Maiden69

You schedule sounds just like mine, I get up at the same toime and from there I don't get back in the house until 6:00pm, but since I was doing this blue one I was coming home for lunch and starting then. Or I will start friday evening and finish thru sunday... Any who, good luck with the guitar, and get that camera so that we can see the pics of your progress...

I bought this guitar because they gave me a "good" price because they didn't had the one that I wanted... The sale price was $549 same as Musicians Friend and everybody else on-line, and the one I wanted was 449, but it had a damage, so he offered this one for 449, since it was a floor model I told him that I will pay 400 and after talking to the manager they gave it to me for 400. I don't lie traditional bursted instruments... make me feel my age. So I will be painting this one solid color, the duplicolor mirage, gold/magenta. And since it will be a solid I thought about changing the switch down close to the bridge. I don't know about the position I place it on that photo now since it's too close to the pick up and the body routings... plus I will have ot get a cavity cover for it, so I think about replacing the neck vol for the switch, and make a master vol, or a concentric one. If the maple was a real top I will be painting it blue burst, but Epiphone reply to my message and told me that the veneer was extremely thin and that the stain probably went all the way thru it and into the top.

By MTS do you mean the Carvin MTS ( Master Tube Series) or what? any way, I had a few SD's and for my taste I don't like them, I had the SH-10 and SH-6, and the HR-1 on my strat, and the sound is OK, but thats about it... I will advise you to use the EMG 81. If you want sustain you can't beat this one because the magnetic field is so small that it doesn't pull the string and let them vibrate as long as the guitar will let them. I thought that this was BS when I read about it, but I change the pickguard on my Cheap plywood strat, for the KH-21, which is loaded with 2 81's and the sustain increase noticiably... I had the HR1 and 2 fender lace sensors. And if you are using the Carvin MTS the 81 will make it growl like crazy, that's the set up that a friend have back home, and he has a Jackson DINKY with 2 81's he plays hardcore Metal, (even though he plays religious music) and the sound is awsome, the day I went to his rehearsal in the Church he didn't raide the vol past 3 and you could feel the chords on the whole place... The HZ's I haven't used, but like I said the magnets on passive pull the strings... Is up to you!

I did the same thing with a chromed cover, I used my heat gun in low setting, once the wax melts take it out with a rag or something.

I have to say that the neck is too low. You will have a lot of trouble playing higher than the 15th fret..

If Gorecki don't get it let me know, also I will be willing to trade for pick ups, I got a SD SH-10 bridge ( full shreder), and 2 SH-6 Duncan Distortion, bridge & neck. Could trade for either of these or for a pair of epiphones from my Les Paul Classic. If not interested on these I will buy... Gorecki PM me if you are going to buy...

I don't know about the ones he used, but the ones that I usually use have powder inside, but not ooutside, this ones I use in my work, not to make guitars... I can't "feel" the finish if I use gloves...

I pln on redoing my LP and I did this in PSP, and I will like to have your opinions before I begin next week, or as soon as I get my strat together. I plan on relocating the pup switch since I have a tendency to hit it when playing. I don't know if I should do this or get one of the concentric switches an just place the switch on place of the neck vol knob... Well let me know.

I laid the primer an sanded 30min later, tach cloth, and laid the 1st coat of base color, I used the color the guitar had as the "primer" and the reason I spayed a coat was to get a better adhesion for the base coat. After the base coat was dried, about 3 hr I shot the 1st clear coat. This is the same way Ihave done before on my SUV and never had this happen! I can live with it on this guitar, but when painting the LP I don't want this to happen , or I will be , and the reason you might have seen this before is because I have a thread on the inprogress area, here here you van see the progress and what I have done to it... Southpa, I wait about 3 hrs between coats, and shoot 3 coats a day, then the next day I colrsand and start all over again, on this guitar I have about 8 coats, and since it's colorsanded every 3 coat's I will say is not too thick, but it sure gave a lot of depth to the color, I don't know but I think that waiting that much time is not necessary, check here this is the instructions that I used to do mine, although I used acrylic instead of nitro, since it wa available localy and didn't cost $12 a CAN, I paid $4, and in this 8 coats Iused almost 4 cans,

WHY IS THIS PINNED, BRIAN? ANYBODY?

