Skyjerk

thats wierd. Sounds like maybe some reaction between the dye and the coating. What kind of stain/dye did you use?

What exactly happened?

Have these competitions been discontinued? There's been no movement here since the poll closed, nor a February GOTM thread started...

The stuff stinks and is sticky as hell, but it's awesome. Easily creates the perfect surface on the most porous wood. your tele body looks great

Thank you one can always hope, but the competition is pretty stiff. Just glad for the chance to compete

Hello? Is this thing on?

Thought this thing closed automatically after a week

The Root Beer Float OK, its a stupid name, but I dont have a better one yet and my band mate threw that name out as soon as I brought it to rehearsal 2 weeks ago. The colors do have that vibe, especially in lower light settings. In brighter light (like most of these pix) its more orange looking Model: 22 Magnum Scale length: 25" Radius: 12" Construction: neck-through-body, 3-piece laminate neck, carbon fiber reinforcement Body and neck: Bolivian mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) Top and matching headstock: book-matched, quilted big leaf maple Binding: natural (faux binding) Fretboard: Brazilian Rosewood Truss rod cover: ebony with MOP inlay logo Inlays: mother-of-pearl and abalone Frets: medium jumbo stainless steel Nut: unbleached bone Pickups: Seymour Duncan JB bridge and 59 neck Tuners: Schaller locking 3x3 Bridge and tailpiece: Tonepros Control cavity cover: Indian Rosewood with magnetic fasteners Finish: Nitrocellulose lacquer Guts: CTS 500k pots and Sprague "orange drop" .047 cap HERE is the build thread

I was the token vote for the bloody hand It just looks like Tim Burton to me and I had to vote for it At first I was like "What the...?" then as I looked closer I saw how much work went into this and how original it is.

couple outside shots...

Exactly In my experience, the value of having a lot of movement in the figure is so you can sit there with it in your hands turning it back and forth and saying "whoa! thats totally cool!" From a practical perspective, having some eye popping figure that maybe doesnt move quite as much while going "Whoa" is better because, for one thing, still photo's dont move at all regardless, and people standing more than 4 feet away watching you play arent going to see any movement either. In both cases they will see that eye popping figure and contrast and possibly be amazed and awed even though they wont see movement. Dont get me wrong, I like that movement. A lot. But its not the only consideration when building a guitar that may hopefully gain you some attention as a builder

Its definitely more muted, but not killed

Im waiting for the weekend to get some of those exact pix it was cloudy all last weekend, and the sun is too low and too red when I get home from work.

You voted for a guitar thats competing with your own entry? You're allowed to vote for you own entry I believe

OK, well here we go! No pix of the rest of the process. I had a lot of work wrapping this guitar up over the weekend and stopping to take pix was going to take more time than I wanted, plus its boring You will all be familiar with these steps, though. I wet sanded the top to 1000 grit, and then a run on the buffing wheel with medium compound, following by the other buff with fine compound. Finished it off with Novus #2 fine scratch remover. I still need to do a swirl remover but I'll do that once I actually buy some Anyhoo, a recap on the specs: Model: 22 Magnum (unnamed as of yet) Scale length: 25" Radius: 12" Construction: neck-through-body, 3-piece laminate neck, carbon fiber reinforcement Body and neck: Bolivian mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) Top and matching headstock: book-matched, quilted big leaf maple Binding: natural (faux binding) Fretboard: Brazilian Rosewood Truss rod cover: ebony with MOP inlay logo Inlays: mother-of-pearl and abalone Frets: medium jumbo stainless steel Nut: unbleached bone Pickups: Seymour Duncan JB bridge and 59 neck Tuners: Schaller locking 3x3 Bridge and tailpiece: Tonepros Control cavity cover: Indian Rosewood with magnetic fasteners Finish: Nitrocellulose lacquer Guts: CTS 500k pots and Sprague "orange drop" .047 cap A lot of these pix seem to make it appear more orange than it really looks. The lighting isnt ideal.

Ok well I did my fret work last night. After dressing the fret ends, leveled with a leveling beam (400 grit paper)I crowned using a stewmac Z file. Really good product. Did the job fast and perfectly Folllwing that I polished stating at 320, then 400, 600, 1500, 2000, and then 0000 steel wool So I completed the steel wool on every fret, and then used my dremel with a small buffing wheel and green jewelers rouge (compound) and got the shine I was looking for. The usual start Used this fret end dressing file I got from Crimson Guitars. Good results. My technique needs some. polishing too, though Finally sprung for the ubiquitous purple sharpie. Now I know why they are so common in the fret tutorials I've seen. I'd used black till now and the purple is just easier to see. My fret ends look way nicer than my previous builds. Still learning, but the overall polish and smoothness is superior to previous fret jobs This baby is gonna have some smooth bending Today is a down day. The last two years has apparently caused me to start grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw in my sleep. So hard that I've chipped several teeth and fractured the root on one of my molars, which of course developed an abscess. Had the thing extracted this AM and now I'm enjoying the complete and utter lack of pain relief provided by that Wonder product called Tylenol. That said, tomorrow I'm going to sand and buff the top and headstock, and Saturday will see this build completed

One week to go till I can sand and buff and assemble. It's killing me....

