gpcustomguitars

Thanks!

This went quick, it was done in 15mins. Used some Fairy for lubrication, oil would mess up my workspace...just polishing left to do.

It shows?

Thanks for the encouragement! I'll do what I can with scrapers first, and then start sanding when I absolutely have to...The plan is to apply oil ASAP , probably during weekend, so it dries while I do all the detail work on frets, saddles, bridge etc...It doesn't look like much work, but I'll probably spend more time doing it than I can afford. Also, I'll have another one to finish just after this one, same materials mostly, just different shape, so more sanding ahead

I made one ferrule today, took me about 20mins total, drilling, turning, polishing. Since I made a jig for it now, others should take less time.

Routed out the angled pup cavity, went really nice, and skipped the yesterday's oil coat, it's got a nice sheen already, but it's not ready for sanding or buffing, so it will just sit a while to see where I'm at. I plan to finish the electronics cavity, and then start sanding the body, probably.

Couldn't resist a new mockup! The headstock shows the future color of the body.

The mix adds some yellow to the maple, but not too much, I like it. I even skipped the "test on walnut" part. I've added a tiny amount of both varnish and lineseed oil to the mix prior to second coat, about 0.2 varnish and 0.5 oil. After aplying about 3 coats every 15 mins, I've rubbed off the excess oil, and left it to dry. I plan to keep applying just one coat a day for the next few days, with some 800 sanding every day.

The sprayed part is OK, and will not need any more coats, just some touchups. I'll gently rub it down with 800 tommorrow to speed up the hardening, and leave it be for a few days.

Now I have to mix the beeswax paste. Also, managed to finish the pickup template and make some shims to route it following the neck angle, but the phone ate that pic...

I need an opinion - to oil or to lacquer the bridge? I would prefer to lacquer to make it stand out on the body, and for some added grime protection.

Thanks!

The first coat on the neck went great, I sanded with 800 and sprayed second one today, and that will probably be it. Looks and feels nice.

Also, I made my own oil finish, equal parts mineral thinner, oil based varnish, and boiled lineseed oil for painting. Looks dark, but has almost no color when aplied. I've tested it on some maple, mostly to see how much yellow it adds to the wood. It's drying now in the shop, can't wait to check on it tommorrow. The pic doesn't show it properly, but I've basically flooded the maple, to see what is the drying time, absorption etc...I will then test the mix on actual walnut.

Very nice design and a great build!

I've started finishing the neck, did some shaping on the bridge, routed the electronics cavity, and made the pup template. I have a feeling I have a lot of sanding in my near future...

A few new pics. My friend came to see the bass, and I just had to take this pic

I made the template for the neck, and started the pup one, and went about 15mm deep. Not shown in the pics is today's work, angled the template and routed some more with handheld router. Still some 2mm to go, but all is fine so far. I made the neck angle to suit the bridge, but didn't think to measure it, I think it's about 2 degrees at most.

Very nice, looking forward to the next update!

BTW, regarding the Tru-oil, I have the same problem in my part of the world, so I decided to try to mix my own. I found some recipes on the net, and used my father-in-law's vast knowledge of finishing, since that's his trade. It's 1:1:1 lineseed oil, turpentine and varnish, but he suggested to use a bit more turpentine, 1:1.3:1, but I have yet to try it. Anyway, the materials for a large batch shouldn't cost me more than 10 eur, so it might be worth looking into. After that I'll apply beeswax paste, also homemade. Should be interesting.

Well, I made the headstock out of the body offcut, to have it match the grain and color. Body is radiused, and so is the headstock, and I will finish the body in oil/wax, so I want to match that on the headstock, too. But I don't really like oiled necks, especially with lighter colored woods, because it darkens over time because of dirt, so everything but the headstock face up to the glue line will be sprayed.

I will probably not polish it after final wet sanding, so it looks more like the rest of the guitar surface.

I've managed to roughly shape the neck today, still need to fine tune it, so I brought it home to look at it for a while. I always find something more to do if I look at it at home...and I can't take a good photo whatever I try. Cameras hate me...

Anyway, I plan to oil the headstock face up to the glue line, and to spray the rest. The nut is supposed to be aluminum.

I had a lot of fun today! Headstock done, frets in, neck shaping tommorrow I hope.

Another small update - drilled the tuner holes, pilot, 14mm halfway, recessed the washers, tidyed up with dremel, and drilled trough with 14mm. Then some rough shaping on my homemade sander in the drill press.

Thanks Charlie!

Finally had some time to do something...radiused the fboard, scraped the inlays with turned craft knife blade (thanks, Prostheta!), had to redo the 12th, since he decided it forms a letter "U", and he opted for 2 parallel lines instead and thicknessed the headstock somewhat, I might be shaping the face tomorrow. Last but not least, glued in the last alu-piece of the bridge. I have to shape the bridge very slowly, because the alu parts easily get very hot and that could unglue them...

I kinda hate my job right now, so I might get a lot more time to work on guitars very soon...

I think that radiusing would look really nice, and would work with the wood grain...

The second one looks better to me, but both are fine. Make sure you take care of any sharp edges on those bridges, but the idea is great!

Nice clean work so far!

I'm not very fond of this method, but it worked. We decided on the position of the bridge, and that settled the location of the neck, so we have a first real mockup! Also we wiped the body with some water, and the figure is very nice, but I didn't take a pic of that.

Filling went fine, and then I trued up the alu-fences for the bridge, and using a spacer I made before, glued 2 of them in, third was too fiddly at the time. Will do it today, and can't wait to see how the logo will look when sanded/scraped.

After changing the bit, and with a help of the exacto knife, it's done. Will fill it this afternoon. I have to tape over it first with some masking tape and cut it trough, so not to mess up the surrounding wood too much. Should look nice, although I would have preferred MOP to black epoxy...

Yes, I will have to scrape it clean after the sanding, rosewood will color it, but I'm hoping it will look as I have planned. BTW, it's actually walnut offcuts from tapering the neck, so if the glue line is not too visible, it'll look like I had left these little stumps on the neck blank prior to glueing on the fretboard.

I forgot to say that it's a heavily modified GP, and in cyrillic leters, too. The pic shows just the first step of the rout, had to change the bit after that to something smaller.

It's supposed to be this:

and my friend wants me to fill it with black epoxy. I wanted to inlay a piece of MOP...

And the 12th done!

Inlaying my "GP" logo, and inlaying the 12th fretboard marker, I'll glue in a piece of rosewood this afternoon.

Thanks again, I have written it down in my little black book of LP info for future reference!