And on safety - dust mask, ear defenders and safety glasses are pretty much a necessity.
And on safety - dust mask, ear defenders and safety glasses are pretty much a necessity.
+1 on the glasses and ear defenders, even the small routers make a hell of a racket that will bore into your skull after about 2.5 seconds.Originally Posted by Simon Barden
FrankenLab
Hand crafting guitars, because Death Rays are expensive.
Yeah, I guess I took the ear/eye protection part for granted. I just do it by second nature with anything larger than a dremel these days!
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
My router bit from Amazon is now turning up tomorrow.
I've seen a couple of people use this product as an alternative to wipe on poly and get really good looking results inside of three days:
https://www.rustins.ltd/rustins/our-...hardener-gloss
Has anybody tried anything like this?
Haven't seen it used here, but there's this informed review of the product from Amazon:
"Rustins Plastic Coating was used by Brian May of rock group Queen to finish his famous guitar, The Red Special, in 1963. Hence it is favoured by those who seek to build replicas of his guitar.
In general, RPC is simple to use but there are a few key limitations that need to be understood to avoid the finish wrinkling or rippling.
A previous version of the instruction leaflet stated "A minimum of three coats is recommended but many more can be applied. Marquetry is often given as many as nine coats." It is not known exactly how many coats Brian May applied to his guitar, but since the Red Special was finished with knife cut mahogany marquetry veneer approximately 0.6 mm thick, it is likely that he followed this advice and applied many coats.
The most key piece of information is that you have to either get three coats on within two hours (to achieve the window for a chemical bond) or wait several days for the previous coating(s) to fully harden before the window for a mechanical bond will be achieved.
This is because the surface hardens relatively quickly but under layer remains soft and can be reactivated by the next coat leading to a wrinkled or pitted finish.
The recommended time that should be left for the coat to harden completely varies from 3 to 6 days because this is dependent on ambient temperature. The warmer the temperature, the sooner the coat will harden. The instruction leaflet recommends temperatures above 18 degrees Celsius.
Initial rubbing down should be done using 600 to 1000 grit wet and dry and/or 0000 grade wire wool to apply a key for the next coat. Only progress to a finer grit when you are ready to apply the final coat.
Try to avoid using RPC on a product that has been assembled using PVA or water based glue, as the coating can sometimes react with the PVA glue and cause problems later on. The best glue to use is Cascamite or other resin based glue.
RPC is extremely sensitive to contaminants such as cleaning chemicals, wax polishes, food stuffs, oils etc. If these for any reason enter the timber the strong solvents in the PC will dissolve them out and will probably not affect the first coat but the second."
The review has some nice pics:
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/gp/custom...SIN=B002HMQH38
So a three-day finish is possible, but unlikely. You do need to leave it to harden properly otherwise you'll leave fingermarks etc. And the curing time is temperature dependent, so a warm day and it will be quick. a mild or cold day and a lot slower. And it has a very strong resin smell, so best not done in the house.
Thanks Simon - yeah I'd seen that review. There's a chap I've been talking to on FB who has used it after wrestling with wipe on for a number of months. Of course, a FB pic is nothing compared to a close inspection but it looks great and reckons three days from application to polish. He's in the UK so enduring the same temps as the rest of us. I'll question him more about his process.
I have three routers and a rotary cutting tool and I am a bit afraid of all of them. I learned the hard way the wisdom of Simon's advice about a base for the trim router. Light routers are also squirly and it does not take much for them to jump. I like the big 3 hp plunge router the best because the heft and 1/2" bits seem to make it smoothest and easier to control. But anything you hold in your hands that has a half inch bit turning at 23,000 RPM with that kind of power is intrinsically scary. I thought the least scary was the 1.75 HP router mounted in a table...until I piece of maple tear out hit me in the chest hard enough to raise a welt... They are also my loudest tools. 1+ on the safety gear.
I haven't worked on this project for good while as I've been putting the finishing touches to the PB kit and enjoying playing it!
The next stage is to deepen the neck pickup cavity to accommodate the stacked pickup.
I was worried about the stability of the router on the body as there's not a lot of surface to keep the router upright. So I ordered some acrylic and made a base. I didn't have a good way to make a hole large enough for the collet assembly pass through. I removed the base from the router and stuck to the acrylic in an attempt to use it as template. It meant routing without the base attached to the router which felt a bit sketchy. It didn't really work as I didn't end up with a perfectly round hole. But it's both big enough and not too big - so all good.
I did a quick practice with the new base on some scrap and it seemed to work okay so I went at it on the body.
It it seemed to work out pretty well. Did three passes and took about 4mm of total depth out of the cavity. It looks really clean and the now the pickup sits just proud of the scratch plate.
The next problem was the hole for the wire was too high in the cavity and was preventing the pickup from sitting flat. So I widened the hole and that seemed to help enough to the get the pickup to sit low enough.
There's some minor damage to the finish - why I didn't think to put some masking tape down I don't know #dumbarse - but should be easy enough to repair.
Now I've done my first clean routing job, my shed is covered in sawdust and I'm starting to feel closer to being a proper guitar builder.
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