Sybex23

wow..they are quite similar,aren't they? ← Can you tell me how you bind the fingerboard with the abalone strips? Most of the guitars I have seen like this have fingerboard on the outside of the binding or inlay as well. Do you glue the strips of abalone on and then glue strips of the fingerboard material on over them or, is the abalone just inlaid along the fingerboard edge?

What a great looking piece of wood. What did that set you back??

VERY NICE!! I hope mine comes out as well. I love the color too.

Thanks for posting your feedback. In response to the requests, Here is how to do it: 1. What was used: House of Kolor Paints (www.HouseOFKolor.com) 1. Black Base 2. Marbelizer Artistic Base Coat 3. ADHERTO - Adhesion Promoter 4. Urethane Enamel Kandy 5. Poly Urethane Klear 1. Prep the body normally - prime/seal, finish sand etc.... 2. Then paint a base black coat. 3. After the base, paint a coat of the marbelizer. While the coat is wet, get some plastic wrap (Saran wrap or such). Use a size appropriate for the area you are painting. For instance, the headstock piece was about 8 x 10 inches. You then roll the saran wrap into a ball and then un-roll it so that it has wrinkles. Then just dab it on and off of the painted surface. This will create a pattern in the marbelizer. 4. After it dries, shoot a coat of ADHERTO adhesion promoter to encourage adhesion of the paint. (Not sure this is really necessary, but House of Kolor recommends it) 5. Shoot coats of desired color. In this case an emerald candy green. There are 4 coats of green on the body. 6. Clear coat for finish - 2 coats. 7. After completely dry - usually a few days, but I think it was a week for this one - use 1000 grit (wet) to knock off any nibs or imperfections. Then 2000 to finish. 8. After sanding, 3M Finesse It II was used with a handheld rotary polishing tool. Some additional notes: The marbelizer color adapts to the base coat. In this case it was blue when applied, but the candy coats it green and that is what you see. This is similar to how a candy red works off of a silver or gold metallic base and then a red toned clear. Using urethane has proven much easier than Nitro for me. The urethane goes on like glass, and unless you have a lot of imperfections, you can sand with a fine grit and finish rather quickly. I know there are a lot of debates over Nitro vs. Urethane, and I am not going to argue it either way. I have finished 2 other guitars using Nitro, and while they came out fine, they were a lot more work to finish. Also, as I generally use a modelling amp or effects anyway, tone has not been an issue for me, although I will say that the guitars done with urethane have not sounded appreciably different to me.

weez: I'll take more photos including the neck shortly and post. I also painted gothic scripted letters down the back of the neck and then cleared over them. The face of the peghead is painted to match the body. jammy: I ordered from universaljems here: HT-10 but it looks as if they are backordered for a month or so.

Here are a couple of pics of my recently painted kit from universaljems. It is a marblized candy emerald green. Probably not for everyones taste, but I think it came out great. Sybex23

Thanks for the info. Great tutorial by the way. I also got the templates, thanks again. Once I get them to scale correctly when printed, I'll begin this whole thing. If I can ever figure out how to post photos, I'll post a body I recently painted. It uses a marblizer and emerald green candy paint from House Of Kolor. I think it looks great but would like some feedback.

In one of the posts above you mentioned John Catto's plans. Are these available somewhere?

Thanks for the info. I guess I never really thought about the fact that it only has to work on that guitar, and so a template is not really needed. Here is another question. Since the top is carved as is the body in the picture above this post, how do you cut the angle on the top that the fingerboard around the tenon sits on? In other words, if the neck angle is say 4 degrees, and you want to angle the top of the pocket the same so that the fingerboard sits flush as do most les pauls, what is the best way to measure and cut the top to be accurate? The top in this case refers to the top of the body. Do you cut it before carving?

Thanks. I am an old old man of 38.

Hello, Great forum, I am enjoying hanging out here and learning a lot. Does anyone know where I can get a template for a Les Paul neck joint? I have looked at several online merchants, but almost everything is for the fender style bolt-on rather than the mortise and tenon that gibson uses. Also, how do you post pictures in these threads? I don't have my own site, and cannot host. Thanks All, Sybex23