Tele with Graph Tech piezo saddle build for a friend

[McCreed]

It looks like the Hyundai air compressor is not available in Australia - does anyone have other recommendations for a similar compressor suitable for painting guitar bodies and necks?

Jim

I'm presently half-arsed researching. If I find something on par with the Hyundai, I'll pass it on.

Note: there are few I've found with similar specs, but unfamiliar brands and limited reviews so I'm not willing to gamble.

[Simon Barden]

I’d try and go for an oil-free compressor if possible. You do get some oil carry-over into the air supply, which hopefully should be small and filtered out before it reaches the gun, but you also need to keep a note of the hours-run time of the compressor and change the oil at the prescribed intervals.

[Simon Barden]

It was all going so well, until it wasn't.

I was sanding down the top, as I thought I'd applied enough thickness of finish to sand away the pits. Except I went too far and sanded to the bare wood and sanded some of the stained finish off.

Easier to sand right back and start again than to try and match and touch up, so out came the random orbital sander, followed by some further hand sanding. This got rid of a couple of small scratch marks in the wood that were showing up through the finish that were annoying me.

This also gave me a chance to enlarge the neck pickup rout as I'm going to fit a Strat-sized pickup in it. Much easier to do the Series pickup arrangement with the 4-way switch if there's no grounded cover to worry about, plus I refer the sound of a Strat pickup.



This time I didn't bother staining, I just sprayed some amber tint lacquer on and got a far more uniform finish. However, the lacquer was very good at showing up sanding marks left by the random orbital sander, which weren't visible on the unsprayed wood.



So tomorrow that finish gets sanded off and more hand sanding is then done, followed by some wetting with metho to check for the marks being removed before the spray goes on again.

Luckily the back and sides are fine, so it's just the top to worry about.

[McCreed]

I feel your pain!
Fingers crossed for third time lucky...

[Simon Barden]

I’m OK about it TBH. I’ll end up with a better looking top. Just need the weather to hold up so I can carry on working on it.

[Simon Barden]

Yesterday I sanded back the top and got rid of the sanding marks. I then tried spray shellac as a sealer. Worked well and got a very nice level surface, but it had highlighted some more sanding marks, so it was sand and shellac again in a few patches.

The correct style of bridge then finally arrived, and I found that I needed to enlarge the bridge pickup cavity at the front so the pickup would fit (this could be a Pit Bull body!).

After a couple of goes at doing that, I didn't stain it this time, I just went for an amber lacquer for colour. I think it gave a far more even finish.

Then today it was time for several coats of clear lacquer.




The front does look more yellow and more even in real life. In the photo, it looks quite similar to the rear.

A couple more clear coats tomorrow and then it should have enough.

[robsmith]

Simon, seeing those orbital sander marks showing up after the first coats of finish. Have you ever tried using a scraper after sanding to get rid of those annoying wrong direction marks?

[Simon Barden]

No I haven't. But I do have scrapers.

I probably should have used a finer grit disk, or at least gone over it with successive finer grits. The main issue was not being able to see the marks on the wood until I had the finish on. So even had I had my scrapers to hand, I wouldn't have used them as I only found out about it too late to use them.

But definitely a lesson learnt.

And it was fortunate in a way, because I'm far happier with the end result.

[robsmith]

Years ago I discovered that a couple of strokes with a scraper with the grain after sanding can make those infuriating swirls stand out like a sore thumb.

[Simon Barden]

I'll try that next time then. Thanks!