Jam' Winter Builds

[Akula]

Yo,

 

Winter has arrived down under, and exhausted roadies nation-wide breath a sigh of relief. The relentless flow of gigs and work has finally come to a halt, and I have a few weeks of reprieve. So I spent two days fixing up around the house, plus some time on the sofa in my underwear drinking beer, then I got bored of doing nothing, and hit up some people about some guitars they've been wanting. Idle time is the devil's plaything - I'd rather be in the shed than in front of the TV.

 

Build 1 - Bich

A BC Rich premium model, this one's based off the client's custom shop.

• Mahogany body and neck-through, with CF reinforcement
• Ebony fretboard
• Fixed Floyd Rose bridge (I know right??)
• Fishman Fluence Modern pickups

 

Build 2 - Warlock

Same client, just building the body for this as we're using a BCR bolt-on neck taken from a Kerry King model. I know the neck, I refretted it with stainless steel frets early last year and put some dowel plugs in the heel to fix some stripped screw holes.

•  Mahogany body
• Carved top
• Gotoh tune-o-matic bridge, recessed
• Seymour Duncan EMTY pickups

 

Build 3 - Jam's Tele

This one's for me. I've always wanted a Telecaster, but I've hated every single one I've played. Controversial opinion, I know! But what the hell is okay with a two-inch-thick neck heel, slab body, single coil noisy pickups, and a baseball bat neck? I'll be rectifying each of those issues while making a guitar which is mine to play and adore, which leaves one more "proper" telecaster in the world for the rest of you to enjoy.

•  Mahogany body, 40mm thick
• Maple 4-piece bolt-on neck, with an Ironbark fretboard
• White pickguard, black body, white binding
• EMG 85/60

 

And here we go! I went down to Anagote two days ago and picked up the timbers, here they are laid out and labelled up.

 

And here they are in various stages of glue-up or shaping. I've got one neck-through build, another's a bolt-on, and the third is the body alone, so I had to stagger the stages of glue-up to allow enough clamps for each.

 

 

 - Jam

[henrim]

I can relate to the thoughts you have about Telecasters. I like the 50’s design but I just hate playing them. I can’t bring myself to make replicas but also getting a real thing and modifying it to my liking is an intimidating thought. Maybe I someday find a beater and modify it to better suit my needs.

Edited July 8, 2023 by henrim
Formatting edit

[Akula]

23 hours ago, henrim said:

I can relate to the thoughts you have about Telecasters. I like the 50’s design but I just hate playing them. I can’t bring myself to make replicas but also getting a real thing and modifying it to my liking is an intimidating thought. Maybe I someday find a beater and modify it to better suit my needs.

Yeah, I love the aesthetics, but I'll be doing things differently on mine. I never liked doing straight copies of guitars either. Mine's going to be 26" scale length, reverse headstock, all the things I like. That's why I build. It's definitely not to save money!

 

Been doing some thinking about truss rod situation within the neck. The Bich is a mahogany neck, and I'm aiming for 18mm thickness at the nut. With a 6mm fretboard, this leaves 12mm of mahogany, with a 9.5mm truss rod slot leaving 2.5mm of mahogany beneath the slot. If it were maple, I'd be less concerned, but I'm rather wary of leaving that little meat behind the pressure point of a truss rod under stress.

I'm sure many other luthiers and probably mainstream manufacturers have considered this idea, but I'm leaning towards routing a 2mm channel into the underside of the ebony fretboard. This will mean my channel in the mahogany neck will only have to be 7.5mm, leaving a bit more timber under the rod. Of course, I could go the other way, and make the fretboard thinner, thus making the neck timber thicker in context - this is, in fact, what I'll be doing with my Tele build; the fretboard is going down t0 4.5mm with a maple neck - but I figure ebony is a stiffer wood than mahogany, so I'd rather leave more thickness of fretboard rather than neck timber.

 

Example 1:

 

Example 2:

 

Thoughts?

