This is when you want to get the flat surfaces as flat as possible. If you can stick sandpaper to a long flat piece of wood with double-sided tape, then you'll quickly get an idea where any dips are in the wood as you'll still see them as shiny areas. You really need to sand until they are all gone. You may need to re do the grain filler, as it almost always needs more than one application. And don't use too coarse a grit paper on the grain filler, as that tends to pull out the filler from the pores, so use the finer stuff once you''re getting close to the wood surface, even if it takes a bit longer.
As to the finish: colour or clear coat. I like the dark mahogany wood finish and have never been a fan of Pelham blue (or any metallic finish for that matter) on a guitar, so my own choice would be to just clear coat it.
after two "heavy" coats of nitro ... waiting time before sanding that F.... orange peel ! do you guys know how long should I wait ? witch technique and grit ?
I'd put on about six coats before thinking about sanding back at all, otherwise you are very likely to sand through to the wood and damage the stain. A lot of those first two coats will have soaked into the wood. And it really is better to apply thinner coats than thicker ones.
I normally wait at least two days before doing any sanding. Longer if you have any large drips to remove as the centre of those stay wet for quite a while. But after sanding back flat, unless you are going to spray more coats on, then its at least two weeks before you should think about polishing. If you can still smell solvent from the finish, then it's still not ready for polishing.
I've just been experimenting using 00 wire wool to sand back nitro, and certainly to start things off, its a lot easier than wet sanding. It's a bit gentler and you can see what you are doing better. Works pretty quickly and the wire wool doesn't clog up when used dry like sandpaper does. The downside is that you get a lot of small metal fragments all over the finish that need to be removed before any more finish goes on or you start polishing. I remove them with a magnet and then a good wipe-down. You'd still need to do some wet sanding with finer grades of sandpaper before polishing, but I think you are far less likely to sand through when levelling and removing any orange peel.
Job is almost done! just have to finish the headstock logo (screwed logo) i have ordered a tortoise pickguard too. i dont wich one i prefer , i will see later. so what you htink ? it plays great with the epiphone stopbar ( lower action, intonation is great !) no fret buzz! and i also have a question; my neck is straight when the scew of my trussrod is completely loose, if i screw a little the neck is concave... is it normal? if some day my neck becomes convexe , i will tight the screw ? have a nice day ! jean pierre
The truss rods are dual action, with a 'dead zone' in the middle of the adjustment screw operation. There will normally be a small amount of concave bow in the neck to start with once the strings are on. Turn the truss rod nut clockwise and you'll straighten out the neck, so less concave bow, and by continuing to turn, you can then get it flat and then add in some convex bow.
With the nut in the dead area , it will be loose and not doing anything to the neck at all. Turning the nut anti-clockwise from here you'll add in concave bow.
So it sounds like your neck has a slight natural convex bow to it (with the string tension then pulling it flat), so turning the nut anti-clockwise to add in a small amount of concave relief is correct. You don't want the nut in that 'dead' middle area of its travel, as it will vibrate around, which could affect the sound from the guitar. Even if you don't want it doing anything, it needs to be turned so that it just begins to stiffen on the thread so that it's not loose.
Both the black and the tortoiseshell pickguards work with the guitar IMO, but the tortoiseshell one does make it a more unique instrument and adds some colour.
As an aside, I've now gone off using wire wool as I was finding small metal fibres embedded in the finish after use. I've now swapped to using 3M Scotch-brite pads, the 7447 red 'very fine' and the 7448 grey 'super fine' ones, which work in the same way but don't leave any metal fibres to spoil the finish. I should have listened to McCreed, but my first attempts (on a fully hardened finish) were OK. But day-old nitro finish is soft enough to get small bits breaking off in it.
thanx simon it's always a pleasure to read your comments , i didn't use steel whool except for the frets, but sand papers until 5000 , then car polish . for my next guitar i will find a way to polish more! by the way , where can i find a good lp kit (59 if it's possible) , i guess pitbull guitars did not sell lp kit no more ... can't find a good lp kit here in france !
Not sure where you'd find a '59 style kit. Most of the kits I've seen have a modern C profile neck.
The more specific high-quality kits with solid maple tops seem to come from the USA, and normally are body and neck only, with no hardware and are pretty expensive. By the time you've added shipping, taxes, hardware and electronics, plus your finishing material costs, you probably aren't looking at much less than a used Gibson Les Paul, which will be worth much more than your kit ever will once it's built.
grain filler red stain , light polish . I don't knom if im painting a "table" in pelham blue or varnishing like this?
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