avengers63

So, with the testimonies of guitar2005 & killemall8, we're no further along than we were a few days ago. That's pretty typical. A general rule of thumb (no pun intended) is the Thumbnail Test. Try to dent the finish with your thumbnail. If you can do it, it needs to cure longer. If not, you're probably good to go. A good place to try it is under where the neckplate will go. If you dent the finish there, it won't ever be seen.

At Home Depot, you can get a 6" buffer from Ryobi for $20. I plan on getting one next time I have to polish up a body.

Honestly, I have NO idea how automotive clear coat would react to wood. It might be great, it might be a pile of poo. All I can say is that it was intended to go over automotive paint, which was intended to go on metal, fiberglass, and body filler (Bondo). For my time & money, I'd rather use a finish that was meant to go on wood. FWIW: I use Meguairs swirl remover for the final polish. Meguairs is an automotive finish product which works beautifly on lacwuer, a wood finish. Maybe Dupli-Color clear coat would be fantastic. Maybe not. If you go this route, I'd use a sealer coat first. Basic sanding sealer would be fine. This would prevent the clear from soaking into the body. If it doesn't work out, you'd be able to get the clear off of the body. Without the sealer, it'd soak into the wood and might not EVER come off all the way. Better safe than sorry!

Since I've not used the spray from the box stores, I can't comment directly. The name-brand brush-on and aerosol finished from there have been just fine, though. It would be reasonable to think that a name brand spray would be OK as well. FWIW: I'm not 100% sure the lacquer I'm using is nitro. According to Flexner, most commercially available lacquers ARE nitro, though they don't specifically say so.

FWIW: A qart can here in the states is about $10. Give it a shot. At that price, it wouldn't be much of a financial loss.

It's almost readt to inlay into the bloodwood. I have the whole thing glued onto a piece of cherry veneer. (Thanks for the suggestion, jmrentis!) Woodweld is so easy to use! A little spooged through the gaps onto the face when I was putting the initial coat onto the piece. Fortunately, it cleaned right off with mineral spirits. I'll need to do a little gap-filling with some splinters, but other than that, it's ready to be inlaid into the plaque.

I'll be using brush-on lacquer for the next few projects. It worked like a charm on the last neck I finished. Lacquer is super-easy to use, too. For that 12th fret inlay: did a wing break off? I see a line where one meets the body.

If you're going to make a cover plate on the headstock, I'd take some of the leftover flamed maple from the top and use it instead of the F/B wood. Are you using zebra as the accent laminate in the neck or as the main wood? If it's the accent..... why? In my mind, zebra is all about the striped grain. With it as the accent laminate, you'll never see the striping, thus defeating the point. I'd go with padauk stringers instead to match up better with the wings.

I got the body & headstock all primered up. Or at least I THOUGHT I did. I got out some 320 grit and went to smooth the primer coat. I was using a pretty light touch, but even that was too much for the edges. Two swipes sanded through most of the corners. I'm not the least bit upset, though. I'd rather learn about this now than when the final painting is done. Man, I'd be HACKED if I was smoothing the last coat and went through to the wood! Oh well. Maybe I'll be able to get to the yellow Monday.

I have a cake pan in the shape of an acoustic guitar. For my birthday, my wife makes me a big guitar brownie instead of a cake.

My Steinberger has a 0-fret. Maybe these things are designed the same way. Do the necks on the guitars these were scavenged from have a 0-fret?

Alder isn't a bad wood. It's very commonly used. Seeing that it's on a Squire, you can bet they weren't too picky with the quality of wood, though. Not being mean here: Here's what a dude told me when I was wanting to "fix up" a cheap axe I had. "You can't polish a turd." You'll have poured a lot of time & money into a project and still have a poor quality item. The basic building blocks have to be there or the foundation will crumble.

It's just to make it easier to feed the wiring through the chanel. Were it not there, the wires can get stuck in the hole that would be drilled.

+1 to everything already said. To re-enforce the point: Don't even consider doing it freehand or without a locking depth guide. The inlay will (or at least should be) flat, so you want a flat surface to inlay it into. You'll NEVER get a flat hole doing it freehand. Also, if you freehand it, you WILL run over the edge. The motor is more powerfun than your grip when freehanding a delicate, precise area. It'll jump right over before you can stop it. And show us what you've done when you make some progress!

I have prpbably 20+ sheets of chery left. I was planning on attaching the whole thing to another piece of veneer with the grain going the opposite direction. I was originally thinking to put it on walnut, but you're right - cherry would make a LOT more sense given where the gaps are. The reason for putting the whole thing on another sheet is purely for assembly strength. It'll make the whole thing a LOT stronger. It'll also allow the cavity it's inlaid into to be a little deeper. I'm thinking about margin for error. The veneer is only about 1/42 inch thick. I've also seen this suggested on marquetry tutorials. I'm going to finish the whole thing with lacquer. The main reason is the gaps. If I use poly, I'll need to use sanding sealer first. When that's scuff-sanded, I'm concerned that the gaps might fill with sealer dust. That would look just gawd-offal. Lacquer is it's own sealer, so that completely eliminates the problem.