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

4 hours ago, Akula said:

I'm sure many other luthiers and probably mainstream manufacturers have considered this idea, but I'm leaning towards routing a 2mm channel into the underside of the ebony fretboard.

I'm sure I've heard that idea been asked about and answered at least by Ben Crowe/Crimson Guitars. And that the answer was yes, it's a solid idea.

My logic tells that it will work even better if you can cut radiused fret slots instead of straight.

[Akula]

I'm going to give it a go. I cut flat slots on a flat fretboard, then radius, then set the depth stop on my saw to the depth of the fretwire tang, then re-cut at a radius - so I think I'll be safe from cutting through to the truss rod. 

 

I set about planning the truss rod slots. The main objective is for the slot in the fretboard to align with the one in the neck, which just requires a bunch of careful marking-up. The carbon fibre rods will not be protruding into the fretboard, they are only 6mm deep.

 

I figured I'd do the Tele's truss rod slot tonight, but my 6mm bit is old and knackered and keeps slipping in the collet. I caught it before disaster hit, the bit went in the bin, and I'm off to Bunnings tomorrow morning for another one. I also drilled relief holes for routing - I'd never just plunge a router bit into a guitar body for routing pickups, for instance, but for some reason I've always just ploughed through timber for the truss rod slot. Maybe that's why my bit is buggered! Anyways, live and learn.

 

 - Jam

[ScottR]

On 7/9/2023 at 7:49 AM, Akula said:

Yeah, I love the aesthetics, but I'll be doing things differently on mine. I never liked doing straight copies of guitars either. Mine's going to be 26" scale length, reverse headstock, all the things I like. That's why I build. It's definitely not to save money!

Exactly.

I made a tele shaped guitar using the proper outline measurements, but all my normal carves and headstock and so on. I was shocked at how big it was, how similar in size and weight to an LP it turned out.

SR

[Akula]

On 7/11/2023 at 12:53 AM, ScottR said:

Exactly.

I made a tele shaped guitar using the proper outline measurements, but all my normal carves and headstock and so on. I was shocked at how big it was, how similar in size and weight to an LP it turned out.

SR

Oh yeah! This whole thing started because I played a mate's tele and thought it was great, except for it felt like getting intimate with a semi truck. Mine's less wide at the hips than a Tele, but just about the same length. Stretched, almost.

 

Routed the truss rod and CF slots. Aligning the truss rod slot underside the fretboard was really easy - after doing the slot in the neck with the jig, just sticky-tape the fretboard upside down on top and rout away. Flip the board over, perfect alignment. Also used a cove box bit to do the access groove on the headstock face. These little touches make it.

 

Did the neck tapers with a straight-edge and router. I do the headstock shape at the same time, to avoid an annoying bump at the nut.

 

Now would be a good time to show off my new template material. I started out using plywood, but it warps from flat, and is prone to "fuzzies". Next I used MDF, but that stuff is the new asbestos, so off to the bin with it. Acrylic is alright, but it's mighty expensive and the flakes get statically charged and stuck to the ceiling of my workshop.

I nicked a sheet of SignBond from some show I was working on. It's an aluminium composite, so basically a bit of plastic foam wedged between two aluminium sheets. It cuts like butter with the jigsaw, and sanding takes almost zero effort - you can even scrape it to shape with the back of a knife. There's no dust or fumes, just the edges need to be given a pass with sandpaper to remove any swarf. The edge stays hard, and if you do happen to hit it with the router by accident, it won't shatter your bit.

 

Because I've done many more neck-throughs than bolt-ons, the process of routing a neck heel pocket always scares the hell out of me. I've previously rough-routed and then used a chisel to get it to proper dimensions, but this time I went for the standard process - use three straight bits of stock clamped in place as templates around the neck, remove the neck, route the heel pocket. Worked pretty well on the Tele, but for the Warlock I added a few layers of blue tape around the templates after removing the neck, just for a slightly tighter fit.

 

At this point it's clear I've routed the body shapes. Had a slight mishap with the Bich - I screw the templates down to the body, screws being placed in timber which will be removed when routing for pickups, but the router bumped up over the screw head and went through the template and about 3mm of the body edge. Damn. I'm 100% sure this will be removed when doing the carve on the top, but just to be safe I glued a plug and re-routed. 

 

Pickup and recessed T-O-M routes on the Warlock.

 

A quick mock-up of what the Tele is going to look like....

 

Did an arm carve on this one, too. I opted for the No.4 plane instead of the belt sander or grinder - it's harder to breath in wood curls than sawdust.

 

That's enough pictures for one post. Okay, one more - all three builds on the bench awaiting tomorrow's jobs. I love winter - I work hard enough all year to afford my quiet month in the workshop building guitars. Easy life.

 

 

 - Jam

[Andyjr1515]

Looking good!  And impressive that you are tackling three at once!!

I gave up trying to do more than one at a time...I found that I started getting mixed up to as to what needed doing to what!  Mind you, your brain is probably younger and more efficient than mine! 

[ScottR]

4 hours ago, Andyjr1515 said:

Looking good!  And impressive that you are tackling three at once!!

Agreed! I remember when you were building with a jigsaw and a pair of screw drivers. Your work has come soooo far in the last few years.

SR

[Akula]

On 7/15/2023 at 2:48 AM, Andyjr1515 said:

I gave up trying to do more than one at a time...I found that I started getting mixed up to as to what needed doing to what!

I've got all the parts and hardware labelled up so I don't accidentally put the wrong tuners on the wrong guitar! I also write up design briefs for each guitar so I don't mix up specifications. Besides that, I write to-do lists for each guitar, helps me remember where I'm at with the procedure. I get maybe two quiet patches throughout the year where I can build - my job takes me to unsociable hours, so building after work or on these mythical "weekends" I hear of just becomes impossible. No, if I've got a moment to build guitars, I'm going to take on as many projects as I can for the time!

 

On 7/15/2023 at 6:53 AM, ScottR said:

I remember when you were building with a jigsaw and a pair of screw drivers. Your work has come soooo far in the last few years.

Aahaha! Those were the days. I restarted my habit during the first lockdowns of 2020, and I had zero tools and zero money - I was building guitars out of pine shelves. Three years later, I've got a proper workshop again, and it was easy enough to remember my teenage builds and figure out how to use a router again. The rest is just muscle memory. Thanks dude, means a lot. For perspective, these builds will make 13 successful projects in three years!

 

Put some inlays in the Tele neck. I hammered 2mm mother of pearl dots into sections of 4mm aluminium tube and glued them into the fretboard with CA. This photo is really ugly, there's even a bunch of dust packed in the fret slots from radius sanding... Shows off my ultra-thin fretboard though, 4mm thick in the middle.

 

Sanded up to 1000 grit, and whacked in some stainless steel frets, dressed in semi-hemi style using a bench grinder. I'm enjoying this technique of dressing the fret ends before installing - I have to make sure the frets are ever so slightly less wide than the fretboard so I don't get sprout, but it seems to work out faster than cutting flush after installing and then dressing. Side dots, not pictured here, are 2mm aluminium tube, but I couldn't find any 1mm mother of pearl to go inside them.

 

I routed the Bich for it's Floyd Rose hardtail bridge. It's the Jackson model bridge, it sits on three posts, the third being under the fine tuners and allows adjustment of the angle. I'd never even heard of a fixed floyd before starting this build, so it's all new to me.

 

 

 - Jam

[Akula]

Quick question to all, concerning finishing equipment.

I've done plenty of Danish oil finishes, and I've had great times with mixing it with wipe-on poly to bolster it a little bit, but my last personal build has been on the stage for about a year now and it's showing some good battle-rash already. Perhaps it's time I grew up in the world and started shooting polyurethane finishes like the rest of the big boys and girls. 

