johnsilver

Drak, thanks for the finish sequence explanation. That must have been a lot of airbrushing. Were you airbrushing dye? I hope you do the wetsanding tut. That will be very useful. I'm trying to get my finishes improved.

Setch, thanks. I appreciate the assistance and encouragement with the dent repair.

After letting the lacquer drop fill cure for several weeks - three I think but it seems more, I decided to tackle it today. I found a tutorial on Frank Ford's site (Frets.com). Following that, I made a mini scraper using a single sided razor blade and turning a slight hook on the edge by running it against a screwdriver shaft. Then I put a piece of cellophane tape over each corner leaving the middle exposed. It made a really neat scraper that leveled the drop fill down to the thickness of the tape. After that, I wet sanded with 2000 grit, then buffed with compound and then swirl polish. It came out pretty good. Its not invisible - I can find it with no problem - but its pretty good. Now on to hardware - finally. Shaving the lacquer drop fill using a mini scraper After sanding, buffing and polishing

Drak, very cool. That sunset burst and steer design would go for a lot down here in Texas. Your wet sanding prep appears flawless. Shows me how far I need to go to get my finishes to that level of preparation. I'm inspired. On the burst, it appears there is a yellow bit in the middle - if not yellow then at least a lighter bit that really enhances the sunset effect. I know David Myka has done finishes like that and he does so by wiping on dye I believe. I think you spray your bursts, so what was your approach? Looks great in any event. Listening to some Bonnie Raitt right now. I keep thinking about her playing this tele.

Alberto, that looks good. I can't wait to see it all assembled and ready to ROCK.

Works great on ebony. I just sand off the excess after the inlay is in. Can't comment on cocobolo but testing on scrap as Russ said will determine that. yellow tempera paint after scribing around inlay finished inlay after sanding and finishing

That is a truly beautiful guitar and inspiring craftsmanship.

Thanks!

Damn, and I was hoping to avoid going to Ace this weekend.

Eko, if you searched this forum, you would find numerous book references, but you would also find universal support for Melvyn's book. I've worn out my first copy and need to order another.

Jay, that's nice work. That's an awesome top. I also really like the headstock shape. FWIW, I think that guitar looks much better without a pickguard. Its obvious the shape is bothering you. Given that, my suggestion is to to ahead and correct it rather than hide it. I think you will be happier in the long run. Pukko, you da man with the renderings. That really helps visualize the finished product.

Its true. The burst at the edges is almost opaque due to the aforementioned cosmetic issue. Up close and personal, it doesn't look as dark as that last photo, and it is brown and not black. I need to find a way to take a better photo. This one was taken inside with the flash, and it made things look really dark.

I put another drop of nitro into the ding on Tuesday. I think that's the last drop as I have a nice raised area where the ding was. Now, I'll let it cure for a while and then come back to level and polish and see how it looks. I'm optimistic. While I'm waiting, I decided to dry fit the hardware on the body. The pickups are Seymour Duncans with gold covers. The bridge and tailpiece are gold TonePros. The two speed knobs seem to disappear, but I kind of like them. They look better than the two gold tophats. The fretwire is gold also. Excuse the fingerprints all over everything, and this isn't the greatest picture.

Sweet!

Well, clearly I'm no expert on this. Dan Erlewine's book describes using the same drop fill method for poly but using CA glue to fill instead of nitro. I just put another drop of nitro on the Paul. This stuff really shrinks back - goes as a reminder how much of this stuff is solids and how much is solvent.

Here are a couple of pics before and after I drop filled the dent. The lacquer shrinks back a lot as it drys, so I'll check it tomorrow and see where it is. It clearly will need more lacquer. I must say that from the initial efforts I am encouraged that I may be able to salvage the finish thanks to help from the folks on this forum (again). Boy, this guitar has been a trial. I took up this "sport" to help me be more patient. I'll let you know whether it is working or not as this guitar may yet turn out to be firewood. The subtitle to this thread is "it remains to be seen" for a reason. I gave my son the good news, bad news a while ago. Good news was that most of the guitar was really shiny. Bad news was that I screwed up really badly through carelessness. He was very good and encouraged me not to hurry, even though I could tell he was a bit disappointed. I'll persist because I am old and stubborn. dent before drop fill dent after light steaming and initial drop fill

Setch & Jon, thanks! Setch, your situation (ouch) sounds just like mine except bigger. I steamed the dent a bit and it didn't really change so I'm concluding it really is just in the lacquer. The lacquer is pretty thick at that part since I used so much brown toner followed by lots of clear. After waiting several hours anyway, I dropped filled using a toothpick to drop the lacquer. The initial drop completely filled the gap but shrank back a little so probably one more drop will do it. I'll probably wait overnight for the next drop. If that seems to do it, then it will be back to waiting ( ) before I can level the spot, sand and polish again.

