DC Ross

There're so many different good tones in so many different genres, it's hard to just name a few...

Metal: Sepultura - Chaos A.D.; Megadeth - Peace Sells

Rock: Alice In Chains - Facelift; Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking; Joe Bonamassa - So, It's Like That

Classic Rock: AC/DC - Back in Black; Black Sabbath - Master of Reality; The Who - Live at Leeds

Pop: Icehouse - Man of Colours; B-52s - The B-52s; Bob Mould - Black Sheets of Rain

Acoustic: Chris Whitley - Living With the Law; Leon Redbone - Up a Lazy River; Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries

Indie: Pixies - Doolittle; Shellac - At Action Park

+1. David gives a pretty good description here. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. You'd laugh if you saw my first one -- I used scrap flooring, part of an old cabinet door and bits left over from various home improvement projects.

If you don't have the means to build a neck, how are you going to be building the body?

Beautiful chunk 'o wood.

Based on Spoke's comment a few posts ago, do you guys think that I'm removing too much of the filler?

Not sure about he SC245 specifically, but most PRS body angles (or "tapers" if you prefer) are from the upper horn to just behind the bridge.

Are the bushings lubricated properly?

Thanks, 'Spoke. I bought this (as well as the sanding sealer and clear) a while ago, before I realized that Target was the mfr. Good idea on the additives, silica is usually what's added to epoxy for filling or filleting. I may do some tests with it if I stick with this stuff.

My first thought was that I was pulling it out of the pores, so on the next application I thoroughly checked after squeegeeing, and it was perfectly flat and level. The filler sunk down into the pores after squeegeeing.

I know this stuff sets up pretty quick

That's the thing, it doesn't set up quick at all (check my previous posts for some of the times that I waited before squeegeeing).

There's a section in the current Make magazine on 3D manufacturing at home if anyone's interested. It's a great magazine in general as well.

Is that the tortoise sheet from Grizzly? I got one & took it back -- the yellow in it is just obnoxious. Interesting headstock idea, how does it feel to tune?

Check out some Taunton DVDs from your local library. If you're lucky they may even have Frank Finoccio's guitar building series.

Torch top cleaners do not work. When I was starting out, I didn't want to shell out the cash, so I gave these a shot. It's not like they kind of work and will get you by. They just outright do not work.

Drak, what filler do you use?

No, we did. We were all just waiting to see how long it took you to figure it out

There's nothing that says you have to lock the nut, especially if you're not going crazy on the trem.

Just replace it with a Gibson-style nut if you want to go through the trouble.

StewMac's tech support wrote back saying that it may be old, that it only has a year-long shelf life, so that may be part of the problem with the Colortone stuff. Still doesn't account for the CrystaLac though. Oh, and yes, I stirred the crap out of this stuff

Perfectly dead flat is the goal. This particular guitar will have a black cherry burst:

Filler just applied:

Filler just squeegeed off:

Two others will be a solid colour, and two more will be a transparent white.

Any additional help is greatly appreciated.

On a scale of 1-10, I'd say it's at a 9 right now.

The way I remove the excess is pretty straightforward: after about 10-15 minutes, take a flexible squeegee-type thing and lightly remove the excess at a 45° angle, still leaving a bit of filler on the surface, then lightly wipe any ridges left by the squeegee (not even touching the body itself, just "brushing" the tops of the ridges away). I honestly don't think it's possible to make it any less agressive.

I saw Dan Erlewine's method of using a scraper and burlap to vigorously remove the excess, I can only imagine that would drag all the filler out of the pores. He also said that he didn't like the water-based filler because it dried before he even had a chance to remove the excess. I let both the ColorTone and CrystaLac set for an hour and then they were just drying.

My thoughts are that either the fillers are so thin that it just keeps seeping deeper and deeper into the pores, the pores are huge, or a combination of the two. Like I had said, after a few minutes of letting the filler sit, it was very noticable where the pores were drinking it in, so there's really no pressing it in involved.

Sure thing, here we go from a clean, freshly sanded body (to 320). These steps are basically following the instructions.

1. Blow off the body w/ compressed air

2. Wipe it down w/ Naptha & let dry

3. Liberally apply the filler to one side of the body, brushing it with the grain

4. Let it set up for a few minutes. I experimented with this step, with times ranging from a few minutes to 20 + minutes. The longer I let it sit, the more the pores were visibly drinking it in, so I would occasionally brush it back across the pores to give them more to suck in.

5. Squeegee off the excess filler at a 45° angle to the grain using a homemade version of the StewMac grain filler spreader

6. Carefully wipe off any remaining residue (like the ridges left from the squeegee) with a shop towel

7. Sand with 320, making very sure to only sand down to the level of the pores (not removing any wood at all)

8. Repeat x ∞

The instructions state to work in 6" areas or less, presumably because the filler would start to set up & harden quickly. This was certainly not my experience. I applied it liberally to a test piece and let it sit for an hour and it was still not 100% dry.

I'm sure it's related to technique, because I've tried these same steps with CrystaLac with the same results (although this stuff is a bit more gelatinous).

Thanks. And yes, I do pretty much hate this stuff right now

Not to start a debate here , but anyone who fixes this guitar will do so with abrasives. If it was buzzing on 2 consecutive frets , I'd call TR , but the 17th and 19th ? doubt theres a correctable bow that would cause that.

I still vote for a fine nail file - taken in 3 or 4 stroke incriments. He said the nearest tech was 4 hours away and its 2 frets , not his whole board...........

spot fix it. Its worked for me more than once.

BTW - when I say use the "fine" side I mean that. They go up to 12,000 grit and they're just the right size for working small areas.

The OP is obviously not a tech. There's a bit more to diagnosing and fixing high or low frets than what is outlined here. Fretwork is a precision operation, and without knowing the cause of the buzzing, sanding the frets with reckless abandon will more than likely make things worse and probably create new problems. On the plus side, it'll take about three months of vigorous sanding with 12,000 grit to do anything

Has anyone had any luck with this stuff? This is the first time I've tried it, and I'm on the 12th (!) application on a Honduran Mahogany body and the pores are still not filled. Is there a technique that I'm missing that's not covered in the instructions?

It's really thin stuff, too, which I'm sure is a big part of it.

Thx,

-dcr

I saw that Frank Finoccio uses Titebond, so I gave it a shot. It seems to work quite well.

Seems like it would be a PITA to work around the neck like that, but whatever works for you...

If Warmoth lists the radius of the last fret, say 10"-16" as an extreme example, what TOM (or any non-adjustable saddle bridge for that matter, like a Floyd, etc...) could you possibly use if you needed to?

Actually, thinking it through, both the scale length and the number of frets would also change the bridge radius in this scenario.

Correct me if I'm wrong (never done compound radius), but as I understand it, a 10" - 16" radius, for example, would be 10" at the nut (duh), and 16" at the *bridge.* Not at the last fret. At least that's the way I'd do it.

Get yourself a contour gauge and measure your favourite neck profile, or go to Guitar Center and find one that you like and measure it.