Captainstrat

And today, picked up a set of StewMac angled neck shims at the Post Office. The Pine-caster has a hard action regardless of what adjustments I make, those might be the ticket. Got one for the Pine-Caster, the MIM Strat, the current Sustainer Parts-caster project, and a spare one, just in case. While I enjoy a lightweight guitar, I also enjoy one that plays like butter

Right angle attachment received, Amazon aren't fooling when they say next day delivery!  If only the other couriers were as quick  still awaiting delivery of the thin cyanoacrylate glue, 9V battery compartment, output jack "cup" and pickguard screws...there was atime said parts were readily available in local stores....alas no longer

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

wow, creative but that is awful close to both the trem and the cover edge.  you can get really nice 9v box from china for less than $4

Yeah, got one on the way too, but it was one of the ideas I had, I was surprised someone thought of it first!

More than eying, pulled the trigger on one off Amazon  I'm thinking of doing something like this for the battery

, 

12 hours ago, mistermikev said:

you may consider the dremel easy chuch.  it allows for (slightly) bigger bits ie reg drill bits to chuck up.

I'm also eyeing the right angle attachment, according to a post on The Gear Page "it works perfectly for this application with regular length drill bits." 

Located my Dremel, the Dremel router kit and assorted bits.  If I can find compatible drill bits and a backup router bit, I'm in better shape than I thought!  

9 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

is this a strat 6 hole trem?  if not and it's a trem with studs I wouldn't hazard doing it w/o a drill press but consider: A) harbor freight has a drill guide or B ) you can use a known straight piece of 3/4" cut two pieces make a 90 and use the inside corner as a guide.

afa spring claw... I have a really long bit that I got ages ago from stew mac... these days you can hit harbor freight and for cheap get a long bit... or if you have a dremel (that's what I use) that will get in there just fine.

Yep, 6 hole trem  I'll check out Harbor Freight

Okay, day 6 of curing, more parts coming in through the mail.  My "subcontractor" got cold feet when I told him the body was Paulownia - I figured I'd ask a local tech to handle drilling the pilot holes for the bridge/spring claw in the trem cavity, strap pins etc. and to enlarge the swimming pool route a tad to allow the Sustainer's preamp to fit in...and to add a 9V battery compartment cavity.

While I have a power drill and a router, I don't have a drill press, a drilling template to make sure the drill bit doesn't meander, and I'm worried I'll rip out too much wood with the router...

I could order a plexi strat bridge set of templates from ebay, but the cost is a bit ridiculous considering I'd only use it once.  And I could use my manual drill and go at it nice and slow to make sure I'm drilling straight, then strengthen the wood fibers with thin cyanoacrylate glue (I ordered a bottle from Amazon).  And If I dig through my messy tool chest, I have a Dremmel tool in there with a small router attachment that would "rip off" less wood than my full sized router would...

The holes for the spring claw puzzle me though, how to drill those holes without the drill chuck chewing through the edge of the tremolo cavity, let alone making sure the holse are properly spaced and centered?

Any tips?

As usual, with lots of cussing, I got the electronics loaded onto the pickguard, hooked up a battery  and tested it by tapping the pickups with a piece of metal...we have signal!  The rails pickup is too wide for the pickguard, so I installed an old ceramic pickup that was gathering dust in my used pickup box instead.  The wiring is bulky as hell, so I might need to enlarge the pickup cavity. And I'll have to de-solder the jack when the body is ready, so the wires can get the wires to the output jack cavity....

Okay, here are the pics of the headstock with the locking tuners and the pickguard...kinda yellowish...its previous owner must have been a smoker!

So while the lacquer cures, I've turned my attention to the neck, a 22 fretter Strat-style maple neck I got from a UK Ebay seller (which I'd shelved a few years ago as I'd changed my mind on my then project guitar).  The Made-in-China "unbranded" locking tuners came in yesterday, so I installed them, and I must say, perfect fit!  The only thing that bothers me about it is that the truss rod access is at the heel rather than at the headstock.

Now I fully realize I should have done a test neck fitting before deciding to cover the body with 12 coats of lacquer, but by eyeballing it, it looks like the heel of the neck will be a perfect fit in the neck pocket.  I had read some reports that the neck pockets could be a bit snug on some of the bodies (and as the lacquer dries the wood might shrink a bit), but it looks like I've lucked out again!

