Nice piece of wood, Fender3x. It will be a beauty when the hardware is installed.
Nice piece of wood, Fender3x. It will be a beauty when the hardware is installed.
Thank you! So far I have had pretty decent luck with paulownia. I was not committed to a clear finish, but figured I'd give it a go when I saw the figuring.
I experimented with the Highline Guitars method of doing the transfers. In theory I really like that approach since it since it eliminates the transparent decal paper so that only ink and a very fine layer of water based glue gets transferred to the guitar. In practice I couldn't get it to work. Some part of the logo always seemed to stay stuck to the label paper. I think that DikkyBee's approach would eliminate my ink issue, but I don't think I have the fine motor skills to paint the color on. I've never been good at coloring inside the lines. So I took the conventional ink-jet decal that came out best and put that on. I put 4 coats of very thin 1# cut blonde shellac on the neck, applied with a rag. I am using General Finishes High Performance Satin clear to finish the neck. The top of the headstock got 2 coats below the decal. I then finished the whole neck with 8 coats of clear, and added another 5 coats to the top of the headstock to make sure I'd be able to sand absolutely flat over the decal. I started with a synthetic bristle brush, but ended up using a foam brush to get thinner coats.
I won't finish sand until it has completely cured. The mfg says this takes 3 weeks, but I tend to give it one or two more because I use more coats than they recommend.
In other news, I think I am about to complete the parts list for this build with the arrival of long awaited pickups. They shipped yesterday. The US Postal Service tells me that overnight they have gone from Marina California to San Jose...about 100 km. That means they have just around 4800 km left to get to Miami.
This is the first time I have ordered pickups like these. I have had good luck with a small custom pickup winder called "Epic Custom Shop." My favorite bass has one of their "black gold" p-bass pickups and it's the best I have heard. I also have a set of their D2 Strat pickups for a build I did for my daughter. On the website (https://epiccustomshop.com/) they have a limited range--just P-bass, J-bass and Strat pickups. But since I have had good luck with them, I asked if they had Tele pickups as well. The proprietor asked me to send him some ideas of what I was looking for, I sent some sound clips, and he wound a set to get those sounds. They have been a long time coming, but I am really looking forward to hearing them.
Also got a "Three String Tree" from Music City Bridge...
https://musiccitybridge.com/products...tring-retainer
...and installed a bone nut.
May not be much progress on this one for a while until the body and neck are fully cured...but at least there's been some slow progress.
That neck looks lovely!
PitBull Builds: FVB-4, LP-1SS, FBM-1, AG-2, TB-4, SSCM-1, TLA-1, TL-1TB, STA-1HT, DSCM-1 Truckster, ST-1, STA-1, MBM-1.
Scratch Builds: Pine Explorer, Axe Bass, Mr Scary, Scratchy Tele's.
The little voices in my head keep telling me "build more guitars"
Once i do the final polishing I'll try to get a few pics that do it more justice. This was just a neck I bought on sale from PB, but I turned out to be really nicely figured, especially the fingerboard and back.Originally Posted by Trevor Davies
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