Custom Guitar Build - First time build

[Bizman62]

Ouch!

When you iron your clothes, don't answer the phone no matter how much it rings! You sound like the guy who accidentally burned his ear...

[Armaan]

23 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

When you iron your clothes, don't answer the phone no matter how much it rings! You sound like the guy who accidentally burned his ear...

Thankfully I’m a lot better at ironing clothes, than handling a soldering iron ... 

[Armaan]

Wax polish: I got some buffing pads for the carnauba wax polish that I’m planning to apply, There are three kinds of pads:

- 1 foam pad with an uneven surface

- 1 foam pad with a flat surface 

- 1 wool pad

I thought I would apply wax using the flat foam pad first and then go over it with the wool pad. Does that sound right?

I will be using an adaptor to attach the pads to a drill for this. 

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Armaan said:

I thought I would apply wax using the flat foam pad first and then go over it with the wool pad. Does that sound right?

That sounds right. If you're going to use a drill, keep the rpm down. You can also use the foam pads by hand, even with the drill adaptor if that gives you a better grip. I've done all my waxing by hand but using a machine isn't wrong at all. For final buffing I've used a lambswool pad on the random orbital sander as that's the most labourious part of waxing.

A hint: If the surface still has pores and grooves where the wax gathers as tiny white stripes and spots you can use a soft brush like a clothes or shoe brush during the process to polish the grooves! The wool pad will then give the final gloss on the surface.

[Armaan]

Fretboard blemishes: I have two issues to solve:

(i) There are blemishes on the fretboard which appeared after sanding. They look like sawdust and glue patch-ups, though i haven’t done any on the top. I’ve read online that others have faced this issue with ebony, and some think it may be natural mineral deposits in the wood. 

(ii) when filling the fret sides with CA glue and sawdust, the CA glue seems to have run down along the frets. I thought I had sanded it down, but they became visible once I applied a coat of Danish. 

I am planning to slurry sand the fretboard with 0000 steel wood and Danish. Will that help? Any other suggestions?

I’ve attached a couple of images below to demonstrate. Green circles are blemishes as per (i) and red circles are CA glue discolouration as per (ii). This is after fine sanding upto 1500 grit and applying two coats of Danish oil  

[curtisa]

I've not worked with ebony before, but I was under the impression that a finish is not explicitly required for fretboards made from it (other than perhaps some kind of fretboard conditioner like the various propietary fretboard oils/lemon oils etc). Ebony has natural oils already present within it. Perhaps the extra danish oil is not penetrating in those spots due to the high oil content already in the timber? Probably best not to continue adding more oil finish if there's a chance of over-saturating the wood.

The CA glue dribbles may be removable using a single-sided razor blade or utility knife blade used as a scraper. Scrape along the grain from the fretwire where the CA has set towards the middle of the gap between the adjacent fret, followed by an overall buff with some high (1500+) grit sandpaper to make the whole board achieve a uniform sheen afterwards. The re-sanding may also hide those green-circled 'blemishes' you've highlighted too.

[Armaan]

@curtisa Yes, from what I read online, a finish is not necessary and lemon oil can be used to keep it hydrated. This wood was particularly dry and I wanted to darken it a bit and give it a bit of sheen. Hence the Danish oil. I can use the lemon oil going forward. 

The blemishes in green were there before I applied the Danish oil. I though they may be less visible with some darkening by the Danish oil, but it hasn’t been the case. 

For the CA glue, I had scraped off the runs with a blade but what you see (in red) appears to be on account of CA glue having saturated in the wood. Don’t want to go much deeper, but I can try once more and see.

I was hoping the slurry sanding will even out the surface and reduce the problem. Would slurry sanding with lemon oil make any sense?

[Gogzs]

1 minute ago, Armaan said:

Would slurry sanding with lemon oil make any sense?

Ehhh, not really. "Lemon oil" for fretboard conditioning doesn't actually contain lemon oil, it's just mineral oils with lemon smell. So you can't really build up a finish with it. It's just to keep the piece of wood moisturized. It would have achieved what you wanted to achieve with the coat of danish oil, turn darker and look/feel fresh  

[Armaan]

2 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

Ehhh, not really. "Lemon oil" for fretboard conditioning doesn't actually contain lemon oil, it's just mineral oils with lemon smell. So you can't really build up a finish with it. It's just to keep the piece of wood moisturized. It would have achieved what you wanted to achieve with the coat of danish oil, turn darker and look/feel fresh  

Yep, that’s what @Bizman62 said earlier as well. Maybe I’ll just try sanding it with steel wool and a little Danish, after trying to scrape off a little bit of the CA glue discolouration. 

[curtisa]

Stick to sanding paper if you can. If you use steel wool you're going to end up with little tiny 'hairs' of the stuff stuck under the fret ends, which you'll then spend the next couple of hours manually pulling out with tweezers.

[Armaan]

@curtisa Cool, will do. Do you think slurry sanding with sandpaper and a little Danish would be good? 

Any sense in using wax or a polishing compound in this process?

Shooting in the dark here

[Bizman62]

The green circled patches actually can be dust and glue patches, depending on where you bought that fretboard! As ebony can be pretty expensive it might be tempting to fix a slightly cracked board and sell it a bit cheaper than tossing it away. Another possibility is, as @curtisa suspected, that the Danish hasn't penetrated in those spots. That would also indicate that you haven't wiped the excess off the second time after some 15 minutes. What I find puzzling for both explanations is that they appeared after sanding so a natural mineral deposit may well be the culprit. Although the fluids usually reside in the sapwood close to the surface, sometimes a drop can get caught and stay in the heartwood which in the case of ebony is the dark wood. Your photos show the blemishes exaggerated, at least on my 30" screen they're quadruplicated in size, so in reality they shouldn't be disturbing especially for a first build.

