curtisa Posted July 23, 2016 Report Share Posted July 23, 2016 I reckon you could just about carve the Sunday roast on those edges. 5 hours ago, Prostheta said: Too hot today though....26°C and 65% humidity! You're funny. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 So what comedy weather are you having in Tassie right now? I can't see it making this feel any more pleasant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 Ohhhhh, today was a nice, balmy 10 degrees. Snow down to about 200 metres above sea level. Everyone here is strolling around in shorts and sandals and heading to the beach for a quick tan and a game of beach cricket. 26 degrees? Bah! That's a comfortable spring day for us. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 Yikes, you guys are weird. I'd be arse first in the freezer section of the nearest supermarket. 26°C and 68% humidity today. It's punishing work in the shop. More work spent refining the bevels so the entire body will be more or less around the 240 grit mark and almost fully shaped, pending any fine tuning. End grain - as always - need ten times more work than side/face grain. Sandpaper has chowdered up my fingers too....ergh.... The wood is regularly wiped down with alcohol to draw out loose dust and lightly raise any loose fibres, unlike water which directly swells all surface fibres, loose or not. Rubbing a high grit pad (600) over the surfaces raises enough dust and deposits it into any low-grit scratches that need further attention. A neat little trick for working out of order with the grits. The bevelling is deliberately being kept very sharp so that I can keep their geometry and balance in check. If the edges were rounded over from hand sanding, any inconsistencies would come back to haunt me later in the game. My three sanding cauls of choice are an oval carpenter's pencil (~1cm x 0,5cm?), a kid's glue stick (about 1" diameter) and a cylindrical offcut from a bit of lathe work which is about 40mm diameter. In my opinion, the upper cutaway is a little strong and the lower cutaway could do with deepening. It's all much of a muchness, and certainly Gibson never really had any sort of reasonable standard. I'll work with how it balances out within the workpiece, which is a far wiser approach than slavish copying to something which has never had any sort of standard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted July 24, 2016 Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I'm watching this with great interest. Can't remember if I mentioned it, but my next full build is an EB3-ish SG Bass for our band's bassist. I'll be stealing many ideas from here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 24, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2016 I'm sure that I still have the CAD plan I made kicking around if you need it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 25, 2016 Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 16 hours ago, Prostheta said: Yikes, you guys are weird. I'd be arse first in the freezer section of the nearest supermarket. 26 degrees is nuthin'. Hottest day on record in Australia is 50.7 degC at Oodnadatta in South Australia. Adelaide, Alice Springs, Darwin, Mebourne etc regularly get over 40 in summer. Typical "hot" day in summer for us Taswegians would be mid 30s. Hottest day in the part of Tas I live in was in January 2013 (41.8). That was pretty hard going. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 Errrrrk. I can feel the heat coming off those words over the Internets. Please stop that right away. At least you guys don't have wolves, bears, wolverines and dive-bombing penguinosauruses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SIMpleONe89 Posted July 25, 2016 Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 The hottest in Sydney recently was 45 deg C. That was insane! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 You've got to watch the temps and humidity! Especially here when it gets deathly cold and dry in winter, and swimming in sweat and tears during summer. It's crucial in predicting what your wood is going to do when reacting to changes in atmospheric humidity. I need to monitor my unregulated workspace better, however the simple fact that it's high humidity and high temps doesn't do good things for wood if you're dimensioning it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
curtisa Posted July 25, 2016 Report Share Posted July 25, 2016 14 hours ago, Prostheta said: At least you guys don't have wolves, bears, wolverines and dive-bombing penguinosauruses Instead, we're lucky enough to have some of the worlds most venomous snakes and spiders. Watch out for Dropbears, too! ;-) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted July 26, 2016 Author Report Share Posted July 26, 2016 Ah, the legendary dropbear. Glad they aren't able to survive in the northern hemisphere otherwise we'd never go into the forests again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 This one (like everything I do) has gotten a bit long in the tooth, however I've decided upon and sourced the big pricy bits. Firstly, I have had my friend Veijo Rautia over in Joensuu spec me up a slightly hotter than 70's T-Top style humbucker to be fitted into a nickel cover: http://www.rautiaguitars.net/t-top--70s.html Veijo is one of those pickup makers who seems to fly under the radar a little, but that's fine. It allows him to produce fine