You will be loosing money, but if you can't fix it then you will be loosing a lot more... good luck with whatever you decide to do!, I will sure give a bad report to ebay for the sale, even if he is going to refund the money, this kind of stuff shouldn't be happening. If you didn't know nothing about guitars, you might have keep it and the guy will have the $$ and laugh at you...

I think I had the same problem with my guitar, here are some shots, I used Duplicolor primer, base coat and clear coat so it's not a problem of compatibility. I had used this combo before for parts on my autos, and never had a problem... This is a plywood Squier so I didn't care much and the clear coat is smooth so that's all I care for...

Ok, today I colorsanded all the way to 2000 grit, and since the clear appeared to be hard enough I decided to start polishing. I used kit scratch out haze & scratch remover. This is clear coat safe. Here are some pics of were I'm at right now. as you can see, all the hard work colorsanding paid off at the end, I didn't haved to use a lot of work to bring this to this state , Only that I had a little problem, the bottom part of the body got really small dings from sitting on top of the towel while I did the front, so I decided to leave it alone for 1 more day, and check it tomorow to finish polishing. The only problem I had with the finish wa sthis , I don't know if you can see it, but the base coat got wrinkled in the inside of the cutaway area, it happened on both sides and on the bottom of the left side, where the guitar rest on your leg while playing, nowhere else, but as you can see on the next photo if you see it from the side, the clear coat is smooth, so I won't bother with this. , If all is dried tomorrow, I mount the pickguard and jack, so more updates tomorrow.

yes they are, here is a copy of the e-mail they send me, Francisco, Thank you for your prompt reply. You can use the following clear coatings as a substitute for the Dupli-Color Mirage Clear Top Coat: Dupli-Color Professional Clear Lacquer - DPL 106 Dupli-Color Truck, Van, & SUV Clear Top Coat - T125 Dupli-Color Touch-Up Clear Top Coat - DS125 Dupli-Color Clear Lacquer - DAL 1695 Dupli-Color Crystal Clear - DA 1692 Sincerely, Ray On the issue that you have 2 cans, I will suggest you go and grab another 2, 1 can is hardly enough for 3 coats, I do 1 coat consisting on 3-5 passes and the passes ain't too thin either, they are wet passes after a dusted one. And I have already gone thru almost 4 cans, 3 2/3 to be exact. After the 3 can the paint started to get a lot of depth, can't wait to start colorsanding, I think I might start with 800 since there are almost no orange peel on the finish right now, remember to keep it to 3 coats a day, wait 24 hr, more or less and color sand before the next 3, that's what I did, and I haven't got a run or any issues other than on the inside of the horns the base coat wrinkled a little bit, I guess that the wood was humid or maybe some contamination from I don't know what., Also after colorsanding, I made sure that I let the guitar dried, and that I removed all the soap residue and after that once dried, I passed a tach cloth to get any foreign particles, and after about 2-4 hrs before the 2nd and 3rd coat, passed the tach cloth too., I know this sounds confusing, I'm thinking in spanish and translating so, I'm sorry if I don't make much sense, I kinda followed the instructions on the re-ranch site, just that with acrylic it dries a little faster than nitro.

I can"see" kinda 5 glue lines, but the right half of the body looks kinda blurry PS.

