Today I tidied up the two headstocks, trimming the fibreboard back to the wood and finishing opening up the truss rod cutaway. But it was a hot sunny day and I didn't feel like doing too much. I even forgot that I needed to open up the tuner holes. I'll need to do that and then re-stain some bits and pieces tomorrow.
After being frustrated at having to keep reaching under the worktable to get at the on/off/speed control for the Dremel, I bought one of these foot-operated mains switches.
Does just what I want it to do, saves more bending over and it's a lot quicker to turn the Dremel off if I need to quickly.
As it's fully rated at 13A (max. current allowable for a standard UK mains plug), it will also come in useful for a few tools like my random orbital sander, that has an awkward to get to on/off switch.
Sometimes it's the little things in life that can give so much pleasure.
Very handy addition there mate.Originally Posted by Simon Barden
After being frustrated at having to keep reaching under the worktable to get at the on/off/speed control for the Dremel, I bought one of these foot-operated mains switches.
Does just what I want it to do, saves more bending over and it's a lot quicker to turn the Dremel off if I need to quickly.
As it's fully rated at 13A (max. current allowable for a standard UK mains plug), it will also come in useful for a few tools like my random orbital sander, that has an awkward to get to on/off switch.
Sometimes it's the little things in life that can give so much pleasure.
The last few days I've been working on headstocks. Cutting out the fibreboard to size to stick on the face and gluing it on. I have enough clamps to do one at a time, so it's taken a few days as I've been doing four necks in total, as I've now reclaimed my ES11 neck from JimC and also decided to refinish the ES-3 headstock in the same way.
I used a brad point drill to open the tuner holes up, working from the rear until the tip poked a central hole through the fibreboard, then turning the neck over and finishing from the top. Even with the brad point, there was still a tendency for the fibreboard to tear a bit round the edges, so the first neck had some CA repairs around the hole edges. I then used a smaller drill for the others and finished off the opening with a tapered reamer. Much smoother.
The truss rod cavity sides were enlarged with a Dremel then hand sanded.
I'm still persevering with a slightly proud abalone inlay, a few coats of black paint over the top of the headstock, and then sanding back so the abalone is flush with the paint. A black decal then goes on the abalone, generating my SB logo with a black ring around the outside smoothing out and hiding the edges of the abalone circle. All then covered in clear lacquer.
I've learnt as I've gone along, so this time I laminated three layers of abalone sheet together so that I've definitely got enough not to sand through when the time comes.
I still needed to fill in the gap around the edge of the abalone disk with CA, but in order to do so, I had to put a lot on, resulting in the excess CA being level with the top of the disk.
As I needed the CA to be level with the surface of the headstock in order to build up the paint layers, this meant some careful filing away of the unwanted CA with a flat needle file.
I've still got the ES-3 headstock to get into shape as the fibreboard was glued on yesterday, but I should be gluing on the necks of the SGs today, and probably cleaning the binding on the ES-1 neck before giving it a coat of amber lacquer to darken the binding to match its body.
Been pretty hot (for the UK) the past few days, so gave been taking things relatively slowly. Also had a couple of days where everything went wrong, so didn't do much on those days.
Here's the GSJ-1 with the neck glued on, the neck joint filled and patched up, and the body (finally) cleared of all scratches and re-stained where necessary (actually this photo did show a bit of a stain tide-line near the bottom so I did the top of the body again after this). I thought the heel tenon was going to sit proud of the body, but once I really clamped it down, it sank below it, so I filled in the pit and got it all level.
Here's the GSM-1 with the neck being glued on. A bit of joint filling and touching up, undoubtedly a few exta bits of re-staining to do as I'm bound to knock it or notice more scratches, and then it should be time to start spraying them in two days time. One coat of heritage cherry red lacquer on each and then clear coats.
Then it's time for three coats of black on the headstock face, then sanding that flat, level with the abalone inlay. then a clear coat layer, decal, more clear coat on the headstock, then put aside to dry/cure.
Forecast is currently for at least six more sunny days. Which is nice.
That's looking really good.
And I am glad I am not the only one looking at weather forecasts to work out if I have a big enough window to paint.
DC
Mantra: No more pedals, must finish BlueyCaster...
Disclaimer: I haven't done woodwork since high school, and wasn't really paying attention at the time ...
Looking good Simon. At least the weather is on your side for painting right now.
It's almost too hot. 28°C in the shade in the back garden at the moment. Hotter in the back garden than out front because it faces the sun, and the brick walls and patio paving heat up and make it warmer.
But that's better than too cold or too humid. But it is still only May, late spring here.
Funny about the vaguerities of weather. That's about an average day in February here. Usually we can at least count on sun. But not lately. we have just had the second named storm of Atlantic hurricane season pass by and the season doesn't even begin until Monday. So, at the moment, I am envious of your weather and the color on that SG.
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Looking great, loving the colour.
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