Ian here, I’m originally from California, I used to work in music stores and a guitar custom shop, now I’m a boring english teacher in Germany who does recordings at home. I’m building 3 kits right now, the SV-7 will be the first.
I’d also like to introduce Victoria, the beautiful SV-7 kit that just arrived from Australia. Yeah, I name all my guitars.
First impressions are that I love the fretboard and the Gem/Universe hybrid details of this 7 string.
Finding the right spot for the neck joint was easy, after bolting it on I put on the strings and she played well right away. Next will be sanding while I search for a good guitar stain company.
That being said, I need to ask the community for help in a couple small questions:
(1) What European brands of guitar stain are good for blue? Or brands are available in Germany without a large shipping cost? So far, I’ve only seen Northwest Guitars makes a denim blue that looks nice.
(2) What’s good for a non-gloss finishing coat? Some people recommended oil, others a matte finish, I’m not sure what to do after painting Victoria blue.
(3) What’s an easy and affordable way to polish frets? I’ve only done it with expensive equipment and I’m wondering if there are any easy ways to get this done.
Thanks for reading this far...
Ian
Last edited by Seein' No Haira; 03-12-2020 at 03:03 AM.
Reason: Add photo
Northwest do a good range of products but it's not quite as wide as R&F yet.
2) With blue, I'd suggest a satin poly or acrylic clear coat. The oil finishes all have a slight yellow tint, and will turn the blue slightly green looking (and it will look even greener as the oil finishes age and darken to a stronger yellow). I've just used nitro up until now (with one abortive attempt with Tru-Oil), so am not the best person to advise on this apart from stating what others have used and found. But unless you go for wipe-on finish, you are stuck with spraying and now is not a good time of the year for spray finishes as it's too cold to spray outside or in an unheated garage, and you don't want to spray in living accommodation. Any heated workshops at the school you could use?
3) I mask off the fretboard, then if starting from frets I've just levelled and crowned, will work up through sandpaper grits, starting with P240 (until all cross-fret scratches are gone and I can run a top E string over the fret without it catching), then far less strokes of P320, P400, P800 and then I use the micromesh grades from 1500 to 12000 (probably overkill to go that high but it doesn't take long) and then a final polish with Autosol or another metal polish (I know you can get that in Germany).
Some people use the buffing wheel (with a polishing compound) on a Dremel if the frets are already smooth. However, I find that the Dremel spins too fast (if you set it so that it doesn't keep slowing down significantly) for that sort of work and it builds up heat very quickly indeed, which can do nasty things to the fretboard wood itself if you aren't careful. Manual polishing may be slower, but you won't risk doing any damage.
1) RK has a gorgeous standard blue, way closer to what I had in mind than the NW guitars. Cheers for that!
2) I guess I'll have to stain it now and finish it in spring.
3) I'll check out Autosol, I'm just looking to polish a bit of oxidation off of a couple frets and make all of them shine. For new frets, what grade should I start at?
When I worked at a guitar shop, I used a dremel and that would be rad to have now, but I'm going for max work/minimal cost.
The factory frets haven't had anything done to them apart from being installed, so can be variable in quality. They may or may not have scratches on. If unmarked, then I'd probably start off at 1500 micromesh (that seems to remove surface marks fairly easily), but if heavily scratched, then maybe start with P400. But if it's taking a long time to remove cross-fret scratches, then go coarser.
A quick update: after a very cold German winter, things are slightly warmer and I’ve been able to sand the body down to 400. I think this weekend I’m going to add the blue stain, sand and stain again before adding the matte coating.
First coat was only so good, I didn’t sand enough at 180 before going to 240, 320 then 400. The parts that did get sanded down right had a very nice result, so it wasn’t a total loss.
I’d send pictures, but these jpg limits are, well, limiting. I’ll have to resize and try to post again.
Here she is almost done.
Thanks again Simon for the recommendation for stain, Rothko and Frost makes a great stain and matte finish.
The good: The pickups are surprisingly good, the fret board looks absolutely stunning, the stain/finish steps went mostly according to plan, the neck was sent thick for those who may want a fatter neck and the soldering was a cake walk.
The bad: the middle selector cuts the guitar off instead of blending both pickups, the headstock color doesn’t match the body, and the grover upgrade tuners won’t fit a .59 (or larger) string.
What I learned: 25.5” scale 7 strings can’t properly intonate to the .76-.14 gauge strings of an 8 string(my original idea to use the top 7), sand a lot more at 180 before moving down into the steps, use a screw-in wood hook in the bottom of the body (where the strap peg would go) to hold the guitar while painting/staining/drying, drill pick-guard holes before sanding and staining, makes even passes when applying spray-can finish coats, cheap restaurant chopsticks are the best at blocking a floating bridge.
What’s left: Make logo for headstock, figure out tuning pegs for 7the string, sand neck the neck much thinner.
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