Those that cannot be named...

[Moparnut]

I managed to pick up a Number #5 from the forbidden fruits list, which arrived earlier this week...

Nothing too crazy planned on this one, I'm going for a piano black finish. I've also ordered some blingier hardware from Guyker to install, but sticking with the kit pickups. The guitar is going to be a gift for my eldest son.

So far, the neck has been dry fitted and the E strings fitted to ensure the neck and guitar cavity were all good. With that, the neck was glued in place (after shaping the headstock) and clamped for a couple of days.

After that was a fair amount of sanding - I blocked the back of the body with 150 grit sandpaper to ensure it was flat and then went over the whole thing with 320 grit on the DA sander. A quick inspection after the sanding and it was time to start the grain filling process - I masked the fretboard and sprayed three reasonably wet coats of Feast Watson sanding sealer over the whole guitar. (Bindings included - I want to minimize the paint edge build-up against the edge of the binding as a result of the masking. The sanding sealer is mostly clear, so can't be seen on top of the binding.)

This stuff needs a couple of days before it can be sanded, which is where I'm a now. It's been known to clog sandpaper if you sand before it dries properly, so it pays to wait. In the next few days it will be sanded back again with 320 grit, the fret board and all bindings masked up again and it will then be sprayed with three wet coats of black 2K primer. The idea with using black primer is that any future chips or scratches with be harder to see.

More posts to come as it progresses....

[fender3x]

Looking great so far!

[Moparnut]

Black primer on, sanded, binding and fretboard cleaned up and re-masked, black basecoat on. Some stencils laid out and a bit of amateur airbrushing done before 3 good wet coats of 2K clear. Once all this is dry enough it will be re-sanded with 1000 grit and re-cleared to help hide any masking lines and give the paint some more depth.

[Moparnut]

A few more pics I couldn't fit in the last post...

[dave.king1]

That really is coming up nicely.

[Trevor Davies]

+1 for looking nice. I really like the theme and the stencils.

[fender3x]

That is nice! I sense that you are going to be wanting to do the Jimmy Page wiring?

https://guitarelectronics.com/2-humb...NeH23PrtDQ_qm0

I am slowly getting ready to build one of these. It won't have as cool a finish as yours. I have pretty much decided not to do the full JP wiring... At the moment I am leaning toward a master coil-cut and a phase switch. I have have a parallel/series switch on my G&L bass that I have never used, and have never been sure what I'd use if for. Evidently JP found a use for it though ;-)

[Moparnut]

Unfortunately my forte is painting... I'm still a newbie when it comes to wiring and no-one is more surprised than I am when it actually works as it should! I think I'll stick with the kit electrics on this one...

Interesting setup for the JP wiring though, maybe a new challenge for a future build!

[fender3x]

Unfortunately my forte is painting... I'm still a newbie when it comes to wiring and no-one is more surprised than I am when it actually works as it should! I think I'll stick with the kit electrics on this one...

Interesting setup for the JP wiring though, maybe a new challenge for a future build!

I would not call that an "unfortunate" forte. Finishing is my nemesis. You can always buy a wiring harness, although it'll cost double or more the price of the parts. The JP wiring may well be overkill. I have listened to some exemplars and have come to think the out-of-phase setting may be useful. Not as sure about the coil-split or series-parallel. The nice thing about building is that you can always upgrade later if you want to.

[Moparnut]

So, I gave this a good sand back and polish today! It's not quite the final finish, but it's close enough to get the assembly done while not wanting to touch it at the same time...! I started off with 1200 dry to finger nib the debris in the clear, and then ran over it with 1000 grit on a backing pad on my air powered DA sander. I finished that up with some 2000, 2500 and 3000 grit discs and then polished it with a 150mm rotary buff on a low speed, using Farecla cutting compound. After 4 or 5 good passes with that, I ran over it with a polishing pad on the rotary buff and a smoother grade polish.

I tried a few hardware dummy passes (upgraded machine heads, bridge and tail-stop pieces and aluminium humbucker rings), before I ran out of energy and shut the shed door. There's always tomorrow.