I don't have a dust-free environment, I have a 3x2m shed as my workshop. I could shoot outside, then move instruments inside the shop for drying. Reckon that would still attract an ungodly amount of dust?

Secondly, I'm looking at electric spray guns as an option for delivery. They're about half the cost of a compressor setup, but more importantly, I doubt I have the space for a 20L compressor in the shop. Has anyone had luck with these little electric guns? Or is a compressor and gun the only way to go?

 - Jam

 

PS. Luckily, the two BC builds are going off to a spray shop. The client has his own dude who refinishes all his guitars, so all I've got to do there is grain fill and sand, then very carefully deliver them! Easy life.

[henrim]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

Secondly, I'm looking at electric spray guns as an option for delivery.

I use a regular compressor based system because I have many guns for that. I have no personal experience with turbine systems but I have heard good about them. If I was on the market I would check the Fuji Semi-Pro 2 and the likes.

https://fujispraysystems.com/semi-pro-2/

[Akula]

Got the fretboard glued onto the Bich, slotted, radiused and polished up to a thousand. I also installed the frets, don't have a photo of that stage.

 

Both the Warlock and the Bich are in need of carves for their tops, guts, cutaways, and neck heels. I've ordered a set of scrapers as I think they'll help me get a better carve finish than I have previously achieved. 

 

The tele, meanwhile, got it's neck carved. Having run out of major geometry tasks to complete with that build, I went straight for grain filling and sanding.

 

I'm using Timbermate filler mixed with a splash of water to make a pancake-mix sort of texture. Apply, dry, sand, and repeat, three times. Ended up sanding to 400 with a block, then stained it black with Prooftint dyes. Here it is with one coat of black:

 

Then a "Japan Black", followed by another plain black coat. This I sanded to 600 with dry paper - it clogged a heap, but I didn't dare wet-sand with either metho or water for fear of disturbing the stain or the grain filler.

 

Upon scraping the binding, I discovered that it had cracked somewhere along the way! What a bummer. I'm using ABS binding glued in with CA, and it was totally intact before the stain, so I'm wondering if there could be some strange reaction between the stain and the binding? Anyways, I'm living with it. If this were a client's guitar it would mean removing the binding and going again with a different material, but I'm fairly easy with the way this Tele is going aesthetically - it's going to be a punk rock road machine, so it'll get aged quite fast over the next few years.

 

Having researched quite extensively the best way to set up for spraying poly, I decided against it. Electric spray guns seem to work alright if you get a good one for good money, at which point you might as well just get a compressor and spray gun. The PPE involved in safely doing this can add up quickly, too. Then there's the environment for spraying, in both senses of the word - I have no space for a spray booth, and although I could use the "big spray booth", outdoors, I have to consider that I have a small garden in a tight residential area where my neighbours may be inhaling the shite that I've protected myself from, along with their kids, pets, plants, trees...

So I went for wipe-on poly. I bought some decent polyurethane this time around, and thinned it with turps. We all know never to trust a photo taken while wet, but this is looking rather tasty.

 

 - Jam

[ScottR]

6 hours ago, Akula said:

but this is looking rather tasty.

I totally agree.

SR

[Bizman62]

6 hours ago, Akula said:

to make a pancake-mix sort of texture

I've made quite a few pancakes in my life and I've never used a pancake mix! The ingredients are such that should be available in any kitchen or if not, the kitchen owner doesn't cook.

That said, your pancake looks rather tasty.

[Akula]

19 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I've made quite a few pancakes in my life and I've never used a pancake mix! The ingredients are such that should be available in any kitchen or if not, the kitchen owner doesn't cook.

I wholeheartedly agree! As a former chef, if somebody can't make a batter, roux, or cook a chicken breast without drying it out to the texture of sand, then they should pay or marry somebody who can to cook for them. Pancake batter is what I was meaning to say.

 

So here's a dry photo, taken under the light of a Sydney winter's day. 

