guitar2005 Posted December 3, 2005 Report Share Posted December 3, 2005 (edited) OK- This is my second build, first post of a finished guitar, so be gentle. PICS HERE: http://www.mrtinkertrain.com/images/VGuitarWeb/index.htm This is a Randy Rhoads "inspired" guitar because I wanted some specific features that are different from Randy's guitar. I'm a big Randy Rhoads fan but I also have my own personal tastes. I built the body from scratch using Honduran Mahogany. I made all templates myself using 1:1 scale printouts of frontal pictures of Randy's guitar. I believe that my particular guitar is smaller than most V's and that's a good thing because I'm a small build (no pun) guitarist. I decided to go with a bolt on neck for ease of construction for my first "real" project. Also, I wanted a tung oiled neck as I prefer them over painted necks. It has dunlop 6100 frets, 25" scale and a 12" radius. I decided to have someone build me a neck so that I could finish the project within 6-8 months. The neck is from Dave Bunker. He built me a custom maple neck with his patented Tension Free truss rod. I shaped the headstock to match Randy's guitar and re-shaped the neck contour to a flatter C carve ala Ibanez Jem (the older, thicker necked Jems). The headstock on my guitar is, I believe, nicer than Randy's because of its smaller size. The neck/body joint is around the 17th fret. Upper register access is similar to a Fender Strat. The neck heel is rounded and the neck is attached with 4 bolts and washers from Stew Mac, no plate. The body is made up of two pieces of Mahogany. I sealed the body with several coats for Bin Sealer. The base coat is black Dupli Color. I applied 12 coats, 2 coats at a time, waiting 20 min between them and then another 2 coats 3-4 days later and so on. The black was sanded back before applying the white dots. The dots were sprayed on with White Dupli-Color using a paint mask stick on template I had custom made using an Adobe Illustrator document to mark the cutouts. I sprayed three coats of the white and then sanded back slightly using 800 grit paper. Until now, every thing worked great except that the laquer made some kind of reaction with the paint mask glue. I had to clean that off with goo gone and that worked out great. The guitar was coming along nicely. I was now ready for the clear ... To be continued ... Edited December 3, 2005 by guitar2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Rosenberger Posted December 3, 2005 Report Share Posted December 3, 2005 PICS!!!! WE NEED PICS!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted December 3, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2005 ... Continued ... Ok - So I had the white dots over the black. Great. I cleaned off the painted body and decided to sand back with 800 grit a little more to minimize the level differences between the black and white. I also cleaned it a little more with a small rag. As I was rubbing the guitar with the rag, I noticed that the rag was getting black and when I went over the white dots, the black dirtied some of the white dots I decided to stop rubbing as I was doing more harm than good. Some of the dots were now not white enough to my taste. I took some white lacquer and tried to touch up using a brush but little did I know, the brush applied lacquer pulled the black from underneath - Damn! I wans't happy and my wanting to rub the guitar too much before the clear caused me more problems than anthing else. I identified the worst dots and re-sprayed those with two coats, trying to make sure that the rest of the guitar was properly masked. Ok - now I know not to touch the guitar more than I have to before the clear is applied and I also know to keep a light touch when cleaning to prepare for the next phase. Now on to the clear. I cleared this thing outdoors in my shed making sure that there were no bugs flying around. I sprayed a 3-4 cans worth of Dupli-Color Clear Lacquer. This went great for the first couple of coats. I used the same technique as for the black. Halfway through the jobs, a bug got caught in the clear as I was spraying, right in front of the guitar. Damn! Again, I going to have to fix something. I waited 3-4 days for the clear to dry a littlle and sanded out the bug. At this point, I also proceeded to level the finish. Things were looking good but there was a little dip in the finish where the bug got caught. I continued with the clear until I had used up all the lacquer I had. I waited maybe a month before buffing the guitar. This is where another problem popped up. I sanded the guitar with 600 then 800 then 1000 grit. Then I buffed the guitar on my homemade buffing station and then a final polish with Turtle Wax scratch and polish remover. The guitar was looking great! While buffing, I had a couple of "buff throughs" I had to fix but that was mostly dues to inexperience using the buffing station. I could still see the dip in the finish where the bug got stuck in the finish but hey, that's just a friendly reminder to be extra caution when spraying outdoors. Ok, so the guitar looks great for a first paint job BUT the lacquer isn't curing. My jeans are leaving imprints in the finish. Ok, let the thing dry another couple of days, weeks - still not cured. What's going on? The black Kramer re-finish I just did with dupli-color turned out great and cured quickly. Why is this project not working out? After a little research, I found out that Dupli-Color clear is notorious for not curing properly - Great! Why didn't I see this info before I sprayed the guitar with Clear Dupli-Color? Oh well. To speed up