GST-1 'Hexacaster' build

[Simon Barden]

Yes, I'll try scraping first.

In the meantime, here it is in the sunshine with the scratchplate on...

[McCreed]

Cool. If the Wizard of Oz played guitar, that's what he'd play!

I thought I'd easily do it with a 230ml can, but I've now run out, so another can has just been ordered.

Are you tinting your own clear, or buying pre-tinted?

[fender3x]

Not bad for a guy who doesn't like green.

[Simon Barden]

Are you tinting your own clear, or buying pre-tinted?

Buying pre-tinted. I could buy powdered dyes and mix them with clear, but so far I’ve been able to get what I want from Rothko & Frost, and cost-wise I doubt there would be any difference. But if I ever needed a non-standard clear tint, then I’d try that route.

[McCreed]

You can also use liquid dyes that are used for tinting resin (I think it's alcohol based). The resin dyes are what I used last year.
I got a pack of 13 colours for about 12 bucks on eBay. IIRC they were 1 oz each and I only used about .5 oz. of the blue.

[Simon Barden]

More green coats sprayed today, I think I'm just about there with those.

Neck got sanded down twice yesterday and resprayed twice, once as I was unhappy with the tint and evenness and then I accidentally knocked the neck off its spraying hook, so the finish all had to be redone. It was definitely one of my clumsy days.

But the base tint coat is all done and the decals went on today.



So tomorrow the first clear lacquer coats go on.

[Simon Barden]

...and time goes by and it rains a lot and is damp, so not a lot happens, than a sand through, then some repairing and more lacquer spraying, and then drying until yesterday and today when suddenly.

WHAM!!!


...The neck gets polished, frets levelled and re-profiled and the tuners fitted. These are Gotoh rear-locking units as the original Northwest Guitars locking tuners had posts that were too tall for the headstock so the low strings had poor break angles. They were fine on my Explorer with its angled headstock, but the string hole heights are way too high for a flat headstock.

BIFF!!!


...The body is taken down for sanding.

OOOOFFFF!!!


...The body is sanded with P400, P600, P800, P1200 and P2000

KAPOW!!!


...The top is polished

KERRUNCH!!!


...The rear and sides are polished


SPLATT!!!


...The trem cavity gets a coat of conductive paint. Mainly to tidy it up, but a bit of extra shielding never did any harm.

There are still a few sinkage spots where I maybe could have sanded down more and removed those, but having sanded through once and put the project back by more than a month with repairs and waiting for good spraying weather, I didn't want to push my luck and am prepared to live with those few small dips. A lot will be hidden by covers and plates. The nitro will sink in anyway over time, so it's never going to stay pristine.

[blinddrew]

Bam! Shinier than a shiny green thing!

[McCreed]

That looks great Simon. Well done.
I like the Batman references too!

[dozymuppet]

Lovely progress update.

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