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Round 2: Etna And Flying V


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  • 2 months later...

ok I decided to stop the once-in-a-few-months updates until I have something really new to show so here it is. The body is finally ready for paint, I'm just waiting for the weather to be a bit warmer with that. Meanwhile:

I started filling the little crater hole in the middle with epoxy, after installing a strong LED at the bottom. (the LED is accessed from the back). I used the epoxy lefotvers to pore fill the front and sides. Some of it is going into the cracks, I don't want to get them completely flush with the surface - after paint and polish I want the texture to still show, but the epoxy will smoothe it out a little.

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After the first layer I suspended in the hole a piece of the Etna volcano that my friends brought over from Sicyly for me. The idea is to have it floating there in the transparent epoxy without touching the walls.

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After putting in two more layers and letting the stuff settle properly I sanded the whole thing down to P320, so the wenge is back to the old dull unfinished look. Waiting for paint now.

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Looking great! Having seen Etna slowly pouring out molten lava in the middle of the night I must say that this is a great representation of that visual experience. Can't wait to see how it looks with the LED active.

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  • 2 months later...

All right, finishing. I got some 2k clear in a can in automobile paint section of a hardware store, decided to give it a shot. Sprayed:

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The paint actually flowed out pretty nicely, to the extent that I decided not to touch it except for the front (top). The pore fill is of course not 100% good so I have a little pores showing but I like that. The top got a light wetsand and polish, resulting in this:

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At this point I assembled the guitar and did the basic setup and electronics connections:

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Which leaves me with the thing that I always end up leaving for the very end - cavity covers. And the truss rod access cover. I made the cavity covers from some 2mm thick alder pieces laminated with padouk, they end up warping on me every time I do something to them - first when I was putting shielding paint on the back, I managed to press them back into shape, but now as I'm spraying paint on the padouk side they're doing it again. I'll fight with this later - meanwhile a shot before painting:

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The truss rod cover is four veneer layers laminated together: padouk-wenge-wenge-padouk. As expected - much more solid. Here is another before-paint shot:

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The setup is done, and I'm currently spraying clear on the three last parts. There is one more bit of electronics that I need to make and install and I will be able to declare this one as finished :)

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That has to be the shiniest lava I have ever seen. It will be interesting to see if you get any fiber optic effect when your light is on.....will the light follow the clear and light up any of the edges of the cracks. What pickups are those? I'll also be interested in your opinion of your Hannes after you've played it a bit.

SR

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well its true that after paint it doesn't really look like lava that much :P I'm actually thinking whether I should try to go for a matte look by wetsanding it back or something .. I'll see about that.

I'm also wondering if the light will channel a little bit in the cracks.. I actually had an idea at some point during the build to have an epoxy layer under the black veneer - routing a "pool" in the padouk that I'd then fill with epoxy and then glue the veneer on top of that and then (before?) do the cracks .. in the end I decided that this is too much fuss, and when I changed my mind about the top not being flat but angled the concept no longer would work so I dropped it.

The hannes .. it is a bit weird, I think the saddles were not shaped 100% correct since I was getting some strange sound on the highest strings and I couldn't figure out what was causing it. Now I think that the edge of the saddle was too "flat" causing the end of the string to be stretched over this flat spot, so to say. So single notes sounded a little out-of-tune just by themselves. I did some filing and I think its better now.

Ah, the pickups - these are lace alumitones. Wanted to experiment with this one.
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I remember seeing that saddle flat area on my first Hannes too. It turned out I was off a little on the neck agle and had to deepen the saddle grooves to lower the string height during set up and therefore never dealt with the tuning issue. I'll be on the look out for it with this current one. I wondered if those might be lace alumitones. I'm not familiar enough with them to recognize them on sight.

SR

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  • 8 months later...
On 20/6/2014 at 6:24 AM, pan_kara said:

 

Thanks! I'm not planning to change it, the guitar is officially done. I'm just asking what jack placement would you suggest for next time, I'm not sure myself.. I do have a similar instrument planned for the near future ;)

I know this aint a V, but it will do the job

image_66.jpeg

I couldn't find any pics of a great solution i have seen, and doable on any existent V without permanent mods, but a great solution is a Strat Jackplate placed on the electronics cover. I mean an electronics cover which is on the back, just plug a strat type jack in there.

Also that is one great RR Flying V!

Edited by Guitaraxz
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  • 1 month later...

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