Reworking an Explorer Semi scratch

[Trevor Davies]

About 30 years ago I picked up a Cimar strat type guitar quite cheap second hand as my second (bash around) guitar. It had a nice neck, played quite well and the humbucker PUP sounded good. My aim was to do a semi-scratch build and replace the body with an explorer shape. I copied the explorer shape from a Guitar World magazine advertisement. Joined a few pieces of pine wood together and eventually I had a guitar that was loved and played a lot. All the routing was done by hand, the finish was very poor, it was a bit mistreated. I did learn a lot about carpentry, soldering, string setup etc.

I have decided to pull her apart and clean her up. I cannot fix all the things wrong but I can at least try.

Shots before being pulled apart:

[wazkelly]

I must say that looks pretty good as is.

Cheers, Waz

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[Trevor Davies]

Thanks Waz,

but it never passed a 3 foot rule, or 3 metre rule etc.
And it gives me a project while the other builds are waiting for parts to arrive in the mail.

[blinddrew]

And it gives me a project while the other builds are waiting for parts to arrive in the mail.

And that's what's really important!

[Simon Barden]

Going to leave it natural or stain or paint it?

Cimar were a fairly short-lived branch of Ibanez (about '75-'82) and shared headstock design and a lot of the body shapes and hardware.

[Trevor Davies]

Going to leave it natural or stain or paint it?

Cimar were a fairly short-lived branch of Ibanez (about '75-'82) and shared headstock design and a lot of the body shapes and hardware.

Hi Simon,
I will leave it natural. I will coat it with tru-oil.

I sanded the body back today and filled the knot holes with CA glue.
I still have to cover some unmatched dowel to blend it with the pine. I'm not sure if I should use putty or get a wood plug cutter!

[Trevor Davies]

More sanding and I also routed the face and back edges with 1/4 round bit.

I couldn't cover the dowels nicely so I'm embracing them. I darkened them to create a contrast.

Also given 3 coats of tru-oil.

[McCreed]

I like it!

I'm going to do a pine tele scratch build one day.

[wazkelly]

Looks great and will look even better once the Tru Oil ages.

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[Trevor Davies]

Thanks McCreed and wazkelly.

I'm a lot happier with the finish already. I will give it quite a few more coats of tru-oil though and it should darken a bit more.

Regards