In-laws & outlaws...
The old saying about "you don't just marry your wife, you marry the whole family" comes to mind!
In-laws & outlaws...
The old saying about "you don't just marry your wife, you marry the whole family" comes to mind!
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
eh I'm just whingeing. Lots of people in worse situations.
Too true (it doesn't to vent a little bit once in a while though).Originally Posted by ross.pearson
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Guess who is carving a forearm contour with a $20 bunnings block plane and sandpaper.
Well you shouldn't have to worry about going too hard too fast with that method!
My angle grinder makes short work of it, but it can be very unforgiving. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong very quickly!
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
First I had to sharpen the stupid thing. When I bought it I didn't own any other planes or good sharpening equipment, just some terrible floppy little diamond sharpening "plates". I had to resurface the entire sole and grind a whole new bevel in the iron. The body is so light it's actually awkward to use. Setting it is also a pain, the cap is either all on or all off, there's no in-between for incremental movements. I should have spent time sorting out the #3 instead..
If anything, it's proof that even the cheapest tools will do the job.
Again, sans any real research and going completely by gut, I went ahead and marked something out that is absolute overkill. I checked out the forearm cut on a couple of my strat style guitars when I was done and they look positively petite compared to the chonk I removed. I'm hoping the bridge won't be effected, but I'm sure I avoided that area.
Trying to plane with the grain caused this thing to just dig in and chatter. Cutting 45 degrees across the grain provided the smoothest cut. If I had better depth control I wouldn't have even needed to sand this section, it was glassy smooth.
Here's the pile of shavings from when I finished.
Caesar literally just sat there and let the shavings fall on his head while I was working.
After the bulk was removed it was time to start refining the transitions. I used the block plane to remove the bulk of the roundover, real quick and dirty like.
Then it was outside for some fresh air to do the hand sanding. Trying to make the transitions as organic as possible with no hard lines.
I took it up to 240 grit, and really tried to make the shoulder where the countour meets the face of the guitar as unobtrusive as possible. I ended up sanding a lot of the paint (eventually all) because I was going to have to repaint anyway. For like the 8th time.
Top down view
And the side view showing the absolute chonk. Hey, this isn't meant to be a replica, so I don't mind if things aren't "right".
Before repainting I wiped down with metho, hand sanded the raised grain, second metho wipe down, more hand sanding, and then thought I was ready to go. I was not.
This time, mixing things up and going for consistency, I laid down a base coat of black water based acrylic (all wiped on). Then streaked on lines of the blue paint that will mix in to create the blue/grey colour I'm after.
By rubbing back hard and not allowing any surfaces time to dry, I got something I really like and that is finally pretty consistent.
Unfortunately, the forearm contour grain raised right up again and it was impossible to get a colour consistent with the front.
I sanded back to 240. More metho. More sanding. Up to 400 this time. Multiple times, multiple directions, until the grain stopped raising anywhere on the body. This also allowed me to spot some dings and scratches that I had completely missed and take care of them. In the end the body is super smooth but still has black acrylic highlighting the grain.
I watered down the blue paint 50/50 and brushed it on this time. I got a consistent result but it's kind of meh. I may do another coat later. Maybe less watered down, and then add a green blue. Welcome to the idiot lab, all we do is experiments.
The sides and back will be black, but I'll still likely need to attend to some of the edge transitions.
After that I went and had a shower because I feel like crap. Turns out I've got a 38.5 degree temperature, so that thing the kids picked up at school has decided it wants a piece of me. Woot. At least I achieved something today.
I'm vaccilating between "this is almost like I'm a real woodworker" and "why am I doing this to myself??". I think next time will be angle grinder time just so I can get that experience under my belt.Well you shouldn't have to worry about going too hard too fast with that method!
My angle grinder makes short work of it, but it can be very unforgiving. If something goes wrong, it goes wrong very quickly!
Last edited by ross.pearson; 05-08-2021 at 05:13 PM.
It’s a bit larger and deeper than a factory bevel, but it looks fine to me. There are no rules, and if there were, they can always be broken.
I just go at mine with a belt sander until I’m happy, then a random orbital sander, then hand sand until complete.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote