Frankenstrat. I couldn't not.

[Drak]

4 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Since my #1 is loaded with a Custom Custom in the bridge, my ear automatically judges anything else against that.

Well Hell, you're already there then, you know exactly what I'm talking about then. Mine was (is) a CC too.

A roughcast UOA5 is closer to an A2 than it is an A5, like an A2 with a bit more definition and tightness.

I actually have already swapped in a roughcast UOA5 in it, but I just don't really have a home for it at the moment.

So...I have my 'Eddie' sitting in a drawer, just waiting for an opportunity, ...along with probably ~70 other pickups.

[Prostheta]

Is that what's in the SD '59 or just a plain A5?

I spent a good half hour today relicing the pickup using a file, grey Scotchbrite (Mirka Mirlon Total), 2lb cut Garnet shellac, a leather strip (flesh side for burnishing), pinches of black/brown grain filler powder and tumble dryer clothes lint. It's far from "finished" and most of the lint will disappear with brushing and burnishing. Next is finding the easiest way of corroding the poles and screws. Maybe a little muriatic acid drain opener dabbed on with a cotton tip, maybe PCB etchant. Something to make a little rust bloom anyway.

Thoughts? I don't think the pickup in Frankie ever got to this state, even though the switch and other "permanent decos" ended up at this level of scabbiness.

[komodo]

I used muratic acid, but fumed and not directly on it. You need to be able to wash it off, but I guess if you dabbed a tiny bit it should stop after it's tired?

[Prostheta]

That's what I was thinking, however it looks damn good as it is. I used a toothpick to drop a little garnet shellac on each pole/screw and when it was halfway between dry and tacky I dabbed it with a loose fluffy wad of lint and a pinch of grain filler for good measure. Once dry I used a natural long bristle brush to remove the excess. A strip of leather flesh side up makes a nice surface to buff it out. The poles clean up first, so it's back to the shellac with a bit of brown grain filler. If anybody tries this, don't let the solvent in the shellac mix with the grain filler otherwise you end up with a slurry. Dust onto tacky shellac, let dry and then do any sort of mechanical buffing and cleaning, not before.

I've no immediate idea how Frankie looked in the B&W stage after the huge touring cycles VH went through 78-79. This'll be my first heavy relic, so let's see how this goes....all pointers will be taken onboard of course.

[Drak]

4 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Is that what's in the SD '59 or just a plain A5?

No major manufacturer uses roughcast UOA5's, its just another option known among the mag swappers and suppliers out there.

I didn't really realize you were going for a 'relic'd' Frankie. Interesting...

[Prostheta]

Yeah, I like the super beaten to hell idea of how Frankie ended up and I think extending out the B&W Frankie through the next few years of beating in that form sounds appealing. I've been in two minds about taking the B&W Frankie through to the RWB version after a few sessons of relicing, and I think a super beat VH1 Frankie has a nice feel to the idea. What if it had stayed on the road for the next six years in B&W form instead of being repainted? That sort of thing ticks better with me rather than directly copying something. Let's see where I can take that.

[Muzz]

Yep there are a gazzillion red white and black copies out there, it would be great to see this take off on sliding doors trajectory. I just hope you didn't go overboard on tightening your clamps applied directly on the fingerboard with no caul, so they didnt make craters like a stiletto heel on a wooden floor that slowly rise up starting six months later.

[Prostheta]

The clamps are padded with cork and leather. The remaining f clamps still have their plastic feet or were backed off so as not to crush the wood. The board is entirety unscathed.

[Prostheta]

The hardware bought in for this one is Gotoh pre-reliced stuff, which doesn't necessarily have "authentic" wear patterns and patination. The surfaces are adequately broken through though, without damage to mechanisms and fasteners. This is the important part that the extra money covers you for....additional relicing can now be done judiciously rather than having to attack the whole piece, and hence the most important-y bits.

I love the Sliding Doors reference, and it describes the direction this is going to go nicely. Very nicely. Frankie wasn't in this form for long beyond the VH1 album of course, and I think it was even repainted before the VH2 album tour proceeded? I'm not the expert. Frankie also went through a number of prototype Floyds and pickups during this time as well, so this really is a parallel universe relic concept. I wonder if using the wear patterns of the RWB Frankie post '84 on this VH1 Frankie would be too extreme.

NAH. Not at all. 

[Muzz]

Definitely, once you set yourself free from the "authentic" way of thinking, it frees you to go where you want, not what other people are expecting/wanting to see, and that is a fun journey that leads to a unique instrument.

[Prostheta]

That would be nice. Fitting an instrument out for a vintage Strat trem only to change it out for a Floyd seems a bit weird given the context. I'm liking the idea of an ultra-relic VH1 Frankie since that of itself never existed. I might have to change out the 1/8" (or whatever) vinyl tape stripes to paint though, since they would virtually be non-existent after a while.

[Andyjr1515]

Amazing stuff

Fascinating processes...

[Prostheta]

A little more work after a hot day's work at work. 

 

I sorted out the headstock face transition into the fingerboard. I believe that Strats normally have something like a 3-1/4" radius curve. The closest I have to this is a 76mm drum. A little under, but far from noticeably so. The technique is to push the neck flat against a fence so that the headstock passes between the drum and fence at incrementally-smaller values. 

 

....essentially something like this. The drum is rotating counter-clockwise and "pushes" the workpiece back out towards you. The opposite would be incredibly dangerous and instantly noticeable. I set a "stop" line and left the final pass so that it was just scuffing the ready-flattened headstock face (can't sand that blood out now, can we?).

 

I shaped in a hard D profile at both the 1st and 12th and set to joining the dots with a uber-sharp spokeshave. The heel is clamped to an inverted 16" radius wooden caul with a strip of leather between. A block of plywood stops the clamp marring the heel mating face. Ten minutes and it's done. I'm going to run off a couple of contour gauges on the CNC tomorrow before dialling in the final neck contour transition by scraping and sanding, maybe a rasp if coarse shaping is needed.

 

Sideways fret installation time! This is the third time I've done this now, and I actually like it more than pressing and hammering. Crazy eh? First, wire cut overlong and bent slightly over-radius. Tang nipped back both ends and the leading edge filed smooth as the tang nipper can mangle them a bit. 

 

Tappy tap tap! I raised a bench stop against the back of the neck and used a 16" radius caul to hold down the wire as it goes in. A framing/glazier's hammer taps the wire through the slot nicely. Super easy.

 

 

[Prostheta]

Here's something that I completely forgot from the last time. Ensure that the cut ends of your fret wire are filed flat on the underside of the crown! If it isn't, the wire will drag a nice scar across the board as you tap it in. This absolutely has never happened to me on the 19th fret, ever. 

Ugly, but she'll do the job.

 

Locate the fret in a tooth or two into the tang.

 

This is the grip I adopt. Downward pressure on the caul, finger on the bench stop, holding the whole thing in on place. 20-30 taps and she's home.

[Prostheta]

Multiple frets can be seated at any one time. Just maintain even pressure over the radius. This does chew up in the inside edge of the caul after a while, so don't use your best one. If I had gotten around to making myself a fret index, I'd have done all 22 at once....there's another thing for the to-do list.

 

Getting closer to the finish....

[Drak]

Eddie's guitar was a straight-ahead trem I guess, ...no locking nut action until...?

[Prostheta]

Not sure. He had a few prototype Floyds in there, so I presume that a locking nut soon came with those, whether immediately or not. Definitely by '79 though. 

[Muzz]

With any luck that sideways fretting technique will cause the barbs on either side of the tang to cut two tiny horizontal furrows with wood left above the barbs which will hold the fret in better than the downward furrows cut by barbs in frets tapped or pressed in conventionally downwards.

[Prostheta]

It's a double-edged sword; the tangs are freer to move sideways with this technique. I'm considering whether I should wick CA with a whip-tip under the tang or whether this will just cause more work when it leaches where it isn't supposed to be. Going in sideways does totally reward work spent on making the fretboard cylindrical/conical section profile spot on though. Hammering and pressing can be spotty in places very easily. This seems to leave the wire more snugly against the surface since there's no rebound or springback.

I nipped the frets closer to the board and then filed them back flat with a coarse machinist's file. In some ways I keep remembering that I "don't have to be too careful" since relicing and wear-aging the neck in will be more invasive than an errant file mark. Still, make as well as possible, always.

[Prostheta]

The finishing schedule I have in mind is to sand the body to 240 grit. Enough that sanding marks won't be visible but low enough that the shellac has a good key to seal/sand back without adding significant film thickness. Before this stage, I might oxidise the wood using an Iron(III) Acetate solution. Whilst not tannin-rich enough to go black, Ash does take on a convincing demeanour of age.

The shellac I'll be using will likely be garnet. Not sure whether ultra-blonde is too light or garnet too red/brown. A mix might be possible. The cut will be around 1-1/2lb to 2lb so that I can body it up easily. Depending on how Ash works with shellac, I might sand back and re-apply couple of times until most of the grain is obscured.

For paint I'm going to try and locate tins of Maston Two, which is a pressure-activated catalyst 2K in a can. Both white and black (RAL 9005 and 9010) are available so it should be a good durable topcoat. The striping is a to-do, as I haven't actually gone and looked at what widths I have available to me off the shelf.

[komodo]

Hope we get a video of Eruption when it's done. 

[Andyjr1515]

I've never had the whotsits to try sideways fretting.  Great result and useful tips along the way, @Prostheta 

 

 

[Prostheta]

@Andyjr1515 It's easier than you'd think, and ridiculously fast. Most of the work is in prepping the fretwire pieces. The downward pressure doesn't need to be great. If I recall, Fender's original method was a sit down station with a pedal than the operator pushes. This pulled a guide over the fretboard front to back so all that you needed to do was supply downward pressure with the caul and it goes straight in with little effort. Try some test pieces. I've known people use the brass cauls from fret presses as a guide. The big tips that I couldn't repeat more, is that the leading edges of the wire need to be clean of burrs, bent or sharp bits otherwise the fret can scrape the wood and draw splinters at worst. The wire doesn't need to be over-radiused by a lot, if at all. A stop block of some kind behind the neck works wonders.

@komodo You might get "Jamies Crying" or "I'm The One" if anything at all

[Prostheta]

Any second thoughts or ideas on the actual paint? I can use 2k black and white, but that might be a little harder-wearing than the original....not sure if acrylics in a can are just too plastic-y on the opposite end of that spectrum....

[Drak]

You know what's funny?

I'm also doing a black and white guitar at the moment. So everything is right at the top of my head right now. Just finished taping off the black substrate for the white that's coming. The Sonic Crayon has a black/white theme to it, ...tho nothing like what you're doing.

I've done black/white before, a few times (all lacquer)...the only thing I'll say is that the eye will catch every single little imperfection. You can get super frustrated because every tiny little imperfection stands out like a glaring all-seeing eye looking right at you. So...the tape job and pulling tape at the right time and the ability to do clean-up detail all need to be built in. Like...I'll spray 2-3 clearcoats to separate the first color from the second to give me some insurance room.

I have 2-3 fine-tuning/patchup/repair/finesse tools I always have ready for the black/white things.

A brand new never used razor blade or two (or utility knife blade, but it must be brand new)

320 grit Abralon pads (or 600 wet/dry)

But, I don't know with yours, maybe imperfections add to the 'rustique' of your job...

I just know anytime I've ever done black/white jobs, there's always a finesse phase after tape pull, no exceptions, something always needs attention.

I've never just 'pulled tape' and had it look perfect, never once.

Drives me crazy, but it's worth it when those lines are pristine clean and sharp.