ST-1 Custom experiement

[lunaticds]

Yeah fair call. Definitely not a lot left over the stickers to be hitting with P240 at the moment given that they've been taken back to within fractions of a mm of their lives. When the next load of clear coat arrives.. hopefully in a week, I'll hit it again with a few coats and see how we're looking. It shouldn't need a whole lot more to build it up to a point I can level it. I've still got a bit of P320 floating around.

Even with the 1500, it doesn't take much to wind up cutting through the coats over the stickers. The sanding has been focused manly on the stickers trying to bring them down, and working the edges down to loose the build up around them. The rest of the body has been getting just enough to loose the shine and remove any runs or other annoyances that appeared (like hair despite being hung up). It'd probably be more time effective to just ignore the stickers, but then it's hard to gauge how much is enough, so putting some effort around the stickers seems to make it easier to know where I'm up to.

The big thing I've learned with the Krylon really quickly is that you either need to act fast or what a long time. You can keep recoating within an hour of each coat and its fine and you can just keep going within reason. If it turns hazy, it will usually pass within 24 hours. If you let it go, then you're stuck waiting days, and you need to sand it.

[lunaticds]

For better or worse, I think the pickguard is done. Definitely need to change the pickups. The covers I'd printed don't quite fit well enough so I'll not bother with them.
Wasn't quite expecting the clear coat to discolour quite so much. I haven't managed to bury the stickers. They're just too thick and between the guard and the body, I'm using way too much clear coat as it is. I certainly managed to get them well protected, but just not enough.
At the moment you're seeing it post a quick rub with some Ultimate Compound.



The body is a work in progress. It's got around 6 cans of clear coat on it and the stickers are on the brink of being buried - and have been for the past 2 cans. The discolouring on there is more obvious and is making it look quite old - which is cool, but the more I put on the more it's starting to detract from the art itself. They're far enough down that the edges should be well protected and they aren't of major annoyance.
I've decided to call it where it is - close but not quite. I sanded one side down and gave it a polish, but managed to get surface marks cutting into the clear coat on the other side, so it's fairly soft. I'll let it sit for a few days before I attempt to clean up the other side and work my way around it with the sand paper. With a bit of luck in a few weeks it'll cure enough to handle doing anything with it.

[Andyxlh]

That looks good, have you checked out the stock kit humbucker pickups? They are quite good, better than the single coil pickups

[lunaticds]

Apparently these are kit humbuckers.
I'll test them out, but I've been meaning to upgrade an Epiphone LP for the past decade, so that'll likely be where this all winds up.

[Simon Barden]

That looks good, have you checked out the stock kit humbucker pickups? They are quite good, better than the single coil pickups

It's the colour of them rather than the sound, I believe. Black bobbins are desired.

Have you thought of spraying the pickups black? If the pole pieces stand slightly proud of the bobbins then it would be easy enough to spray, and then scrape off the paint over the poles.

[Andyxlh]

Ahh ok, yes. I’d use rustoleum black from Bunnings, five the plastic a light sand and it doesn’t need primer. I agree simon that would be easiest
The kit humbucker sounds quite good to my wooden ears!

[lunaticds]

It's the colour of them rather than the sound, I believe. Black bobbins are desired.

Have you thought of spraying the pickups black? If the pole pieces stand slightly proud of the bobbins then it would be easy enough to spray, and then scrape off the paint over the poles.

I've still got some Krylon black from the body spray left over (which I used having brought it for spraying the pickguard that never happened). Off to the garage!

[Simon Barden]

I suppose you don't actually need to scrape the pole-pieces if they are flat, and just have it an all-black pickup.

[lunaticds]

Bit of luck they'll be dry enough in the morning to touch. The paint doesn't like fine edges too much and it wound up a little thick lol.
Will be interesting to see how it comes up. It'll be the least amount of paint on anything in this whole build :P

I'm fighting the polyurethane on the headstock too. I've got the decal buried, but there's a few dips that just looked weird when I started polishing it back. Needs a bit more work. I've got a couple less coats on the back, sanded it back down to 3000 grit and decided I rather like it as it is rather than bringing it back to a glossy finish. Could do with a little wax, but otherwise it's pretty smooth.
I wound up resanding the headstock flat and gave it another spray as I couldn't get it to polish back up glossy at all. Not sure if I'd just let it cure for too long or what happened there. Behaves differently than the clear coat on the body.
No idea what the fretboard looks like. It's been taped up for a couple of weeks, so not looking forward to see how much poly has crept in under the tape.

[Rabbit]

If the covers on the pickups can be removed, an alternative to painting the covers is to use fabric dye and dye them black. I had quite a bit of success with this for my Cliffenbacker covers.