 

I've been obsessed with Danish Oil for the last five or six builds, and as a result I haven't done a wipe-on poly finish for about three years now. Strange - the first coat took nearly 24hrs to dry, but the second coat went hard enough in six hours. I'm still waiting until tomorrow before I sand and apply another coat. There's been no runs or lumps yet, but there's always a small level of dust and crap that gets stuck to the thing as it's drying. I'm hoping the dark colour masks this to some extent. Ahh, isn't finishing such fun?

 

In other news, I carved the Bich's neck today, and failed to take any photos of it, just video for Instagram. Here's some blurry stills from the vids.

 

I take a rasp and knock the edges off the square neck at 45 degrees, until I reach the dimensions provided by my neck profile print-outs, measured with a contour gauge. Then I half that angle in both directions, then knock off those edges again, and again, etc, until I've got a fairly accurate shape. Then I crack out the bastard file, always loved that name, and remove the rasp marks. Then comes the 80-grit sandpaper, then 120, then 180, until the neck is looking and feeling smooth.

Volutes are handled with a sanding drum. I used to do this with half-round files, but a drum just makes this so much quicker.

 

Neck heel got blended into the body with a 5" grinder and flap disc, but the finer parts are again done with a sanding drum. I may have to try out my new scrapers to get really finicky in the tight areas, but for now it's looking pretty comfortable.

 

Last thing for today - I engraved my logo onto the battery compartment cover for the Tele. It's cold-rolled steel flat bar, and it's old and rusted and pitted and dented, so the engraving bit kind of bounced off the surface quite a lot. I'm still trying to find a reliable laser engraving service in Sydney that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, but what I've got here definitely fits the road-warrior aesthetic of the Tele.

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

3 hours ago, Akula said:

I'm still trying to find a reliable laser engraving service in Sydney

How about etching? It looks simple enough and not too expensive, at least for what I've seen on https://www.youtube.com/@PaskMakes/videos

The padlock and whistle are of brass but the tap wrench is steel so it should apply to your needs. And he speaks your language, doesn't he?

[Akula]

On 7/29/2023 at 4:18 AM, Bizman62 said:

How about etching? It looks simple enough and not too expensive, at least for what I've seen on https://www.youtube.com/@PaskMakes/videos

The padlock and whistle are of brass but the tap wrench is steel so it should apply to your needs. And he speaks your language, doesn't he?

Great idea! It does mean chemicals and a finely-cut mask, but the results look killer!

 

I carved the Bich and Warlock in two sessions - one for roughing in the shapes with the angle grinder, then the client came over and had a good look, and the next day I removed a bit more material with the grinder before carrying on with scrapers. 

 

I try never to do an entire carve in one session, as I am mentally scarred from a build about a decade ago where I removed too much material and created a small window into the electronics cavity. I doubt I would ever get that silly again, but the two-day carve process does allow me to take a good look with fresh eyes. 

I'm impressed with these scrapers. I've only before had the discomfort of the disposable razor-blade sorts, so this is my first time burnishing and using proper scrapers. I am very pleasantly impressed. Burnishing took a while to get the hang of, but now they're sharp I can take off curls of wood in a single stroke which would have taken minutes with sandpaper. Want to take less off? Easy, just press down lighter. And it leaves a much nicer surface than sanding, although I shall be grain-filling and sanding after the fact. Easy to see here - the parts which are ugly from the angle grinder, and the parts which I have scraped.

 

The T-type is way into the finishing phase now. As is recommended, I'm wet-sanding in between coats to flatten any wipe marks, and remove some of those dust-nuggets. Dust is a huge problem for me, as the workshop is pretty small. I've been applying coats outside in the garden, but in the inner city suburbs there's just as much dust in the air. My lungs just shrivelled at the thought. But I digress. The wet-sanding between coats seems to be keeping the dust under control. Seeing my shiny guitar turn matt and dull every time I do it is quite harrowing, though.

 

I'm still getting some waves. I figure either the levelling in between coats isn't going quite level enough, or the face of the timber wasn't flat enough to begin with and I just couldn't see it without the shininess of the finish. I started levelling with 600, then after a few coats I went up to 800. now I'm up to 1200 grit. The theory of this was that once it's flat it'll stay mostly flat, but clearly I was incorrect with this assumption. The "waves" are clearly seen in this next photo - I swear my ears are not usually that large!

 

The benefit of the wipe-on poly method is that if you don't get it perfect at first, it's fairly easy to rectify and carry on. I'm up to coat number 12, and the plan for tomorrow is to sand it dead-level and continue. I reckon 20 coats is a good number.

 

 - Jam

[henrim]

I'm not an expert on wipe-on stuff but how I see it the layers should be so thin that you shouldn't end up into a situation where you have to level the finish that much. Why not use a brush instead? 

[Bizman62]

6 hours ago, Akula said:

Burnishing took a while to get the hang of, but now they're sharp I can take off curls of wood in a single stroke

I've been planning to make a short video about sharpening a scraper. There's things I've done "wrong" and learned to do them differently, also there's different levels of sharpening depending on the task. Nonetheless I think I've got the details covered in my head. What do you think, would such a video be worth filming?

6 hours ago, Akula said:

much dust in the air.

Once I met a luthier who had his workshop in the basement. He had bedsheets hanging all over the place and before doing any delicate paint/lacquer job he wetted them thoroughly in order to catch any flying dust particles. Sort of a moist cubicle.

6 hours ago, Akula said:

I swear my ears are not usually that large!

No kin to the Royal Family of the UK?

Apart from that, do you sand across or with the grain when leveling the poly? And which direction do you apply it? I've never used it either but can it be related to applying TruOil and the likes where you'll have to wipe off anything that isn't absorbed?

 

[Akula]

23 hours ago, henrim said:

Why not use a brush instead? 

I'm considering using a foam brush. The internet tells me that's a good way of avoiding these wipe-marks left by a rag ball, but I'm skeptical. I'll give it a go tomorrow and see how it goes.

 

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

I've been planning to make a short video about sharpening a scraper. There's things I've done "wrong" and learned to do them differently, also there's different levels of sharpening depending on the task. Nonetheless I think I've got the details covered in my head. What do you think, would such a video be worth filming?

Yes please! I'm onto my second day of experience using proper scrapers, and I'd like to be more learned before my next batch of builds. One thing I've noticed about this mahogany I'm using: it almost changes grain direction for patches. So I'll be scraped down the grain on a carve, and suddenly hit a patch which won't scrape glassy-smooth unless I flip the scraper around and go the other way. Is that my dodgy technique, or just a funky bit of wood? I'm making sure to keep my angle and pressure consistent as can be.

 

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Once I met a luthier who had his workshop in the basement. He had bedsheets hanging all over the place and before doing any delicate paint/lacquer job he wetted them thoroughly in order to catch any flying dust particles. Sort of a moist cubicle.

Interesting idea! I'll suggest to the wife that we need new bedsheets, and then I'll nick the old ones - I've been doing that for years, every time my band needs a new backdrop 

 

21 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Apart from that, do you sand across or with the grain when leveling the poly? And which direction do you apply it? I've never used it either but can it be related to applying TruOil and the likes where you'll have to wipe off anything that isn't absorbed?

I sand with the grain, for no other reason that if scratches happen to still be visible they will just blend into the grain direction unless a very close look is taken. I apply in the same direction. No, not really like TruOil - the poly goes tacky within about a minute, so it really is one shot at glory. If you miss an area upon application, it's best to wait until the next coat as opposed to touching it up on the same run, because your application brush or rag will just drag the surrounding finish. I've done a few guitars with this process, but none with the amount of forethought and experimentation as this one, nor as many coats.

