Dual Build: GSJ-1 and GSM-1

[fender3x]

Those colors are fantastic

[blinddrew]

Looking spot on Simon. Enjoy the sailing!

[Simon Barden]

The GSJ is almost finished. This was taken at 10am this morning. Going out visiting has stopped final stringing up, testing and setting up (still out ATM).


I’m going to finesse the pickguard shape and make a 3-ply truss rod cover as the 1-ply black one is a bit uninteresting. The finish is OK, not perfect, a few small flaws but not bad.

[Bakersdozen]

The GSJ is almost finished. This was taken at 10am this morning. Going out visiting has stopped final stringing up, testing and setting up (still out ATM).


I’m going to finesse the pickguard shape and make a 3-ply truss rod cover as the 1-ply black one is a bit uninteresting. The finish is OK, not perfect, a few small flaws but not bad.

Looking absolutely stunning Simon !

[McCreed]

Looks nice Simon. I agree that a 3-ply TR cover would really stand out better.

Is your logo a decal or an inlay? I can't remember.

Also, that 5 string bass in the background looks interesting. Have we seen that one before?

[JimC]

...5 string bass in the background looks interesting. Have we seen that one before?

I'm pretty sure I haven't, and I've been there! Mind you I'm sure I've only seen a smallish subset of Simon's guitars.

[fender3x]

I noticed the 5er also.

Not sure what you mean by flaws... It looks like EXACTLY the finish I have in my mind's eye of the ideal SG finish. Agree about the truss-rod cover. I am pretty sure I remember being intimidated when Simon was showing how he made the logo inlay ;-)

[Simon Barden]

I gave up on the abalone disks as even with stacked layers of the thin sheet, I couldn’t get a smooth surface without pits as the thin material must have come away when sanding. So I swapped to using a nice and thin pearlescent silver self-adhesive vinyl film, that I cut as a circle, and stuck that on a flat headstock surface. Then a self-made laser printed decal in black on top and then just layers of clear-coat. The silver still retains some 3D-action, a reduced depth of clear-coat would have retained more, but I wasn’t going to risk sanding through as I’d redone and touched up these headstocks so many ****ing times that I couldn’t face another sand-back and refinish. This one has a slight mark in the logo where I tried to remove some dust with a scalpel point which left a mark that didn’t go away when filled with clear-coat and levelled/polished. See above for acceptance.

[Trevor Davies]

Great looking guitar. I love the colour of the stain.

[Simon Barden]

It’s actually stain and then some vintage cherry tinted lacquer on top as well. Various sand-through at the edges required touch-ups, and I thought the central join line quite prominent, so I added a couple of tinted lacquer coats to help blend the fixes and pull everything together. As always, the lacquer ends up darkening as it dries, so it’s darker than envisaged, though I’m not displeased at all and I like it a lot It’s just that it and the GSM should have been near-identical guitars, but the GSM has turned out a lot brighter.