#8 - Early 70's Japanese Les Paul Special Restoration

[Rossc0]

A shame indeed.
Got my first decent saxophone from there in the late 70's.

I'm with Wolz. If it's a decent player it will become naturally reliced.

cheers, Mark.

Yes, now that the finish is off and it's actually in pretty good nick, probably won't relic.

[Rossc0]

So, with the finish off its actually in good nick, except for a couple of small dings. So probably not going to Relic. What are the recommendations on fillers, I see mention of timber-mate shrinking under paint. I'm doing a TV yellow Nitro finish, so it may be somewhat translucent.

Cheers

[Rossc0]

Long time between drinks, but with a couple of weeks off over Christmas, back to this build. Have all new electronics and a set of Tonerider p90s. Only thing I'm missing at the moment are new machine heads. Was hoping to get the 3 on a plate style to keep it in line with the early Gibson models but I think the measurements are just a few mm's out, so will end up being singles.

First coat of Nitro sealer has just gone on, pics as we progress.

[McCreed]

Look forward to seeing some updated pix!

[Simon Barden]

Have a look at my 'Emicaster' refinishing post as I did a 'TV yellow' style nitro refinish on that.

https://www.buildyourownguitar.com.a...ead.php?t=9888

With TV yellow, the base colour goes on before the grain filler. However the body does need to be mahogany or an open-pored wood to do this. But your guitar body looks to be mahogany (or a closely related wood) with a nice grain pattern that should highlight nicely.

For the first Juniors, the base coat was white, with 'clear' lacquer over the top. But the 'clear' lacquer of the time was a bit yellow. And both it and the white went off more with UV. When they finally got a clear nitro, they started using cream/pale yellow base coats. But they still went darker and more yellow with age.

So I used a coloured base coat, plus a few coats of light amber tint over the top before clear lacquer for protection.

[Rossc0]

Cheers Simon, sounds like I've stuffed up already, oh well only one coat of sealer on.

[Rossc0]

So back to this one, didn't realise it had been sitting for 4 months. Time flys.

After Simon's comment above I went and did some investigation and looked at old originals, as he described grain certainly visable through the TV yellow.

So, Sanding sealer, a coat of white undercoat, and just for the hell of it a thin coat of yellow nitro, and a wet sand with 400.

If you think something is flat, spay a coat of nitro, you will soon find out it isn't.....

Its now been grain filled with some mahogany timbermate and sanded back with 400 again. Not worried about the edges going through at this stage.

Far to windy today to do any spraying so progress is now down to the weather.

[Rossc0]

Rant on | Bugger. Sanded through an edge one time to many.......bloody things getting reliced, and that's the end of it! | Rant off.

[jugglindan]

A shame indeed.
Got my first decent saxophone from there in the late 70's.

I'm with Wolz. If it's a decent player it will become naturally reliced.

cheers, Mark.

Particularly with a nitro finish.

[king casey]

Its now been grain filled with some mahogany timbermate and sanded back with 400 again.

If you attempt to paint over Timbermate it will sink.

cheers, Mark.