@Gogzs, lemon oil being a moisturizer is just marketing jargon! Moisture is always water, even inside wood. Good guitar wood should be dried down to <10% after which it shouldn't live with humidity much unless you really soak it. "Lemon oil" for guitars is mostly vapourizing solvents which help cleaning the gunk off the fretboard, the tiny drop of oil enhances the grain so it's mostly for looks and a bit for protection. It's basically a cleaner. But it sure isn't a substitute for water!

I fully agree with @curtisa about steel wool. The tweezer size hair fragments are easy, steel wool dust blending with the oiled fretboard can make a dull grey mess!

As I already said, dry wood doesn't actually suck water, the moisture content below 10% is a pretty stable condition unless you sink the wood into water for a long time. The same applies with oils. They only penetrate the very surface, a single mm or 2 at the most. If you look at an old workbench in a motor workshop it may look like thoroughly soaked with oil but it can be easily planed to clean wood (except for cracks, of course).  That said a fix for the blemishes might indeed be applying more oil on the fretboard to see if the surroundings get the same level of saturation.

 

[Bizman62]

Just now, Armaan said:

Any sense in using wax or a polishing compound in this process?

No. Polishing compound is for the metal parts or lacquer, not for bare or oiled wood. Wax is a finalizing product to be used after all sanding and polishing has been done. It will then fill the tiniest scratches left to make the surface even more level for maximum shine aside an added layer of protection.

[Prostheta]

Micromesh is good for polishing Ebony up to a high gloss, however it's a lot of work. I prefer to use synthetic abrasive pads (Mirka Abralon) instead of steel wool, but that still leaves fibres. At this stage, be very careful not to sand sideways with the frets as you'll cause more work getting rid of these marks than you would sanding with the direction of the grain.

Ditto on the comments about oils and water content. Wood doesn't really dry out, unless you're in an extreme climate. If your skin cracks during say, winter, consider a humidifier for the case. Beyond that, wood will look after itself. Additive oils accumulate very easily, and in the case of lemon oil are simply a temporary greasy "finish" whilst mostly working as solvents to loosen grime for removal when you buff it up. I use raw cold-press linseed oil on my Rosewood and Ebony fingerboards, but same as cast iron, use as little as possible. Literally two dabs from a cotton tip ear bud do an entire fingerboard and almost ALL of that needs wiping off; clean rags until you don't see any more oil coming off.

Slurry filling with CA is an okay approach. CA on its own is often good enough to fill cracks in Ebony. A dark streak is always better than a light one from locking in unwetted dust. Epoxy would be better since you can make a dust and epoxy slurry purely for the repair.

[Armaan]

Rewired the electricals entirely today. The wires were way too long! Made a much simpler wiring set up with only the necessary wire length. It’s much cleaner now, though the resoldering got a bit messy. 

Did my first amp test today and it played beautifully. Surprisingly great sustain and very full sound. Very pleased. Will get it intonated and set up tomorrow.  
 

[Bizman62]

Now that's some neat wiring! It's hard to believe that you have never before built a guitar or soldered anything!

[Armaan]

8 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Now that's some neat wiring! It's hard to believe that you have never before built a guitar or soldered anything!

Thanks! And the good news is I didn’t burn my fingers soldering this time ...

[Armaan]

Here’s what it looks like now. 99% of the work done. Just some finishing, fret work and action set up to do. 

[Bizman62]

7 minutes ago, Armaan said:

99% of the work done.

The last percent will take almost as long as the previous stages. It's highly understandable that you'd like to get it finished as soon as possible but the last (five) percent(s) make 95% of the first impression of a random viewer!

Get into the right mood for each task left, do only the amount you can before your hands start trembling, take a deep breath every once in awhile, flex and relax your hands... Concentrate on what you're doing and when the first symptom of fatigue hits, take a rest and continue when you really feel like it. If in any doubt stop immediately and take another look the next day - or week! Look at it, play it, feel it and if you find anything that makes you uncertain, make a note and check if you can reproduce the bugging the next day. Recarving the neck even with the strings on is totally acceptable if you need to. Same goes with the entire build, if you find out that some corner makes your playing position awkward you can simply reshape it. An oild finish is very easy and forgiving to fix, any patches simply blend in.

[Armaan]

@Bizman62 True! Although I am certainly more impatient than most, to be honest

Will spend the next few weeks testing it out and setting it up. Hopefully no major changes needed. Let’s see!

[Muzz]

That is a rock machine, love the stringers going from top to tail, beautiful  

[Armaan]

Thanks @Muzz ! I made it to play more of hard rock and heavier genres ... looks like it’s conveying the right message

That’s why I chose walnut and black electronics and used sharper lines for the body instead of rounded shapes. 

[ADFinlayson]

Looks great Armaan, hell of a first build. 

[Armaan]

6 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Looks great Armaan, hell of a first build. 

Thanks! It certainly has flaws, but I think it’s the best I could manage with the tools and experience I had. 

[ADFinlayson]

7 hours ago, Armaan said:

Thanks! It certainly has flaws, but I think it’s the best I could manage with the tools and experience I had. 

lol my 15th build has flaws, get used to flaws!