Ok, some more progress today, I painted the cavities with semigloss black (rustoleum brushed), and I color sanded (600) and shoot 2 more coats of clear, I must admit that this doesn't look like a Squier anymore! Tomorrow I will colorsand all the way to 2000 and depending on the clear I will start polishing Sunday morning. This is how it looks now. The lines are almost gone when you look from the sides but Ican tell you that they will never disapear when look straigh at them... , but it's ok, I will not waste more money on this one, for the next body I will try to find a nice stencil to play with, no more tape unless it is a solid color line or brand decal... I already thave the paint for the Les Paul top, it's this , with plenty of clear on top... , so I will be saying goodbye to the thin veneer finish on my flamed maple cherry sunburst Epi LP and it will become the Gold/Magenta from that page.

Sorry but icouldn't resist... FOOT, FOOT,FOOT, FOOT,FOOT, FOOT, Seriously now, All I have to say is that if the neck were Ibanez shaped I will have to call that the father of all Ibanez, Ilove the shape of the neck pocket, and the headstock is awsome too, I'm no fan of straight 6's unless the old Kramer banana or hockey stick... I don't know if Ididn't read it but how are you planning on finishing it, excellent guitar. Is that the hipshot 8 string bridge? If so how do you like it?

I don't know where you are but you can buy a complete TOM set up for about $35-$40 on Warmoth and other places... I bet your local music store will ask to sell you the tonepros for $150. I rather wait to get the whole thing and have two playable guitars insted of taking parts out of one to play the other.

I bet you he is swimming like a dolphin now...

I'm sorry you had to find out how frustrating electronics can be... I work at this and I hate it everyday I have to troubleshoot to the component, I like replacing modules better. I saw this thread and was very entusiastic in buying a kit, that was until I went to the website and found out the prices... what is this guy thinking, I rather buy a Carvin MTS half stack for the price of a 2X10, and it comes with 50-100W selectable, and footswitch and free delivery, plus all the technical help I will need. Oh well, I'm glad that you got it back and that it sounds good, post sound clips to hear it...

Thanks, yes the KH-21 is going back in as soon as I finish it, the guitar was originaly vintage white that's wy I got it in the first place, I love the way he plays, but Imust admit it's a boring color... post more pics as soon as I get moving.

^^^ the body is plywood, I will make a new one or order the replacement from Carvin next month.

If you get a good deal on the Squier get it if the body is plywood ditch it, ... And an Epiphone, I guess everybody got their opinion, I got one and I must add that it sound better than my neighbors Gibson. Here are shots of both, the Squier is going thru major reconstruction now, as soon as it get's done I will post more pics.

Well fter 2 weeks waiting to see if the paint dried, it was still wet. I decided to remove the paint and try another one, I had a can of Krylon yellow, sorry no pics of this stage. And that one turn out good, with the only problem that the paint was like a candy and everytime that I color sanded the base color to get rid of the orange peel the next coat will look darker an places and lighter on others. so I decided to get duplicolor paint since i have used this before to paint parts on both my S-10 and Jimmy with good results ( I don't know why I didn't used this before), I did 1 coat of primer, scuffed with 400 grit dry, 2 coats of blue, striped with some pinstripe stuff and 3 coats of clear, wait 24 hrs and color sand with 600 grit wet, 3 coats of clear and this is what I came up with, Sorry for the mess, the weather changed suddenly and I had to throw everythin in the storage, this is were I leave the guitar to dry over night, tomorow if the clear is dried I will color sand again to try and bring the pinstripes down a little bit more. I will never use any other product, I was thinking about ordering re-ranch, but with duplicolor a 5 minute drive, and all the color they have availacle! I think not, well maybe for that see thru blue, it looks way cool to let it pass.

^^ Licht, they have both acrylic, and laquer, I just got back from AutoZone, were I got my paint for the squier and the epiphone and I got the truck, van & SUV one, its great, If you are painting your guitar don't use cheap paints, I just finish scrapping the heck out of the squier after finishing it with rustoleum vintage white, It had been about two weeks and the thing was still wet inside, then I used Krylon, worthless S**T, I had used duplicolor for my SUV and I used it for the guitar, what a difference...