Hi everyone. My name is Serena, and this is my first guitar.
I really liked the look and design of the IB-1 so that’s what I went with. I have to say though, it was not the smartest decision for a first build. This guitar presented me with A LOT of issues. When it arrived, the first things I noticed: The flame top had almost no character whatsoever (and it was unbelievably thin, so staining and sanding back to bring out contrast was not an option), the fret board was really scratched, especially on the plastic of the inlay and there were a few minor glue stains. Although it wasn’t ideal, these things I could work around. During the put together, there was a problem with drilling the holes for the neck. So it had to be patched up with some oak dowl and super glue. It was re-drilled and went on well.
Since there was no character on the top and I wanted the main feature to be dragon design, I decided to use Minwax White Wash pickling stain on the top and front of the headstock. I made the most of the binding by using a walnut stain on the back of the body. The back of the next had such beautiful character in the wood so I left it unstained and just added the finish. I didn’t want a glossy finish, but more of a matte/satin look and I really didn’t want a finish that would alter the color of my stain (otherwise it would defeat the purpose of a white wash, right?) so I used the Minwax polycrylic satin finish which dries crystal clear, and applied 8-10 coats. The scratches on the next I tried fixing with silvo, brasso, and various grades of steel wool and somehow that seemed to do the trick, after adding the lemon oil – it looked pretty darn good.
I wanted the set the back that covers the electronics flush with the guitar but the 5-way switch was so long that the back barely covered it as it was. So I had to settle with drilling two more holes in it so it at least fitted better to the back. The next issue was the output jack did not even sort of fit. It took a lot of hours of filling so I could get the bare minimum of thread out the back. Finally, the biggest challenge with setting up the floating bridge was that the saddle blocks don’t sit properly meaning that my strings kept slipping out every time I tried to bring it up to tension. I must have refit and tuned it at least 50 times, I tried all the suggestions out there but nothing seemed to work, so finally I found a way to jam the string in there. I’ve played two gigs with the guitar now and the strings are still in there, so problem solved! Although it’s been a challenge, it was my first guitar and I’m pretty besotted.
Anyway, so that’s my guitar. I figured I ‘d give it a shot and enter it in GOM. Let me know what you guys think.
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