First built - Custom EXA-7 (Dora the 7Xplorer)

[Trevor Davies]

+1 The spalted maple top looks great. I love the darker line down the middle of the body. The headstock maple is also great.

[Juanito]

Thanks for your comments, Simon.
I think this is closer to boiled linseed oil than Tru Oil (some dude explains in a video how to make an equivalent to Tru Oil using boiled linseed oil, so I guess they are related, but not the same)

I ended up sanding it with 400grit paper before the third coat, and it feels incredibly smooth, the neck feels professional now. But it the built up on the sandpaper did make me think it wasn't dry enough - a bit gummy.

At the moment it's getting a bit too dark, so I don't want to put any more oil. I'll let it rest for a while now as this oil dries fast but not that fast, and I'll see how the colours change. After that, I'm pondering between a top coat with Shellac or Polyurethane, although I don't want it to go much darker than what currently is.

Watching Brad Angove videos, he recommends applying the first coat of poly with a very fine sandpaper (he uses 1500). If I go with poly, I could try doing that, or maybe before the first coat of any other product I end up using.

[Juanito]

Indeed, Trevor! I was very impressed by the veneer, particularly with the headstock. When I first opened it and saw the headstock, I did jump a little bit and yelled, then I saw the dry body and wasn't as impressed. After a bit of oil, I am loving it all

[Juanito]

I started coating it with Shellac (the flakes from Bunnings, which are as orange as the label says). I didn't expect this colour, which are more yellow/orange than in the photos, but here we are! Not complaining much.The back has 9 coats and the front 6. The neck has 5 and it's darker than in this photo. I'm thinking of being brave and try a French polish on the top.

[Simon Barden]

No reason not to. What are you doing in the trem rout regarding a finish? Doesn’t look like there’s any on there at the moment. It’s best to have something on the wood to seal the surface to stop it being affected by humidity changes.

[Juanito]

I have put a bit of the timber oil and a bit of Shellac, but way less than on the outside (hence the contrast). Should I go a bit harder on the cavities?

Edit: I was just about to put the last coat for tonight, so I put some on the cavities. I could put more another day before starting my non-french polish

[Simon Barden]

You don't need to. As long as they have something to seal the surface that's fine.

[Juanito]

I attempted French Polishing and it was going well, then I got too excited and failed horribly halfway through. I forgot that shellac and especially french polish need little amounts of product, and on the second day of polishing, I started dipping the rubber into the jar, thus leaving very annoying marks on the finish.

Good thing is that shellac is easy to fix with a bit of sanding and alcohol. The imperfections are hard to notice at first and I think I'm comfortable with them. It's looking very shiny and I like it, but I'm not sure if I should buff it with steel wool and add wax - some people talk about it, but I'm not sure I need that. Here's some photos with different levels of shellac'ing

[Juanito]

Dora The 7Xplorer is done! I just forgot to post the last picture here.



I still need to go back and fix some things, like some textural imperfections on the shellac and re-do the higher frets, because they are causing a horrible buzzing. Luckily, the buzz is after the 15th fret on the 6th and 7th strings, so I don't spend much time there.

Other fixes I want to make are to change the pickup rings. These ones came with the stock pickups, and they are angled for LP types, but on a flat explorer, the pickups end up in a weird angle in relation to the strings. I didn't shield the cavities, so I may do that when I open it up. Also, I'm not sure if I need to install the metal bit to angle the strings on the headstock.

In a very distant future, I may ask a luthier to carve the body for better access to higher frets, because it has a very bad reach, especially being a 24 frets guitar. I can barely reach the 22nd fret. But, as it is now, I am quite happy with the result.

[Simon Barden]

Looks great.

Sometimes to sort the upper frets, rather than level them, you can first try tightening the truss rod slightly to make the neck flatter, and then raise the bridge height slightly to compensate. The truss rod has very little/no effect on the neck curve of the upper frets, so string action there is determined purely by the bridge height. But with level frets, you should be able to get the neck almost flat, which really helps to get the action down.