OK, trouble in paradise here. When bringing the guitar in from the garage, I bumped it against my workbench. It left a ding in the top (of course). The ding appears to be just in the lacquer and not in the wood. Here is a pic. I haven't fully researched solutions but am about to head over to the finishing section to look for relevant posts. I did take a look at Dan Erlewine's guitar repair guide. It suggested a couple of things. One was to heat the surface using a heat gun or something like that to allow the lacquer to soften and maybe flow back into the dent. I don't like the sound of that. The other was to drop a bit of lacquer thinner into the dent, allow it to evaporate, then drop fill some undiluted lacquer into the dent. If that doesn't fill it completely, allow it to dry overnight, then drop some more, etc. When the gap is filled, then sand and polish. I'd appreciate any thoughts from anyone who solved a similar problem. Thanks in advance.

Algee and Godin, thanks a lot! Godin, the burst looks black but it is Colortone medium brown. Its applied pretty heavily so it is really dark. Mike, I took your advice and tracked down a Meguiars foam pad at an auto paint shop. I used it to apply the swirl remover using my randow orbital sander (Craftsman 5"). It worked great. I felt a lot more in control because the random orbital sander doesn't have the torque my drill has or the action is different, but whatever, I liked it. I even did the neck and it didn't grab at all. The shop only had one so I need to get some more for the next project. Thanks a lot for the suggestion. Here are a couple of updated pics after applying the swirl remover. That stuff did a great job. It came from Stewmac. body front - 7 layer binding body back - 5 layer binding head plate with gold mop inlay - 3 layer binding upper bout reflecting ceiling of my garage waist area where sandthrough was - showing the top binding

This is interesting for me since I am completing a Tele thinline style without an f hole. Don't ask me why, it just happened that way. At least it has a really big pickguard.

Thanks for your support guys. Mike, I'll look for those pads this weekend. Thanks. Setch, the fret ends are in pretty good shape and weren't a factor in deciding how to polish the neck. I chose to polish the neck by hand because it felt more in control for me. Also, I didn't want the neck to be as shiny as the body, if that makes any sense. Hand polishing worked up a sweat though, so I might try pads next time. Cracked, this is the first time I've pressed frets. The two previous times were hand hammered. I really enjoyed pressing and plan to do that from now on. After pressing, I cut the frets close and then filed them flush and angled them. All that, including bending the frets to radius and cutting them to rough size took a couple of hours. It took longer to bend and cut them than it did to press them. I still need to do the final fret leveling and recrowning and a final dress on the ends. After that, its install the hardware and electronics, then set up the guitar. My oldest son, for whom this guitar is intended, told me he ran into an old friend who teaches guitar and they are working together on expanding their blues techniques. This guitar may not be exactly the right rig for that, but I always knew he would grow up sometime.

Mike, thanks. Where do you get the foam pads for your orbital sander? I would like to use those since my sander had multiple speeds and I'm sure would be easier to contro than my drill.

OK, finally got back in town and was able to work on the LP. The lacquer was nice and cured having sat for over 5 weeks. I wet sanded the entire guitar using 1000 and then 1200 grit. With the previous level sanding and the flash coats, the finish was pretty smooth so I got by starting with 1000 grit. It took a while so maybe I should have started with 800. Don't know. Then I polished it using Stewmac's polishing compounds. I started with the medium and then did the fine. I used the foam pads in a hand held drill. For the neck and sides and headstock, I polished by hand as the drill felt awkward. It came out pretty good. I'll let it sit for a while and then have a closer look. I haven't fully cleaned up after the polish yet when I took the pics. Got plenty of compound sprayed around my work bench. The cat escaped most of the mess. If I'm happy, I'll proceed to install hardware and electronics next time I get a work opportunity. Soon, I hope. Anyway, here are a couple of pics. I hope you like them. front shot - you can see my two cars parked in the driveway another front shot but from the other side shot of the back - there is still some compound in the cavity cover seams and I managed to capture my fingers holding the camera body shot outside in the sun

Well folks, nothing new to report on the guitar front. I'm still travelling now. I've been in Jakarta, Indonesia for the past week and am leaving my hotel in a few hours for a 3am (ouch) flight to Doha, Qatar for another week. I can't wait to get home and wet sand and polish out the LP. I've been missing the guitar work - funny how that works. At least this hotel had free internet so I could check on everyone else's progress. Progress pics soon.

Thirdstone, very nice. I like it and would like to hear it. Maybe I'll make one. Congrats. Your persistence paid off.