Next I'll work on the electronics, I've received all of the missing parts to my Fernandes FSK-401 Sustainer kit (long story, bought it new, did a bunch of mods I shouldn't have...now I'm back to all original parts!  ) as well as a generic rails pickup I intend on using in middle position, between the driver and humbucker.

Now I might need to slightly enlarge the swimming pool cavity to make sure the Sustainer preamp circuit fits properly...and on a purely esthetic point of view, I may or may not replace the current loaded while pearloid pickguard with a plain black one...I dunno, I may be wrong, but white pearloid seems to have a nicer contrast on darker colors, on a "natural blonde" finish...pictures to come later!

On 3/27/2019 at 1:23 PM, mistermikev said:

looking good.  wet sanding?  never heard of it.  jk.  I've seen some guys use a drill and drum w buffing material attached for those horns... haven't tried it myself but might on my next finish.  I usually try to over sand before finish to limit the amount of work after finish is on.  also try to make sure my finish is really good in those parts if not everywhere else.

14 minutes ago, ScottR said:

That's actually a pretty nice looking hunk of wood.

SR

I lucked out! Wasn't sure what the mystery wood would be (China seller from Ebay, wood type unspecified in auction, told me it was Maple when I asked...not when it weights less than 3 lbs it's not!) and came with neck plate and this weird black "rubber mat" (to rpotect the wood I guess?)  For $50.00 canadian in cluding shipping, it was a calculated risk that paid off!

Curing time!

Okay...after getting freaked out by reports of boiled linseed oil soaked rags spontaneously combusting, and less than satisfactory oil paint tests in the pickup cavity, I returned the linseed oil and decided to stick with the Watco clear lacquer. The grain looks pretty nice if  a bit darker in spots, but that will be covered by the pickguard, so no big deal.

Finish sanded to 320 grit - and yes, my random orbital sander was a huge time saver!  Only the contours needed to be done by hand!  I'm already up to 10 coats of lacquer.  I had stopped at 8 coats on the Pinecaster, and sanded through in some spots, so I'll add extra coats for extra thickness - Stewart Macdonald recommends 12, should I do more?

Any tips for wet sanding the contours? The "inner horns" are going to be tricky!

This is what I'm thinking of doing

On 3/21/2019 at 3:55 PM, mistermikev said:

I've never finished paulownia body before,  its a great sounding wood but I'm turned off by how soft and easy to damage they are. As I understand it would take a lot like Pine does. You could consider putting a veneer over the top of it. Might take the stain better and of course look amazing!

The veneer is a good idea, but well abouve my meager skill set and available space/tools  while I have a lot of leftover Watco finish, I'll try to take a simpler route...I've read and seen a lot of examples of using an oil paint / linseed oil combination to acheive some sweet looking translucent finishes....so I'm thinking of applying several coats of Minwax wood conditioner to seal the pores, fine sand and apply several coats of "pigmented linseed oil" until I acheive the desired shade

1 hour ago, mistermikev said:

not any sort of expert but looks an awful lot like paulownia to me

Thought so...gave it some extra sanding...that end grain will be trouble I think...from what I've read Paulownia takes stain quite well, I still have that Azure water based stain (which looked blotchy on a scrap piece of pine) I wanted to use on the Pinecaster then decided to stick with Nitro (Watco) I wouldn't mind a translucent blue strat body, but there is very little info on Google on finishing Paulownia guitar bodies...Paulownia furniture takes stain well, but how evenly would that body take the water based stain?

Definitely not Maple as the seller claims!  I'm aiming to build a Sustainer Strat (FSK 401 kit) using a maple neck (UK seller, Canadian maple) and this body...

It's a bit rough and needs fine sanding, definitely lighter than the pine body I used on my Pine caster, not a bad looking grain...I've had a few raw Alder bodies in the past which didn't have a grain pattern like this, never seen a raw (unfinished ) Basswood or Agathis bodies to tell what they look like; Paulownia might have a similar grin pattern...

what do the experts say? The seller claims the shipping weight was about 3 lbs, but it feels a lot lighter!

