sdshirtman Posted August 22, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2012 My very first build was finished with rattle can acrylic lacquer sold in auto parts stores....Duplo, I beleive. I don't know if it was the "acrylic" or the fact that it was intended to be sprayed onto automotive paint, but it exhibited the same symptoms your deft does. Guitar stands left marks. My teeshirts left impressions just from playing. It's been four years now and that is still happening. Like yours it polished up great, but never got rock hard. Your deft is nitro, so it may ultimately get as hard as it should....let's hope so. Sorry about that downer....the build looks stunning! And your attention to detail should serve as an example to us all. RAD once told me that the details are what set a luthier apart from a backyard builder......even if he builds in his backyard. Very well done. I'm looking forward to your next creation. SR Very kind words Scott. I've gone through all your builds and love the work you do so your comments are well received. I absolutely love the F-hole project you just finished. I'm hoping as more time goes by it will harden up more than it currently is. Maybe now that its been broken open again it will continue to harden as it should have already. I have a feeling it wont and I'm seriously considering stripping the second one down to bare wood and shooting a different brand of lacquer. Despite the issues with Deft, I think you are reaping the benefits of your patient approach on these. That silly putty idea is typical Luther genius. My hat is off to you, sir. Thanks! usualy you get those soft finish problems if it has not cured properly yet. Id say Let it sit for a while to see if it will harden up, but your comment about your other build has me wondering about if it would make any difference. Has anybody else had this problem with this finish ? maby there is someone on here who can advise on a cure ? I done found many posts on the major builder forums about the same problem. By the time I found it all it was too late. It is what it is at this point. I don't suppose UV or other accelerating method will work with this unless it was designed to, will it? UV will no doubt bleach sensitive parts also. I am just thinking that the solvents may be suspended with no way out. I dont know if exposing it to uv would do any good. It could be trapped solvents but I dont think so. I just think that deft is a sub par product. I just broke out the finish samples I did 6 months ago and its about as soft as the guitar I finished 2 years go. Tonight I wired up the pickups using the Seymour duncan diagrams. All seems well and I have a solid signal. I ended up putting a push pull on the tone knob to split the pickups. Its now fully assembled and waiting for a proper setup. With full tension the neck is dead flat and needs a little forward bow. I tweaked the truss rod a little bit but didnt want to torque it too much too quickly. That plus its getting late. sI'm going to let it sit for 24 hour and see how it settles in. I'm probably getting ahead of myself because I still need to remove the neck and level the frets. I was going to post some pics but photobucket seems to not want to play nice tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 My very first build was finished with rattle can acrylic lacquer sold in auto parts stores....Duplo, I beleive. I don't know if it was the "acrylic" or the fact that it was intended to be sprayed onto automotive paint, but it exhibited the same symptoms your deft does. Guitar stands left marks. My teeshirts left impressions just from playing. It's been four years now and that is still happening. Like yours it polished up great, but never got rock hard. Your deft is nitro, so it may ultimately get as hard as it should....let's hope so. Sorry about that downer....the build looks stunning! And your attention to detail should serve as an example to us all. RAD once told me that the details are what set a luthier apart from a backyard builder......even if he builds in his backyard. Very well done. I'm looking forward to your next creation. SR Very kind words Scott. I've gone through all your builds and love the work you do so your comments are well received. I absolutely love the F-hole project you just finished. I'm hoping as more time goes by it will harden up more than it currently is. Maybe now that its been broken open again it will continue to harden as it should have already. I have a feeling it wont and I'm seriously considering stripping the second one down to bare wood and shooting a different brand of lacquer. Despite the issues with Deft, I think you are reaping the benefits of your patient approach on these. That silly putty idea is typical Luther genius. My hat is off to you, sir. Thanks! usualy you get those soft finish problems if it has not cured properly yet. Id say Let it sit for a while to see if it will harden up, but your comment about your other build has me wondering about if it would make any difference. Has anybody else had this problem with this finish ? maby there is someone on here who can advise on a cure ? I done found many posts on the major builder forums about the same problem. By the time I found it all it was too late. It is what it is at this point. I don't suppose UV or other accelerating method will work with this unless it was designed to, will it? UV will no doubt bleach sensitive parts also. I am just thinking that the solvents may be suspended with no way out. I dont know if exposing it to uv would do any good. It could be trapped solvents but I dont think so. I just think that deft is a sub par product. I just broke out the finish samples I did 6 months ago and its about as soft as the guitar I finished 2 years go. Tonight I wired up the pickups using the Seymour duncan diagrams. All seems well and I have a solid signal. I ended up putting a push pull on the