20 Strings - 3 New Projects

[MuffinPunch]

Dude that looks like an awsome abstract sculpture or something and looks right at home sitting there on your coffee table. Please tell me you kept it there!

Edited April 6, 2010 by MuffinPunch

[TripleFan]

Haha, sorry MuffinPunch, but it went back into the scrap box. Actually my girlfriend didn´t like it as much as you guys obviously do...

I´m finally finished with clear coating the body. In about three weeks I´ll start to polish and assemble.

Well, hopefully that is...

Actually I planned to prep sand the neck (the one with the maple board) this week and clear it during the weekend (matte 2part rattle can clear). Instead I noticed that the neck developed a solid upbow. When I lay a straight edge over the frets it gaps nearly 1mm in the middle!

Damn, I just don´t get it! This neck was dead straight during all build steps (I wrote down all the measurement and movements of the wood in my previous posts). I checked and rechecked on every occasion.

The only thing I could think of would be that the fretboard wasn´t completely dry before I used it. Now it may have shrunk in the relatively dry winter air forcing the neck into an upbow. Does that sound feasible?

I´ll try to heat/steam the backside of the neck and clamp it down to a rigid metal beam. That´s the only possible solution I can think of right now. Are there any other possibilities I could try?

[TripleFan]

Last week I polished the body.

I went up from 1200 grit through the various MicroMesh grits all the way from 3600 to 12000. In the end the clear coat still looked cloudy and blotchy and had a fair amount of tiny scratches (I tried my best but they wouldn´t show up in the pictures).

The next day I went to it with buffing wheels and polishing compound. I simply clamped my drill to the work table and put the wheels in the drill chuck. At first I was a bit anxious to burn through the clear or to send the body flying through the work shop but it all worked out without any problems. After a few minutes with both coarse and fine compound the scratches and the cloudiness mostly went away.

The surface is still a bit uneven and obviously I wasn´t able to sand out all of the pores where the finish sunk into the grain, but for my first try at clear coating I´m more than satisfied.

Next time I might alter my finishing schedule: after filling the pores and building up the coats I´ll give the finish time to cure and sink back. Then I´ll even out the surface and put on the last coats with approx. 50% thinner. I could imagine this might fill the last pores. Additionally polishing a clear coat with more thinner supposedly is easier.

This is how the guitar looks a the moment. The neck is not the final one but the one with the kingwood fretboard. As soon as the maple boarded neck is cleared they´ll get swapped.

Playability is rather nice taken into account that the frets aren´t leveled yet and the guitar is hardly set up.

The neck with the maple board got straightened out in the meanwhile and will be clear coated within the next weeks. Then I can finally finish up this guitar.

[RestorationAD]

Nice blue!

[TripleFan]

Thanks RAD.

It looks pretty good from a meter away like on the pics. Up close it´s obvious that it´s not a professional paint job. Unfortunately the finish still kept sinking into the pores a bit. It´ll have to do for the moment...

Anyway, the maple boarded neck should have settled by now. Therefore I want to move on and finish that sucker. Prep sanding is mostly done including scraping between the frets. I already redid the headstock binding some time ago.

The finish I planned is a 2part satin clear rattlecan finish.

Can anyone offer some advice how to finish such a clear coat?

I read that the final coat is sprayed on after level sanding and left as is to achive that semi gloss. Is that correct or should I consider another course of action?

Sand and buff? No buffing? MicroMesh? Steel wooling?

[TripleFan]

Today I started clear coating the neck. I put on two coats fifteen minutes apart followed by a second double coat two hours later. Now I´ll let it cure overnight. Tomorrow I´ll scuff it and take out some small runs before I put on two more double coats.

Depending on the outcome I´ll then scuff one more time and spray a last coat. I read that a satin clear usually is sprayed on and left as is. With my projected approach I hope to battle orange peel without the need to sand and polish.

That´s how the neck looks at the moment:

[TripleFan]

In the end I cleared the neck with 4x2 coats and scuffed it after two weeks with 6000 grit of StewMac´s 3M Polishing Paper. Feels pretty good but it´s not exactly what I want. I´ll try progressivly coarser grits until I get there.

The final task was to make cavity covers from 2mm aluminum and paint them black. After half a week curing time I put on copper shielding foil and put them on the guitar.

DONE!

Specs:

body shape: Ibanez RGA

body wood: alder

scale: 670mm bolt on

neck: maple with bubinga

fretboard: maple

headstock: maple 3+3 with volute

fretwire: NS extra jumbo

bridge: Schaller Wraparound 455

tuners: Wilkinson EZ-LOK

pickups: Seymour Duncan Blackout

electronics: 3way-toggle, Vol, Tone

finish: body Clou Füll- und Hochglanzlack; neck Clou SprayTec satin clear

binding: white, body, fretboard, headstock

I´m pretty happy with the result. Sound and playability are very good.

I especially like the unplugged sound because its very open sound which has quite some bite. Amplified the actice pickups dominate of course. Here I like the clean sounds in particular. In HighGain-Mode I´m a bit torn. The sound really cuts through without being harsh or brittle. I miss a bit of that deep punch however; it seems that this guitar is more for lead playing than the ultimate rhythm machine. On the other hand I have to admit that I´ve yet to dial in my amp on the guitar. All in all I´m not really sure If I like these active pickups. Whether it´s that they compress more than passive pickups or if it´s just their voicing I can´t quite say.

Playability is fine. Maybe not as good as on the best guitars I own but not too far away! I definitly can say I made a step in the right direction and I´m getting there!

I chose the slightly longer scale to make down tuning a bit easier. It doesn´t impact playability but you can tell that there´s noticeably more tension on the strings.

The worst dissapointment is definitly the clear coat. The paint fell into the pores even after three weeks curing time. Additionally it looks cloudy in some spots. Admittedly I put on the paint with a roller instead of spraying it as written in the manufacturers instructions. Nevertheless I hoped for a better result; above all taking into consideration that the guitar already has the first tiny scratches while the clear is called "nano antiscratch". I´ll definitly redo the clear eventually.

The satin clear I used for the neck is alright. Again there is no way to let the paint build up - at least not with one can. The satin clear looks nice however and time will tell how good it will hold up.

The color of the body looks really good in the sunlight - exactly what I hoped for. With artifical light it looks a bit dark however and the grain gets lost somewhat.

This all isn´t that bad like it may sound. I´m very satisfied with the result but there points I can improve and I´m aware of them.

All in all it´s a nice guitar with some minor flaws but I´m proud of it nonetheless!

[ae3]

That's exceptionally good looking. It would seem we have a very similar taste in fiddles.

[yorgo]

that looks great!!!!! love the blue with white binding and the clour of the wood as a contrast.....maple neck. Really great!!!