Matt's WL-1 build

[mjg]

Thanks Simon, that helps. I'll make sure I'm in the auto shop, not the pet shop. ;-)

I was about 25-30cm away, spraying parallel as you suggest. It was indeed going on dry and powdery, more of a misting that getting wet.

I suspect I was just moving too fast. When my kid had a go he got one stripe nice and wet, which at the time I thought was *too* wet. But it looks like that bit is actually what we should have done all along. He was a fair bit closer and it was a narrow stripe (3cm wide?) that went on quite wet.

Oh well, it's all a learning experience. I'll sand it back a bit and redo it. Slower and more of it.

Next question... when sanding, I'm using 400 grit, with water on the paper. It makes a nice slurry. Do I wipe that off the guitar as I go? Leave it on? With the texture of my primer coat at the moment the slurry is drying in the little bumps. Maybe it won't be a problem and will wipe off easier when I get the primer coat on properly?

[mjg]

Another thought... would toucans make it easier to feather the colour in from the edge?

Boom boom.

[Dedman]

the good thing about primer is you do sand a lot of it back off so if you get runs or lumpy patches while refining your technique its no big deal. Yes, wipe the slurry off, keep rinsing the paper too. I usually do 3 coats of primer. 1 to soak into the timber, one to do minor grain filling and the final one that is sanded silky smooth . (when I say coat, I might give it several passes per coat , especially on the edges where the timber is more thirsty and where it's easy to sand through on the curves. ) I usually go to 800paper on the final primer coat sanding before colour. Word of warning about orbital sanders, they leave little round marks you don't see right away. Random Orbitals are OK but still only use them on bare timber, after that...its all elbow grease ;D

[D.K]

firstly man flu sucks, that said I am enjoying watching this build and good to see the young fella in there having a go, i painted my blue sta-1m with the same primer, I always use dry white paper for primer 400-800 grit, I avoid water as the primer will soak it up, I only ever use wet sanding on my finish coats, not sure what anyone else does, just how I have always done it (even on cars). To me it looks as though you are right, it was just sprayed on too dry, Hope this is of some help.

[mjg]

Thanks all for the help and suggestions. I'll keep at it and see how I go. I'll give the dry white paper a try too. Can't spray any more coats today though, the washing line is busy with clothes.

D.K., yeah the kid enjoys helping, I think he is also keen to get it done as the sooner it is finished, the sooner he can play it. He's hanging out for that extra fret. His Squier Strat has 21, which I have extended with a small bit of wood to make 23 frets, but he *needs* that 24th fret apparently.

[phrozin]

As simon said i do use 6 coats with fairly wet the beauty with primer you can sand it off fairly easy you want to spray a bit wetter (slower) make sure you dont go through the primer to bear wood when sanding, if your kit is basswood use a full can of primer on it to fill the grain put a dust coat over the primer so when you sand it back you can see where you have missed only sand with dry paper 240 grit not wet & dry hold the can about 8 to 10 inches from the surface and spray slower. Just take your time and use the primer coats to practice your spraying your doing ok so far no major dramas atm

what colour are you thinking of doing it?

[D.K]

yeah my not so young fella (14) also loves it. I've decided to finally have a go at a scratch build, and well it looks like we will be scratch building two guitars now, apparently I'm not able to own more guitars than my 14 year old. He tells me he's financing his own but I don't mind, at least hell have it for years to come and he does look after them, sg build from 3 years ago is still spotless. As for 24 frets, I have enough trouble with 21.

[mjg]

Thanks Phrozin... I'll give that a go. As you say this is good practice for spraying. I need to work out that speed to get a good coating.

Colours will be black and red. Still undecided which bits will be black, and which red. But at least we've picked the colours.

D.K., I'm also getting my kid into electronics by building pedals with him. He enjoys a bit of soldering, just not too much at once.
I don't play guitar myself, I'm basically the roadie/pedal builder/guitar builder for my wife and kid.

I reckon there will be some economies of scale if you are building two at once - especially if you can use the same shape for the body. I spent a lot of time on my scratch build just practicing things, making templates, making fences, working out how things go together, etc.
Although I guess nothing is going to reduce the time you will spend sanding...

[mjg]

Here's the 21 to 23 fret conversion I did on my kid's Squier. Was a bit fiddly, and I didn't have proper fret trimmers or files at the time. But amazingly it works and has held together for about 6 months now. Dread to think what will happen if he ever wants to change the pick guard...

[Simon Barden]

It obviously works, so a big thumbs up to you!