I bought the cheapest kit I could find on eBay - let's see if this was a good idea

[ThatCluelessGerman]

I think there is finally some light at the end of the tunnel. I decided to stop with the finishing on monday. I realized that my perfectionism is getting in my way here and that it will never have a perfect high gloss surface, because it's completely hand finished and I have no prior experience whatsoever. It will be as good as it gets and then it's okay. I don't even know if I WANT a super high gloss finish or not? I'm just stumbling along this path... Other than that, in case this guitar turns out to have a good sound (who knows?!), I will quickly add many many imperfections while playing it - that's just the way it is. So during the long weekend, I will keep adding a coat in the morning and one in the evening, and then on tuesday morning, it goes into a box to cure for 2 weeks.

Then I can hopefully get the new pickguard done. I bought a sheet of copper on monday, but so far, the seller hasn't shipped it yet, sigh. But I got lucky on eBay today, won an auction for a few sheets of copper that already have a great patina from storing them for a few years, exactly how I like it! :-)
So I hope I can dust off my piercing and make a nice pickguard that's a little smaller than the current one.

[ThatCluelessGerman]

It's done, and she's gone!

And by gone, I mean she's back in her box to let the finish cure before the final wet sand / polishing.







Even though I'm happy I'm somewhat done with the pre finish (damn, this took long enough!), I'm also kinda sad because... I don't have anything to fiddle around now

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Now about the pickguard... I recently made a necklace from some copper sheet (just a tryout if it works, etched with ferrous chloride) and I'm thinking about etching the same image into the pickguard.... in German, there's a word ("Herzblut") meaning somebody put a huge amount of effort and love into something... Like me into my first guitar kit



Not sure yet how it would look, still working on some shape. But maybe it could look cool?

[jugglindan]

I think the image could work. It would certainly be unique.

[ThatCluelessGerman]

So today I tried to do the final sanding on the top/front. It was curing for more than a week (the back is still too soft, needs a few more days) and I tried to lightly wet sand it, starting with 1500 grid. Yep, almost sanded through the finish in one spot. I realized it before disaster (because the grain started to show when using hard edge lighting) but still, fuark. I mean, it took around a billion coats of tru oil to fill up the grain and tada, I sanded it down to zero. Great work, you fool.

Alas, I'm back to adding a few billion coats more of tru oil. Probably a good thing I was wise enough to order a new medium bottle yesterday.

In hindsight, I wonder if I should have wrapped the corners in painter's tape and just slam on 1cm of epoxy. Instant high gloss surface. No?

[JohnH]

I feel your pain. I did exactly the same thing today - it's endlessly frustrating.

Tru oil looks very nice when it's done though, so it is worth the effort

[ThatCluelessGerman]

Is shared pain double or half the pain? ;-)

I hope you are right and it will look awesome in the end - currently I doubt I will ever get there. I *thought* I had added SO much tru oil but in reality, the coat still seems to be super thin.... phew.

[JohnH]

Ha ha ha, same. It's cost me a fortune in tru oil. Next time I think i will try wipe on poly

[Simon Barden]

One thing to do is to get the guitar surface as smooth and as flat as possible before starting to apply the finish. This is where applying a light 'mist' spray of a dark colour helps as does sticking sandpaper onto a flat board to sand the large flat surfaces. Not enough paint to cover the wood, just enough so that when you start sanding with your flat plank, you can see where all the low spots are. Sand away until all those low spots are gone. You could repeat the exercise just to make sure.

Sanding to remove the low spots also removes the high spots, which are more likely to sand through when you sand the finish. And sanding using a long piece of wood will get more even results than even a hand-sized sanding block does (which in turn is better than no sanding block at all).

Wet sanding stops the paper from clogging up and clumps of hard sanding residue on the paper leaving scratches and sanding unevenly, so it's really important in getting good results.

[JohnH]

I definitely think this is where I went wrong. I thought I had sanded it very flat, but of course as you go you learn that flat could be flatter