I'm really learning a lot from this project. I found a couple of on-line tutorials which I read a couple of times. That, combined with a hefty ammount of trial & error, is making for a great learning experience. Monday night, I divided the shield in half and stained the right side black. As it dried, I cut & fit the center dividing stripe. I had to leave the whole ting alone for a day as the stain dried. Last night, after I fit the right side of the shield into place, I managed to fit the wind cup & 1/2 of the F-D-L into place. At this point, with the exception of the F-D-L pieces, the whole thing is held together with blue painters tape. You can see very small gaps where things aren't quite lining up exact in some places. Aside from re-doing the whole thing, does anyone have any suggestions? I'm thinking about either grain filler or trimming off "splinters" to fill the gaps. With grain filler, I'm a little concerned that it'll dork up the black, which is stained walnut.

I actually have 13 pedals in both of my boards right now. The EQ, Sonic Stomp, Hush, and RP50(for reverb) are the only ones that are always on. I frequently have the chorus/phaser/flanger on, but only one of the three. I'll only use one distortion at a time. All the others are only selectively used. So, at most, I might have 7 going if I'm using the wah. In a normal scenario, I'll have 5-6: the basic 4 with distortion and some time-effect like chorus or delay. I forgot to mention the I own a Danelectro Free Speech talk box.

Thanks for making me look conservative with the number of pedals I have!

Sure - I'll play too. HAVE GUITARS custom telecaster Steinberger, strat pups Carvin kit, modified w/ Bartolini H/Bs Gretsch jumbo cutaway acoustic w/Fishman Westone Rail bass AMPS Carvin SX200, used as a 2x12 cabinet Crate Power Block 100w head EFFECTS (good Lord - I'm a pedal junkie) Digitech GSP-21 multi effects - floor model (not used) Rockrton Big Crush compressor Boss acoustic simulator 70's DOD 6-band EQ VOX wah Digitech RP50 (tuner & reverb) Seymour Duncan volume boost Digitech Bad Monkey overdrive Marshall Guv'nor overdrive Marshall Jackhammer distortion Digitech 1550 (?) programable distortion Boss DS-1 distortion Boss HM-1 metal distortion Danelectro Metal distortion DOD chours DOD phaser MXR flanger Rocktron Short Timer delay Rocktron Hush (Gee, ya think? I might need 2!) BBE Sonic Stomp sonic maximizer (FWIW: I currently only have the two Marshall distortion boxes in my board. I'm considering adding the Bad Monkey) WANT Gibson SG standard, heritage cherry, block/trapezoid inlays, double sided pickguard Home-Made guitars: modified Danelectro bow-tie w/lipstick or DeArmond pups modified PRS w/P-90's firebird w/mini-humbuckers heavily modified Gibson LP/Dean Cadillac hybrid w/Filtertron pups bass amp

Assuming he didn't do any mods to the wiring, the little switch is a jumper that allows the neck pup to be on when the bridge is on. It allows 2 extra options: all three and neck/bridge. It's a neat little option.

I'll be using a pickguard. I'd much rather have a solid front to show off the paint, but it'd be more work than I'm interested in doing to fill in the body. If I were going that route, it'd be just as easy (maybe easier) to make a whole new body.

Those Carvin kits are nice. I've been using one for +/- 10 years. The necks are GREAT.

Then I guess we're both Boyz In Da Hood, because that's what I do too. I figure to eventually get some real depth guages eventually. For now, the tape works fine. I think I read that tip in a book, actually.

Sunday was incredibly productive for me. My wife laid down for a nap around 1:30, then left with the kids from 4-7. That's right, I had over 6 uninterrupted hours to play! Disassembly only took about 15 minutes or so. I grouped pieces & screws in baggies for the sake of sanity later. I found the orbital sander in the garage and the stock of sandpaper and went to town on the body! I anticipated a little aprehension when attacking the guitar I've been using for 10 years. I was wrong. It seems that doing the little yellow thing and the tele gave me enough confidence. Cool. I had no intention of sanding through the yellow-ish stain to bare wood. I only needed to remove the old finish & level out the minor bumps. & scratches. It IS getting painted. Unexpected surprise: After wiping the body down with mineral spirits to remove the dust, I really like the looks of the alder. I wouldn't want it as a wood toned guitar body, but for other woodworking projects, it looks nice. Anyway, this week I figure to tape off the neck & control cavity and primer the thing white.

Sunday was incredibly productive for me. My wive laid down for a nap around 1:30, then left with the kids from 4-7. That's right, I had over 6 uninterrupted hours to play! I'm sure I don't need to tell you, but I will anyway... That fleur-de-lis was a huge PIA. I had to re-do each poece at least once. BUT, I learned a whole lot through trial & error. I don't regret the time spent. All the pieces are edge-glued with CA. I need to do some final shaping, then I can start cutting out the walnut. I decided to not put the outline on the wind cup. I know that at this stage, I won't be able to make the round cuts consistentantly. I'd rather opit a detail than do it badly. The highlights on the cups turned out OK, though. Hopefully, there'll be more progress this week.