pickup repros without having to reduce quality (or hike prices) due to an overage of demand, and does everything hands on to what the customer needs. He's been producing reproduction Aria Pro II bass pickups for many years now alongside my reproduction preamps. Funny that we're both in Finland, and sort of fell into being the de facto Aria Pro II bass aftermarket electronics guys. Anyway. I'm also having an acrylic template made up for the pickguard which I'd transfer into some BWB sheet, or (if I can source it within the EU) the original BWBWB. Once I can get somebody to turn me some metal stylii on the lathe for the pantograph, I'll inlay the headplate. Waiting on getting some grain filler and dyes in before doing some test pieces for colour. I'll likely stain dark red, seal with a 1lb cut of shellac, grain fill with near-Ebony filler with some dark brown added and then start with the French polishing. The choice of electronics needs to be a wise one. The volume needs to roll off nicely so that the DSL-5C that I (still haven't) bought Nina will break up for that classic bluesy Angus sound. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 10, 2017 Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 Those look like really nice pickups. I'm looking forward to the French polishing. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 Me too. It does require a lot of clean free space, time and patience though. I need to buy all three in bulk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottR Posted January 10, 2017 Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 Don't they sell those down at the corner store? If not, for sure at Amazon. SR Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2.5itim Posted January 10, 2017 Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 Ahh I was wondering when this was gonna get back underway! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 It's another thread in my tangled web of madness, Tim! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2.5itim Posted January 10, 2017 Report Share Posted January 10, 2017 Man I totally know how that goes! Ive got an sg build coming up so will definitely be keeping an eye on your build. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 11, 2017 Report Share Posted January 11, 2017 Yes - very pleased this one's back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norris Posted January 11, 2017 Report Share Posted January 11, 2017 Glad you're making dust again (or plan to at least). I'm still waiting for some progress on your Ric bass! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2017 That's on the to-do list as well! I've been saving a lot of this stuff as the basis for video work. Whilst most of this build is in the bag, I'll pick a lot of this up for a Firebird build.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 I've slowly been gathering the required materials to finish this one up. Instead of using blonde shellac flakes, I decided to buy some garnet instead to add in a little more warmth to the final finish. After looking at a few samples, a slightly more cinnamon red than black cherry seems the order of the day. @Andyjr1515 - I just got three tubs of Brummer rub-in grain filler; Ebony, white and dark Mahogany. It might be worth looking into yourself. So, I did a bit of a test piece. This is not the final order of doing things, since the first step would be dyeing. Nonetheless, I wanted to know what straight Ebony grain filler looked like and whether mixing it with the dark Mahogany might be in order. I like it. That's some very nice contrast! So the usual order of finishing is to dye (alcohol-based pref.) before sealing with say, a 1lb cut of shellac, then grain filling, before final clearcoating; in this case French polishing. I'm very much thinking that this order could be changed up a little bit, however I'd need to test the exact process prior to committing. Essentially, grain filling on bare wood and then dye. If the dye doesn't interfere with the grain filler, great. The rest of the process can then be followed as French polishing with no need to add in intermediate sealing coats. My insistence on breaking with the established method is that it removes the need for me sanding back the grain filler from over the dyed and sealed surface. Whilst I can't imagine it would be as precarious as it sounds, I also think that the grain filler has more contrast to add when working straight from the wood; even a 1lb cut of shellac will close up some of the tiniest pores and grain lines. It will need more work when sanding back the grain filler to ensure that the surface isn't left with "a dirty look". Perhaps the end grain might be more problematic with this proposed schedule. Best to test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted January 26, 2017 Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 I'll be watching this with huge interest @Prostheta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prostheta Posted January 26, 2017 Author Report Share Posted January 26, 2017 Me too. I forgot to add that I received the custom wound pickup from Veijo Rautia this week. It should be nice; a little hotter than a PAF with an AlNiCo-V bar mag. Perfect for the situation....can't wait to hear how it sounds. Test track will HAVE to be La Grange. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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