results in the tape being under tension and being pulled away from the guitar. Even small changes in temperature can cause differential movement between te tape and the guitar body and pull the tape away. So use short sections of tape on concave curves.

As Gary says, it is quite difficult to put masking on binding with pinpoint accuracy. You are better off leaving a small part of the binding exposed (and scraping that if necessary) than covering up some of the wood near the binding and leaving a gap in the stain (or paint). Almost all binding stain or paint marks can be removed by scraping. You'll be amazed at how much scraping you can get away with on the binding.

Polishing the binding is done by getting it as smooth as possible so maybe start with P400 paper and work up to P1500 or P2000, then buff with a cloth (or switch to Micro-Mesh and work all the way up to 12000 grit). I'd avoid putting any wax on it as it would be hard not to get it on the wood and so prevent it staining. Whilst you could use steel wool, I'm always wary of the steel fibres it leaves behind that can stick in the wood and affect the later finish, so you then might want to mask the body off first round the edges! However I've never tried polishing the binding before staining, so I'd let others who've done it tell you what they've done.

[FredA]

And here's my entry for this month: Fred's JBA4 JPJ

Body abused with steel wire brush to deepen the grain, then tinted black with Feast & Watson Black Japan Prooftint, with about 10 coats of True Oil, no sanding or buffing.
Neck natural with 4x coats of True Oil.

Upgrades:
* Upgraded tuners
* Tusq graphtec nut
* Silver dot markers
* Babicz full contact bridge
* Routed to accomodate 3rd pup and switches
* Custom pick guard to accomodate neck and middle pups
* Jaguar switch plate and switches to select pups
* Jack moved to side to allow for 4x knobs on front plate
* Tonerider Pickups: Jazz Plus for neck and bridge and Precision Plus for middle
* CTS pots with Orange Drop cap

Build diary: Here



Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[ShazzRandom]

I’m so excited to have finished this beast! It’s been almost a year since I purchased the kit but unfortunately Uni took priority. Here is my modded triple hum SG. Was originally a 2 pup, but I routed in the middle pup hole. She looks so mean and plays rather well. This is the first time I’ve used dye on timber, I believe I did the burst quite nicely considering!
All hardware is stock except for a no named push pull for the middle pup and I used braided and tinned wire.
I have a build diary and also a Vlog of sorts on the tubes, but I am behind on the vlog exiting... but if you want to check it out here it is YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...5p48nAaTbJkgGs
Build Diary: http://www.buildyourownguitar.com.au...d.php?p=133947