tone knob to split the pickups. Its now fully assembled and waiting for a proper setup. With full tension the neck is dead flat and needs a little forward bow. I tweaked the truss rod a little bit but didnt want to torque it too much too quickly. That plus its getting late. sI'm going to let it sit for 24 hour and see how it settles in. I'm probably getting ahead of myself because I still need to remove the neck and level the frets. I was going to post some pics but photobucket seems to not want to play nice tonight. The guitar is looking fantastic, there is a fix for the soft finish, it's called citrus strip, http://www.wmbarr.com/citristrip/default.aspx get that soft sticky deft crap off your beautiful guitar it wont take that long, then put a good finish on that goes hard, there are lots to choose from. Why do you want a forward bow on your guitar neck? the only reason you would want a slight forward bow is to make sure there is not a back bow. There is no other advantage to 'relief' it's a an old wives tale that relief is a good thing. If your neck is absolutely flat you can get the lowest possible action. If you like to shred, there is no such thing as an action that is too low Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted August 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 (edited) Muzz, I think this is going to be an option in the future but at this point I'm charging on. As far as the forward bow I've always set my necks with just the slightest hair of forward bow. Its just a personal preference. I've had an interesting few days with this project. Heres some of the stuff I've done over the last few days. For starters I had the future owner stop by a few nights ago when I was finishing the buffing. Over the course of the next few hours we mocked up guitar including putting the pickups in the rings. Over beers and conversation I got distracted and reversed the pickups. I didnt find this out until I did the first test with it strung up and heard the overwhelming volume from the neck pickup. *Durp* When it was strung up I found quite a few high frets and in general it needed a decent fret level. So I stripped off the neck and I did that last night as well as rewired the pickups in their correct homes. Good thing I didn't trim the lead wires down. Not my favorite thing to do but its done now. I reassembled everything and went onto fine tuning the nut slots. A first for me but I think I have it dialed in pretty damn good now. I plugged it in and found I'm still having some wiring problems. I'm still getting overwhelming volume from the bridge pickups in comparison to the neck and its sounding a little muddy in the neck. That and my coil tap does nothing. Either that or all I'm getting is coil tap. I think its the latter from tapping on the pickups with a screw driver. I was racking my brain trying to figure out what was wrong. I'm going off the Duncan diagram and transposing the push pull from the volume to the tone which shouldn't really matter. I headed over to www.guitarelectronics.com and they have a push pull tap diagram with the psh pull on the tone. After some carefull examination it seems almost the same as the duncan diagram with the exception of a few slight modifications line the two bottom switch leads being connected together and then to ground. More brain racking. Thinking back to when I was talking to sheptone about building these pickups I mentioned to him that I would be following duncan diagrams and he said he usually used the same color codes. Good to go right. Not. After pulling out his paperwork last night he has the same wiring colors as a Bill Lawrence pickup according to guitarelectronics.com. I'm kind of kicking myself for not being more diligent before I started wiring these. For now I at least think I have the solution to the problem. Now it should just be a matter of applying the knowledge. I'm going to blow out of work early today and attempt to solve the problem first by correcting the Duncan diagram with the proper north start/finish and south finish/start leads. If that doesnt work I'm going to start from scratch using the guitarelectronics.com diagram. Here is the stuff I'm looking at. I wired it according to this. Assuming the pickup wiring colors were like this. When they are really like this. Here is the actual sheet he sent me which like an idiot I didnt pay attention to. If the duncan diagram doesnt work with this fixes I'm going to try this diagram. I really dont know jack when it comes to electronics but I really want to try and get this done without having to tuck my tail between my legs and pay someone else to do it. If anyone want to chime in I'm all ears. If anything else just to tell me I'm on the right track, which I think I am. Here is a bonus shot of my hack wiring job. When I get it right I'll clean it up and shorten the wires. But if any of you have ever tried to wire a guitar with wires that are too short you'll know the method to my madness. And a few preview sneak peeks because who doesnt like pictures? Thats an orange drop .47 Edited August 23, 2012 by sdshirtman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted August 23, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 Ok after reading through my post and staring at the pics I just put up I realized this is not correct. This is correct (I think) . Jesus wiring sucks. Correct? Christ this is giving me a headache. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted August 23, 2012 Report Share Posted August 23, 2012 (edited) I know you hope your first response would be a definitive answer to your wiring question.......sorry. I agreed with you out loud back where you said wiring sucks. My first one started out with a 5 way PRS rotary switch and all it was supposed to do and my cavity looked like spaghetti when I was done. I didn't see much difference in most of the positions so I pulled it out and changed to two push pulls so I could split each humbucker. I dorked that up pretty good too and took it to the shop to get wired properly. And then I learned that split coil humbuckers don't really sound much like single coils to my ears. So going forward I use a single coil for single coil sound and humbuckers as humbuckers. Either way they get a 3-way and a single V & T. And I can wire those just fine. ...... What I popped in to say was, I hadn't noticed that the pup rings you made matched your binding. Nice touch. Just another one of those details I was talking about. SR Edited August 23, 2012 by ScottR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted August 24, 2012 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2012 (edited) Thanks for yet another comment Scott. I was slightly disappointed that the wood tones between the walnut binding and the rings didnt quite match. You're right about hoping for an answer response. Its nice to know I'm not the only feeling like Forest Gump when it comes to wiring. Here is the 3rd rats nest attempt according to the previous post starting with the duncan diagram. And guess what? IT WORKS!! I feel like I just landed a rover on Mars or something. I'm going to go adjust my attitude with a little imbibing and play this damn thing for a while and see what she'll do. Whoo Hooo! Edited August 24, 2012 by Prostheta picture duplicate cleanup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2012 Ok I have some pictures of the first half of this project. Not the glamour shots I had hoped for but he new owners wife, who is a photographer promised me some better pics in a few weeks. It can be quite difficult to photograph a guitar. The colors are shifting and I just cant capture what it looks like. Oh well. Anyways here's some guitar smut. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2012 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 2, 2012 I've made a decision to strip this one's twin and start over. I have to decide how I'm going to strip it though. Muzz says citristrip works well but the consensus over at MLPF seems to be a scraper or a scraper and lacquer thinner. Either way the journey on these continues and it seems I'm about to get a lesson on refinishing. Before I strip it I'm going to wetsand and buff the front though. if anything else just to do a comparison shot for a before and after to see if I can improve the dye job and burst on the second time around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted September 3, 2012 Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 I think you should just send the twin to me for a couple centuries. I'll get it back to you, then you can refinish it. Just beautiful work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted September 3, 2012 Report Share Posted September 3, 2012 Nobody is ever going to pick that up and believe it is only your second build (or third depending which of the twins was born first......actually this must be the second, because you just said number three is not done yet). Beautiful. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 Thanks again Scott. I have a question for you guys about striping this and refinishing. The plan is obviously to take this down to bare wood again and start over. What I'm curious about is if I'm going to have any potential problems when I re-dye the wood because of the lacquer that was previously applied. My train of thought being that when I started sealing/ laying on my first coats that the lacquer was soaking into the wood pretty good. Wouldn't that hinder a second application of dye? If so I might need to rethink my approach on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted September 4, 2012 Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 Have you got any of the scraps you did your dye tests on left? Spray some lacquer on it and then strip it off the next day. That may be the only way to know for sure. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 Have you got any of the scraps you did your dye tests on left? Spray some lacquer on it and then strip it off the next day. That may be the only way to know for sure. SR That would be entirely too pragmatic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pestvic Posted September 4, 2012 Report Share Posted September 4, 2012 jesus wow! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted September 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted September 11, 2012 (edited) I did some tests over the weekend and this isnt looking good. I think to get this where I need it to be to refinish I'm going to have to take quite a bit of wood away which is going to screw with certain parts of this design. Mainly where the fretboard sits flush the the body. As of now its an almost perfect transition from the fretboard binding and the body. If I take this down and much as I think I'll have to I think there is going to be a nice line of maple showing where the neck rests against the body. This is the area I'm referring to. Any suggestions? Edited September 11, 2012 by sdshirtman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westhemann Posted September 11, 2012 Report Share Posted September 11, 2012 Most guitars do have a line of neck maple showing above the body...usually about 1/8".It's not a flaw,but i put in a neck angle because I like a fretboard to sit right at the body Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted September 11, 2012 Report Share Posted September 11, 2012 Sand a little fillet where that join is so that your glue line is at the same level and if the surface of you top has to come down a little you are left with a little cove or fillet. It is easy enough, just make sure your paper doesn't quite go to the edge of the sanding block when you sand next to the neck. My builds get this to some degree because I set the neck before I carve. If the little bit of top left next to your neck--the glue line basically--doesn't quite accept dye the same as the rest of the top, load up your air brush with tinted lacquer and shoot a little fade/burst right against the neck. Weren't you going to burst this again? SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted October 8, 2012 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2012 Heres an update. I've been wanting to get back at this project for a while but life has been throwing me some curve balls. The biggest of which was that the head gasket on my BMW blew up. OH joy. I spent a week of searching car lots and dealing with two faced car dealers for a suitable replacement. I wound up with a 2010 Camry and I once again have a monthly car payment for the next 4 years. Since the beemer was worth nada with a blown head gasket I took on the ugly task of pulling the head and replacing the gasket. This is not something that I wish to do again anytime soon but 26 hours and two weekend later she's fully recovered and running better than she has in years and I now have an extra car for my daughter. One positive note on this is that my friend that I built the blue guitar for is quite a gear head and assisted me with this project from start to finish. I would have been lost several times without him. Sunday afternoon was the first time I've had in a month to work on this so I decided to sand and buff this before I stripped it just to see how it would come out and to get some practice under my belt. After all its been sitting a month longer than the blue one and maybe it has hardened a bit more. If anything else I wanted a decent photo of the finish before I stripped it for comparison. So here is the result of that. I have to say that I'm not really stoked on it. I was expecting a better result. The things that are bugging me about it (besides the soft finish) is the depth of clarity on the lacquer and the slight lack of gloss. Its glossy, but it could be glossier. Its also got a very slight blue tint when you catch the light at certain angles. I didnt catch the blue tint on the first one is because the blue color masked it. That or maybe I'm just going crazy. I've only seen this and photographed this under fluorescent lighting and haven't seen it under sunlight yet. I'll take another shot today when I get done here at the shop. Hopefully I have some free time to start stripping in the next two weekends. That should make for some interesting pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie H 72 Posted October 9, 2012 Report Share Posted October 9, 2012 I personally think it looks really incredible. Please don't strip it! Honestly, I think the flaws in it are ones only you, the builder, can see. But if you won't be happy with it unless you strip it and refinish, i guess that's what you have to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted November 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 After letting the second part of these two sit for a while longer I've decided to assemble it for now and save stripping and refinishing for a later date. Possibly when I get to the finishing stage of my next build. We'll see how ages and if it gets any harder. It seems more pragmatic that way. So here are a few progress pics on the second build in this thread that I manages to get done this weekend. I shielded the cavity same as my other builds. I'm showing this because I wanted to show off the three dollar reamer I got from Harbor Freight. It works quite well for such a cheap tool. I got the neck buffed out and here it is soaking in some conditioning oil. This was my first time wiring a two conductor pickup. I had a lot of lead on these and didnt want to clip them off in case I swapped them out later. Not the prettiest job but its the best I can do so far and each one is getting cleaner. I set about making a nut today and found that the black graphite nut blank I was going to use was too short and couldnt be used. So being Sunday I used the tusq nut I had laying around. Here is the beginning stages of blocking it out. A little shape sanding and some polishing on a buffing wheel attached to my drill press. Next was filing the slots in the brass saddles. And the finished saddle slots and nut. The top of this nut could have probably been taken down a little more but technically its temporary until I can install a black one. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted November 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 After I got the bridge installed and everything tuned up there was some buzzing issues with the high E in the bridge. I ended up having to remove the adjustment screw and wrapping the end with some teflon tape to remedy the fit. Last shot is my pathetic setup for setting intonation. Its not ideal and as accurate as I'd like but it works for the most part. I'm hoping Santa brings be a peterson of better yet a Turbo tuner. I'm going to see if I can borrow a decent camera over the break so I can post some decent glamour shots. Till then. . . . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gpcustomguitars Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 I love the perfect detail work on it, great! Waiting for more pics! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted November 19, 2012 Report Share Posted November 19, 2012 It still looks awesome John. It seems like everytime I make slot adjustments to the nut while it is in place, I find a way to hit the head stock cap with the file. Were you able to avoid that? SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdshirtman Posted March 19, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2013 This build has been completed for a while now but I've been crazy busy so took me a while to take some decent pics. here they are. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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