things, I decided to follow some people's advice and put a heat lamp on the guitar to speed up the curing process. So I go to the local depot store and get a heat lamp. Assemble everything and put it on the back of the guitar, 12" away. Walk upstairs and think, maybe I should put a fan on the guitar along with the heat lamp. Run back downstairs and to my dis-belief, the finish had bubbled. Arghghghghgh! luckily this was on the back of the guitar. What a nightmare. So I re-did the back but I never got the exact same shade of black and filling the paint where it had bubbled was very time consuming. There are still a couple of minor pin holes and the color blending worked as well as it could I guess. I tought that it would serve as another remider as to what NOT to do. I continued to use the heat lamp on the guitar but always with a fan close by. I did this for 2-3 hours a day for a month. The finish was still soft. The Dupli-Color clear had 2-3 months to cure but still wasn't hard. I started to used the guitar at band rehearsal, adjusted the nut height and misc other things. I was happy to use the guitar even though the finish was a little sticky. To this day, 5-6 months later, my jeans still leave an imprint on the guitar. I only play it standing up. The finish is a little harder than 5 months ago and hopefully, it will be hard enough in 6 months. At that point, I'll just re-buff it. The guitar is very "middy" and has a lot of definition. Sounds very close to Randy's original, with a little more bass. Stays in tune well, now that the nut is properly cut. I had to level the frets to get rid of some fretting out during bends. It could use a little more levelling tough. String action is 1/16" on the treble side and 3/32 on the bass side. I get some buzzing on the bass side in the middle of the neck which is why I think I should level the frets a little more. Relief is set at around 0.8 mm. Overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. The neck pocket is super tight which makes for great sustain. The pickups are mounted right into the body which in my opinion, contributes to a more solid tone and add to the responsiveness. When I build another one, (which I have started) it will be better because I now know what to avoid. The next one will be set neck (started on the neck already) with a single bowtie inlay at the 12th fret (not a huge fan of bowties) for which I will build not only the body but also the neck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted December 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 PICS!!!! WE NEED PICS!!!!! ← Pics are included via a link in the first post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewrathofraf Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 very nice man....good work!! -RAF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAI6 Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 "Custom Rhoads Insipired Fyling V".... Also, what's up with the last dot inlay??? http://www.mrtinkertrain.com/images/VGuitarWeb/pages/v4.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted December 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 Also, what's up with the last dot inlay??? http://www.mrtinkertrain.com/images/VGuitarWeb/pages/v4.htm ← There's a hole in the last dot inlay for the truss rod adjustment. This is part of a patented truss rod which is called the tension free system. It works really well. The truss rod doesn't compress the wood like in normal necks. Its is meant to let the wood vibrate freely, avoid dead spots anywhere on the neck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marksound Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 A quick Google search found this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RAI6 Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 From that pic at the top of the Bunker page, it looks like there isn't much wood left in the neck... If the wood in the neck is so important, why remove most of it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodBlessTexas Posted December 5, 2005 Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 The only thing missing is the bow-tie inlay, but other than that it looks great. I've always loved that guitar. Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guitar2005 Posted December 5, 2005 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2005 (edited) From that pic at the top of the Bunker page, it looks like there isn't much wood left in the neck... If the wood in the neck is so important, why remove most of it? ← I think that the picture exagerates the dimensions a little. I was able to shave off the back of the neck for more of a C shaped carve and it still feels like there's a lot of wood in there. Don't forget, there's also wood on either side of the rod. Take a look at this link: http://www.trekerguitars.com/Necks/How_The...neck_works.html It sounds like this system allows to build better necks without dead spots more easily and consistenly than with a conventional rod. What's really cool about the system is that the range of the truss rod can be changed with a simple adjustement at the heel (requires to remove the neck though). The guitar does seem a little livelier than most maple neck/mahogany bodied guitars I've tried in the past. Its an interesting concept and I'm glad I tried it out. Having said that, I plan on building my next guitar necks using a conventional Hot Rod truss rod from Stew Mac. Edited December 5, 2005 by guitar2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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