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First Go At An Archtop.


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Agh. Shared space eh? Whenever I cause an accident, I will at the very least admit it if I cannot help put it right. Scumbag scratch fairies.

Yeah it's shared space. Kind of annoying but what do you do?

To put into perspective how messed up the top got here it is after I sanded it the second time. This was after I rushed sanding when I was sick and had to go back to re-spray sealer after sanding it the first time. Then to find I got the pleasure of doing it again :(

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Amber on.

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So I wanted to go with a vintage looking burst so I'm using a nitro lacquer mixed into a brown. There's no red, I'm using trans tint mixed with 35% reduced nitro with a ratio of 2ml trans tint to 4oz of nitro. I dilluted the color a little by adding more lacquer and mixed a big batch, it ended up being 5ml tint to 16oz or so because I wanted to slowly build up the burst instead of thick coats right off the bat. It was a little too dilluted though so I will mix another batch when I run out of this one. The brown is made from a dark walnut color mixed with regular brown and a little honey amber to lighten it up a bit.

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I changed the burst a bit on the sides so instead of finishing it the way I had the sides started I am going to just color the whole side with brown. Usually I use unreduced lacquer and more color so spraying goes faster and I can put heavier coats on but since I wanted to go slowly for this I forgot about the reduced lacquer, tried spraying heavier on the top and got a real nice run so I get to go back and sand that off and respray the top :peace That's about where it sits currently.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Uh unless you are a surgeon. Get in, get the job done instead of studying and practicing on my squishy bits please.

Haha yeah I suppose that would not be the ideal job to practice what you are doing while doing it.

This guitar just needs a fret job and to have the bridge fit to the top. Hopefully tomorrow but that may be pushing it...

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Me too. I am in many ways quite gutted because that burst is exactly the one I would love on my dream bass. That shot of the stain on the tongue spreader (I prefer that to "popsicle stick") is a definite reference for when I manage to find nitro in Finland.

That looks like one of our spray booths too!

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Me too. I am in many ways quite gutted because that burst is exactly the one I would love on my dream bass. That shot of the stain on the tongue spreader (I prefer that to "popsicle stick") is a definite reference for when I manage to find nitro in Finland.

That looks like one of our spray booths too!

Look into the brand Cardinal. I'm not sure if they ship overseas but that's what I've been using. LMII.com sells it by the bucket.

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Yeah, endless sources anywhere other than Finland. Shipping is either awfully expensive (more than the nitro) or just plain murderous.

Then the only thing I'd suggest is to go check out some other builders shops in Finland and see what they use. I know there's a few in Helsinki.

Here's the top sprayed.

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Making the tailpiece. It's basically a copy of the one on the plans. The top of it is radiused to 14"

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Gluing on the fulcrum.

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Reaming in the end pin hole.

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Fitting the bridge was easier than I thought. Some people use a grease pen or carbon paper or slide sandpaper under each foot of the bridge similar to setting a neck but I found it easier to rough in the fitment with self adhesive sandpaper on the top then just set the bridge on the top and see where it isn't sitting flush and use a curved scraper to scrap those spots away. It helps to put a very slight hollow in the feet of the bridge. It took me maybe 15-20 minutes to fit the bridge using this method and there was no clean up required that you normally would have to do if you used a grease pencil.

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