3rd build: AIB-1Q

[dozymuppet]

So far so good. This is where it's at after two wipes of poly brew:



Lessons learnt so far:
- Apply before finishing (duh), because you need to sand back the CA. I had to sand back the poly and stain and do it again.
- Calcite crystal is actually crystal, not white, so the inside of the groove is the colour that will push through. Consider painting the groove first, and/or apparently you can stain the crystals.
- Scraping the stain off the inlay is fairly tedious.

Other progress shots:

[JohnH]

What a cool idea! looks great

[McCreed]

Thanks dozy. Looks good.
Did you put some crystal in the poly? I see some sparkle in the black...

Also, that encourages me have a go some time.
I'm not sure I have what it takes to do traditional inlay work, but this might be within my skillset (and temperament).

[Trevor Davies]

Looks good Dozy.
I tried a circular inlay of gold foil which looks quite good.

Also tried some white soapstone (engineers chalk purchased from Total tools (for $1.50) (Supacheap Auto also has some!))) - easily crushed it up with a hammer, laid it into the hollow, set with CA glue, sanded etc. It is opaque so may be another option for you. Possibly would still need to paint the inlay track as the shallow edges may come through the CA glue.

Putting some poly over them now.

[DarkMark]

Looks good to me. You can stain first if you lay on enough coats of poly that you don’t sand through to wood. Then you can start laying the coats on all over again. I tested this with my glitter inlay experiments.

[dozymuppet]

Possibly. I'd need a lot more control over the CA flow to keep the build-up down, or at least some way wick off the excess before it hardens. The thin stuff wants to spread very quickly, which is great in some ways.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

[McCreed]

Possibly. I'd need a lot more control over the CA flow to keep the build-up down, or at least some way wick off the excess before it hardens. The thin stuff wants to spread very quickly, which is great in some ways.

Go to a hobby shop and get some nozzles made just for this purpose. There are a couple different types.
One is a length of wee tiny tubing that is inserted into a separate nozzle that is then fitted onto the CA bottle. Another is a one-piece tubing that is tapered and fits of the tip of the CA bottle.

I prefer the first kind as I've had trouble with the second kind not fitting the tip properly and splitting.

These are the ones I like: ZAP

I happen to use the Zap brand CA, so they fit perfectly.
Oh, and I flush the tips with acetone after using them and can get many many uses out of one. (just reaffirming my tight-arsed-ness)

[dozymuppet]

Good tip.

Edit: pun not intended, but I'll take it.

[McCreed]

Another "tip", is if you're using "thin" CA, try using a higher viscosity one. Maybe a medium.
It should still seep into the spaces between the crystals but have less spill and easier to control the flow.

At least that's what I have found with applying glue to fret slots.

[dozymuppet]

While I wait for that, I'm looking at wiring this thing up.

The kit came with a 3-way switch, and humbuckers with hot and ground wires only. However, I bought Entwistle Dark Stars for this, which are wired for coil splitting.

So, options I'm thinking of:
- I don't use the coil-splitting option, or
- I don't use the Dark Stars for this, or
- I replace the tone pot with a push-pull pot, or
- I acquire a 5-way switch.

I'm not too fussed about having a broad range of pick-up options, but I'm also not sure if it's really a waste of a good pickup options by not coil-splitting. And I also don't want to dick around too much with this (I'm not at that level of wiring competence yet).

Advice welcome.

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk