After much sanding to eliminate as many defects as possible have now stained the guitar with mahogany stain and it is looking much better now.
After much sanding to eliminate as many defects as possible have now stained the guitar with mahogany stain and it is looking much better now.
Starting to shine nicely after about 6 coats of Cabots poly gloss spray. Although it doesnt say on the can I found a light sand between coats to be advantageous.
Tried a black stain on the peghead but couldnt get a dark enough colour to make the grain disappear. Got a spray can of black and 5 coats did the trick.
Had all sorts of trouble to get a decent decal that would be visible on the black peghead. I tried a laser printer onto clear waterslide decal paper but the metallic grey colour just disappeared when attached to the peghead. In the end I got a metallic grey sharpie and carefully traced over the letters on the decal paper. It is not perfect but now the colour stands out. Coated with six coats of clear poly and now have to wait a few weeks for all to harden before sanding and polishing the whole guitar.
That's looking really good. Hard to believe it's your first!
Look forward to seeing it finished and getting played.
Making the world a better place; one guitar at a time...
Agree, looking good and you did really well on the decal.
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Let the final poly clear finish harden for 3 weeks. Sanded with 1000, 1500 and 2000 grit paper using the random orbital sander. Sanded dry as to not get water into any of the orifices on the guitar. Polished with Meguiars ultimate compound and scratch-x until very smooth and shiny. A few imperfections still but not too bad. Pickups (Toneriders AC-2) and Gotoh bridge and tail piece installed. A bit nervous installing the Gotoh's as I had to drill deeper holes for the bushes but used a drill press where I could and worked OK. The finish is now in sight.
NIce! looking the business now!
FrankenLab
Hand crafting guitars, because Death Rays are expensive.
Hardware all installed, wired up and everything works. Surprised about how good it sounds even without a full setup. The Toneriders are good pickups. Next thing to do is check the truss rod, set the string heights and I will have to file the nut as I upgraded to a bone nut which is a bit bigger than the supplied plastic nut. Looking forward to playing the setup version. Maybe I can upload a sound demo at a later stage.
Looks good and we look forward to a demo and hearing your Toneriders.
Looking really good there Stansby.
Current:
GTH-1
Completed:
AST-1FB
First Act ME276 (resurrected curb-side find)
ES-5V
Scratchie lapsteel
Custom ST-1 12 String
JBA-4
TL-1TB
Scratch Lapsteel
Meinl DIY Cajon
Cigar Box lap steel
Wishing:
Baritone
Open D/Standard Double 6 twin neck