Woltz's TLA-1Q

[Woltz]

So after my previous post where I removed the veneer I thought quite a bit about which way to go from there. In the end I decided that I'd have a go at a solid colour finish.

So more sanding to remove the lacquer and most of the colour from the rest of the body. Then grain filled and now ready to spray some primer.





All primed up.





Then I start block sanding the primer to make sure it's flat before the colour. Then many many swear words when I looked down the body towards the neck pocket.....



Somehow I had managed to concentrate on one area too much while sanding and unintentionally create like a mini arm cut. Pulled out the calipers and measured the difference to check it wasn't my imagination.

Now I'm thinking, what do I do now given I don't have that many tools. I contemplated things like thicknessing the body (assuming I could find somewhere that had a thicknesser) and then gluing on a cap. In the end I pulled out my hand planes first to have a go at getting it close to level and see how things went. After some careful work with the planes and then a little sanding it was looking very close to level again.

I then test fitted the control plate to check the clearance for my switch. As I suspected I no longer had enough clearance. So out with the dremel and increased the depth of the cavity slightly. Neck pocket at this stage I'm hoping won't need any modification.

Time for some primer again and then sanding.

All sanded and ready for colour.





And here's the colour (it is Ford Nitro Mica).





It's been a frustrating couple of weeks and even now, despite putting a lot of work into the body, I have a couple little blemishes on the front but I have decided to accept that. It's my first attempt and I'm doing the best I can with whilst learning along the way.

I'll let it dry and then scrape the bindings before the I spray the clear.

I may have to gently sand the body as well to remove a couple of droplets that have landed on the body. What grit do people usually use at this point?

[wcieslik]

So after my previous post where I removed the veneer I thought quite a bit about which way to go from there. In the end I decided that I'd have a go at a solid colour finish.

So more sanding to remove the lacquer and most of the colour from the rest of the body. Then grain filled and now ready to spray some primer.





All primed up.





Then I start block sanding the primer to make sure it's flat before the colour. Then many many swear words when I looked down the body towards the neck pocket.....



Somehow I had managed to concentrate on one area too much while sanding and unintentionally create like a mini arm cut. Pulled out the calipers and measured the difference to check it wasn't my imagination.

Now I'm thinking, what do I do now given I don't have that many tools. I contemplated things like thicknessing the body (assuming I could find somewhere that had a thicknesser) and then gluing on a cap. In the end I pulled out my hand planes first to have a go at getting it close to level and see how things went. After some careful work with the planes and then a little sanding it was looking very close to level again.

I then test fitted the control plate to check the clearance for my switch. As I suspected I no longer had enough clearance. So out with the dremel and increased the depth of the cavity slightly. Neck pocket at this stage I'm hoping won't need any modification.

Time for some primer again and then sanding.

All sanded and ready for colour.





And here's the colour (it is Ford Nitro Mica).





It's been a frustrating couple of weeks and even now, despite putting a lot of work into the body, I have a couple little blemishes on the front but I have decided to accept that. It's my first attempt and I'm doing the best I can with whilst learning along the way.

I'll let it dry and then scrape the bindings before the I spray the clear.

I may have to gently sand the body as well to remove a couple of droplets that have landed on the body. What grit do people usually use at this point?

I have use 800 to sand off drops and drips. I don't do the whole body, just the drip itself.
Cut a long thin strip of 800, maybe 6-8 cm long but only as wide as the drip, or a little less.

To sand the drip off, lay the strip over the drip, and hold it down and in place with a little finger pressure, and while maintaining that pressure, pull the strip through carefully. You should be able to sand 'just the drip' and not anything around it....

Best to practice a bit on some scrap first and get your pressure and 'steering' right.

I'm a bit late to the party, and was loving the blue !!
That new binding looks beautiful !

[Woltz]

Looks pretty good! Amazing what a cut and polish will do to reduce the look of little errors. Binding looks cool, nice to see something a little different.

I went with that binding because I have a white pearl pickguard for it as well. Hopefully those elements of white pearl combined with the chrome hardware and the Emporer Red Pearl paint it'll come out nice. Probably not GOTM but a reasonable first effort after the setbacks.

This thread has been a real roller coaster ride; all 3 iterations of this guitar have been stunning. That pearl binding looks great. Good luck with the sand & polish!

Haha trv you're telling me. I thought about getting a waterslide headstock decal saying "Patience" because it has certainly tested mine.

I have use 800 to sand off drops and drips. I don't do the whole body, just the drip itself.
Cut a long thin strip of 800, maybe 6-8 cm long but only as wide as the drip, or a little less.

To sand the drip off, lay the strip over the drip, and hold it down and in place with a little finger pressure, and while maintaining that pressure, pull the strip through carefully. You should be able to sand 'just the drip' and not anything around it....

Best to practice a bit on some scrap first and get your pressure and 'steering' right.

I'm a bit late to the party, and was loving the blue !!
That new binding looks beautiful !

Thanks wcieslik. I'll definitely keep that in mind for when I do a black strat for my wife at some point. Oh and the blue was just a can from SCA.

[wazkelly]

Looking good.
Suspect you will need to lower the floor of neck pocket. Something I needed to do on both my Tele's as the action was ridiculously high and with strings sitting way above the deck & pickups.

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[Woltz]

Looking good.
Suspect you will need to lower the floor of neck pocket. Something I needed to do on both my Tele's as the action was ridiculously high and with strings sitting way above the deck & pickups.

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

Cheers Waz, to be honest I'm not 100% happy with it but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and have decided I need to accept some minor defects on the first build otherwise it'll take me years and cost me a fortune. As far as the neck goes, yeh will see how things look during assembly and make some minor alterations if necessary.

[Woltz]

So I decided to accept the minor defects in the metallic colour coat because I didn't want to repaint again.

So bindings are now scraped.





Another lesson learnt....never again will I freely choose to build a guitar with binding. Pain in the ass and couldn't get it to look as good as I wanted on the top.

Now I'll spray the clear coat when I get a chance. Will just need to run over the body with a tack cloth or something to minimise the surface contaminants.

[wazkelly]

Have to agree with you about binding. Not a big fan and unless well prepped and taped off stain still has a way of getting in where it shouldn't thus magnifying imperfections in the stuff.

[Bakersdozen]

Hey Woltz, what sanding sealer did you happen to use?

[Woltz]

So I'm too much of a perfectionist so I've removed the binding and sanded back to the primer. I'm now tossing up between thicknessing and putting a new top on the guitar (book matched piece of Yaka sitting in my shed) and going solid colour or stain without binding or cut the binding channel to fit the new binding and then stain or solid colour. The dilemma is that I don't have a router or a routing bit for doing binding channels.

Hey Woltz, what sanding sealer did you happen to use?

Hi Bakers, I used Behlens Jet Spray Sanding Sealer and then Behlens Jet Spray Clear Lacquer both aerosol cans. They aren't cheap for a can (especially when you make an error and have to sand it all off haha) but I found they sprayed a lot nicer than the primer and colour aerosols I used from Supercheap when I went to the solid colour.

When I refinish this build for a 3rd time (hopefully for the final time) I'm actually contemplating whether I get a spray gun because I have an air compressor and water trap etc already and a spray gun would give me more control than an aerosol can.

[wazkelly]

I would round over the edges similar to a Strat, as done on the Swampy Tele in my signature.
Looks and feels so much better and allows you to go back to a stain finish.

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