10 hours ago, ShatnersBassoon said:

Nice, the pine gives it a very ready to Rock n Roll look 😁 I believe the early Tele prototypes were pine weren’t they? 

Indeed they were, my partscaster is a cross between a Modern Player Telecaster (same neck and those also comes with a pine body)  and the 2017 Limited Edition American Professional Pine Telecaster

Well, this Telecaster project was a great learning experience.  I'm still patting myself on the back for not screwing up the neck heel, and the fret dress turned out okay!  I'm thinking that I could use my digital calipers to determine the first fret height (low E, High E and between the D & G strings) and use those measurements with feeler gauges to make sure the nut slots are cut deep enough that the action is comfortable but not so deep that I'm getting fret buzz...

And that's a skill I can carry over to my other guitars.  

9 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Okay, I was wondering whether the nut might be causing issues in the first position. It would seem it's the frets then. Do you have a small straightedge or a fret rocker? I know they're functionally useless on a neck when it has a little necessary relief, however you might find something to explore further as a culprit. If you do find something, try and prove that is what the problem is using two investigative techniques....no point in chasing anything and everything as you can quickly compound issues than solve them.

Being a pre-made neck, I presume that the frets are seated well enough. I used tap them with my fret rocker (about all I use it for) to listen for poorly-seated frets. They sound different.

The buzz seems to have gone away, I just didn't realize I'd over tightened the truss rod - the fingerboard wasn't touching the slotted straight edge!  I loosened it up, the neck got straighter...looks like I'd created a back bow

10 hours ago, Prostheta said:

How's the nut?

Very lightly deepened the nut slots with abrasive tape so half the circumference sits in the slot - some of the strings were sliding out of the slots!  I don't think I sanded too deep, though I'd need a jig of some sort to fine tune the nut slots

Okay, so I gave the fingerboard another go last night -  taped the fingerboard, marked the frets with a Sharpie,adjusted the truss rod until the neck was straight (turns out the truss rod was turned too tight, creating a back bow), went over the frets with 440 sandpaper (this time using a radiused sanding block), marked the frets again with the sharpie, then crowned them alternating between the concave fret file and the Little Bone crowning file.

To be honest, I find that the Little Bone does a nicer job at crowning (it has a diamond abrasive surface), but is hard to handle due to its small size, whereas the concave fret file is easier to handle but does a shitty job at crowning (takes several passes and a lot of elbow grease to get the marker traces filed off the frets) ... so I'd give the frets an initial pass with the fret file and finish the job with the Little Bone (in fact, the Little bone proved to be indispensable past the 12th fret as I moved closer to the body).

Then, I gave each fret a "polish sanding" with a piece of fine sandpaper (I forget if I used 600 or 800 grit), then polished each fret to a gloss with 0000 steel wool (couldn't find the synthetic equivalent unfortunately) .  Lastly, I gave the frets a rub with Scratch X with a dry cloth, It turned out nicer than I expected, the string bending is much smoother, but...I was getting buzzing on the D & G strings when playing the first three frets...I had zero buzzing prior to the fret job.

After double-checking the neck with my fingerboard straight edge, turns out I'd over tightened the truss rod again, recreating a back bow.  So...loosened the truss rod bit by bit until the fingerboard was touching the straight edge at the first three frets again.  Me thinks the seller's efforts to relic the neck may have weakened it to the point that it's too flexible?  Anyway, it seems to have gotten rid of the buzz on the D & G strings.  I'll test it again when I'm home from work, see how the neck settled under string tension.

5 hours ago, Prostheta said:

Yeah, avoid steel wool. I like a Dremel and polishing mop with white aluminium oxide polish along the frets. That's found in stores as Autosol (not Anusol, which takes a while and causes your fret ends to shrink back) or in metalwork sections as "white blizzard" polish. Anything white is generally the right stuff.

LOL, I used ScratchX, but I might have skipped a step or two...anyway, the steel wool usually makes the frets glass smooth

99% there I think...did a light leveling /re-crown of the frets, tried polishing them with grade 1000 wet and dry sandpaper and rubbing compound...frets feel better but still a bit rough.   I'd run out of 0000 steel wool...looks like I need to get me some, perhaps the synthetic stuff? Non magnetic, less of a mess?