 

 

So I went back to 600-grit and level sanded. The waves went away, not quite entirely but it's much better. During sanding I noticed a part where the arm carve meets the top getting a touch lighter in colour than the rest of the finish, and stopped immediately. I seem to have cut through a few more layers of poly there, which means my level-sanding before finishing was incomplete. Damn! I'll grab a photo of it tomorrow, but it's not so bad as it may seem. Again, being a personal instrument, I'm a little more lax with the final quality, which is an astonishingly bad habit to get into, but I'm also a musician who's instruments tend to relic themselves within a few years instead of decades. If it were a client's instrument, as the other two guitars on the bench are, it would be a case of sanding back to bare wood and refinishing, and my apologies for the two week delay. 

Speaking of the other two builds - I had a productive day making control cavity covers, drilling holes and gluing little magnets into them, delicate tasks like installing Floyd Rose nuts, and scraping carves. Tomorrow looks like sanding, filler, sanding, and more sanding!

 

- Jam

[mistermikev]

poly really is a difficult finish to do gloss w imo.  if you cut through any layer and then look at it in the light... you'll have witness lines.  So each coat has to be so thick that you won't wetsand thru... and more importantly the target has to be absolutely flat... or the coat will have to be even thicker, that you don't wetsand thru despite an irregular surface.  and if you put on a thick coat you'll have that much more wet sanding to do.  vicious cycle.

just my 2 cents but once you have witness lines... not much you can do.  if I was gonna do a gloss by hand... I'd use nitro.  Each layer melts into the next layer so you just need to build it up thick enough and then wetsand to flat after it has cured for 4 weeks.

 

all that said, never met a tele I didn't like.  is a handsome body.  nice work.

[Bizman62]

2 hours ago, Akula said:

I sand with the grain, for no other reason that if scratches happen to still be visible they will just blend into the grain direction unless a very close look is taken.

Hmm... I just can't help wondering that if there's grooves and you sand along them, you'd also be sanding the bottoms. Sanding across the brushing direction should at least in theory knock just the ridges off and level the surface without taking too much of the finish off. In theory, I repeat.

[Akula]

On 8/11/2023 at 4:08 AM, mistermikev said:

poly really is a difficult finish to do gloss w imo.  if you cut through any layer and then look at it in the light... you'll have witness lines.  So each coat has to be so thick that you won't wetsand thru... and more importantly the target has to be absolutely flat... or the coat will have to be even thicker, that you don't wetsand thru despite an irregular surface.  and if you put on a thick coat you'll have that much more wet sanding to do.  vicious cycle.

just my 2 cents but once you have witness lines... not much you can do.  if I was gonna do a gloss by hand... I'd use nitro.  Each layer melts into the next layer so you just need to build it up thick enough and then wetsand to flat after it has cured for 4 weeks.

 

all that said, never met a tele I didn't like.  is a handsome body.  nice work.

Yep, I agree, it's a feature of polyurethane finishes. I do intend to do a nitro finish on another build very soon.

On 8/11/2023 at 4:57 AM, Bizman62 said:

Hmm... I just can't help wondering that if there's grooves and you sand along them, you'd also be sanding the bottoms. Sanding across the brushing direction should at least in theory knock just the ridges off and level the surface without taking too much of the finish off. In theory, I repeat.

Good theory, but when sanding with a flat block it doesn't make much difference which direction you're going. Sanding without a block, yep I think it would definitely help, but sanding anything without a block tends to make for a less than flat surface.

 

Anyhoo, my 20 coats have been reached, and the guitar is now hanging up to cure for at least a week before I start polishing and buffing. 

 

Still sanding the other two. They really just need to get sanded up to a decent level, grain filled, then off to the third party spray shop they go!

 

 - Jam

[Bizman62]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

when sanding with a flat block it doesn't make much difference which direction you're going.

If so, then why do finishing gurus instruct to sand at an angle across the previous direction when changing to a finer grit? I can't understand why directional grooves made by a brush or a rag would act differently to grooves made with sandpaper. The only difference I can think of is wave length (in lack of a better term).