Skydiving doesn't feel like that. Not even a little. That stomach sinking, "falling" sensation you get on roller coasters is caused by changing directions and acceleration simultaneously. Cresting a hill, you (and your "innards") are going up and you are decelerating, drop off the other side and you're going down and accelerating propelled by the car you are held into. Your innards want to keep going up because of inertia. The car and gravity want your innards to go down. Its the struggle between the opposing forces that cause those sensations In skydiving theres no abrupt change of direction or acceleration. When you exit the aircraft youre already going 90-100 MPH forward, You then transition to downward movement in an arc (we call this arc "the hill") as your forward motion gradually becomes downward. You only accelerate by about 10-20 MPH more and thats over the space of about 10 seconds pulled only by gravity. You dont even notice that. try accelerating in your car to 20 MPH over 10 seconds and tell me if you feel anything. I'll bet not I have gotten that feeling slightly when jumping from a hot air balloon and a helicopter, but this is because you are essentially motionless at the start. You go from 0 - 120 MPH in 8 or 9 seconds, but even then its in one direction and only accelerating at the speed gravity pulls you (9.7536 m / s2) so that feeling is barely noticeable. You tend to be more focused on other things at the time Anyhoo, its a pretty safe sport if you practice it safely. Ive been doing it 29 years. Tore a muscle in my leg once, but healed up in a few weeks. Tore my right rotator cuff (minor) only 2 weeks ago from what amounts to the least graceful landing I've ever had. It'll heal. So two minor injuries in 29 years. Not a bad safety record

interesting build. It'll turn out well. The omen is that my very first parachute was called a "Cloud Delta" and it always got me safely to the ground

Sweet. Theres something about that shape that reminds me of something, only I have no idea what. Not a guitar, but something. I like it Neck-through always a winner in my book, too

So, final update till I sand, buff, and assemble this baby. The top of the body and top of the headstock are good to go until final sanding and buffing since they will be a high gloss. They will get wet sanded and buffed out after a few more weeks of hardening, but as previously indicated, I decided I wanted a satin finish for the back, sides, neck, and the sides and back of the headstock Yesterday I dry sanded the entire back, sides, and neck with 600 grit until it was perfectly flat and smooth. I took some serious time with this because after shooting the satin lacquer those areas are done. No sanding or buffing those areas so they have to be absolutely perfect before you shoot, and you also have to be perfect with your spraying. The finish needs to be evenly applied and perfectly with NO SAGS, GAPS, or RUNS or you have to let it dry, re-sand the area, and re-shoot. anyhoo, I had some anxiety about it because I've only done satin before on a couple Strat necks which are a lot smaller BUT now I'm on the other side and it turned out perfect. Exactly what I hoped. So the good news for me is that in a few weeks all I need to wet sand and buff is the top of the body and headstock, and those are pretty damn flat already, so I should be able to make short work of those areas. Ignore the cover not sitting flat. I made that to tight tolerances, and the lacquer shrunk the recess just enough to keep it from dropping in. The lacquer will shrink a bit more over the next few weeks and will hopefully drop right in at that point, but if I have to do a bit of light sanding to the edge of the cover thats no big deal. Its unfinished so it'll be about 3 minutes worth of work to fit it.

Do not use just any generic paint or lacquer thinner. Some will work for your product and some will ruin it Again, read the manufacturers instructions on what thinner to use for their product.

By "top coat" I simply mean whatever you use as your final finish. In the case of this guitar I used aniline dyes for color on the wood, then simtec sanding sealer to seal it in, followed by toner in the form of sprayed on nitro tinted with medium brown, and finally just clear nitro. So the simtec is my sealer, the tinted nitro is my base coat, and the clear nitro is my top coat. I'm not very familiar with polyurethane coatings, but I believe they can (should) be wet sanded just like nitro, to remove orange peel, ripples, scratches, etc. I'm about 99% sure that you would not be able to shoot nitro on top of poly even if you had access to it. Different coatings can react badly with each other, or just not adhere well to each other and end up delaminating. If its not a catalyzed coating like 2K, (im assuming yours is wipe on or brush on) you should be able to apply more after wet sanding it, however it may be too viscous to settle out flat and leave brush marks, etc. I thin my final coat significantly so that it flows out nice and flat, I dont know if your product can be thinned or what it should be thinned with. You should be able to get all that information, if not from the label, then from google searches or contact the manufacturer, or look on their website. If your poly is thick enough to sand flat without sanding through to the wood, you probably dont actually need anything else. I cant say if 7 coats is thick enough yet or not. Its hard to say without knowing anything about your particular product. In my case I used 6 coats of Mohawk nitro. When I was using Behlen nitro I did 10 or 12 coats because Mohawk has a higher content of solids than Behlen, and builds faster and so requires less coats to achieve the same thickness. I've seen people achieve awesome finishes with brushed on poly, so you are probably going to be fine. Just do some research in places like this and other guitar building forums and ask questions about your specific product. I can almost guarantee there's people out there that can speak with authority about your particular type of coating and give you good advice.

What are you using for a top coat? i used nitrocellulose lacquer, sprayed on with Iwata HVLP gun. Mohawk piano lacquer is my go-to producT. given that a sprayed top coat with any significant build will have some degree of orange peel that will need to be wet sanded flat once it's fully hardened. You can save yourself significant wet sanding by fully leveling it before you shoot your final coat like I described above. in a month I will wet sand the whole surface until it's perfectly smooth, starting at 800 grit. I will then repeat the entire process with 1200 grit until all the scratches from the 800 are completely gone. Following that i will buff it on my buffer with medium compound, and then again with fine compound, and finish with swirl remover. At that point it will be glass smooth and have a hard, mirror finish. generally, people that don't have a buffer will continue up through finer and finer grits with the wet sanding going as high as 2500 or even 3000 grit. Thats pretty much SOP with gloss nitro. It's never done with shooting the finish as the final step unless it's a satin finish. In my case, I'll be dry sanding the sides and back flat this weekend with 800 and shooting satin clear. For those areas that will in fact be the final step, but it has to be perfect