Gigabyte

Just thought I'd show some update pictures since I've dyed the body and started doing clear coats over the past couple of days. Please excuss the crappy pictures, they don't do the finish justice; plus some are at night between coats at that.......... 3 stages of dying (Sounds like some sort of theological idea....) side shot at night with some clear and orange peel angled front/bottom shot similar shot with no flash (I know.... I need to learn to take better pictures.....) Couple shots of the front inside with no flash (still crappy looking pictures ) Front1 Front2 I've got a couple more cans of clear to put on, then a month of staring Edit: Here's a shot of the real neck in place since the other neck looks funny (it's the neck I use to hang and paint my guitars with. Anyway, here's the shot: Neck shot

Anyone have any experience with these two. Which did you like better and why? Does one cure harder than the other? Curing time? etc....? BTW, I'm talking aerosol can stuff...........

Something that hasen't been mentioned yet is the type of spraypaint being used or what's should be used. Most people on here use automotive spraypaint (lacquer).... You can get Duplicolor car/truck/SUV paint at Autozone and even Walmart. Pepboys sells Plast-kote car paints. Try sticking with those or higher dollar stuff specifically for guitars from StewMac..... I wouldn't use regular ol' enamel or whatever the regular spray paints are (ie: krylon). I've tried them painting other stuff (not guitars) and the paint just doesn't get hard enough for me......

I just sprayed two coats (1 light, then 1 medium)of clear lacquer over the metalcast. I probably waited about 45 minutes between the metalcast and the clear. There where no adverse effects thank god; it's perdy

Thanks for the replies guys. I sprayed some on a test piece that had been dyed and cleared already and it came out nice.... gave it just the red tint I was looking for. Now all I have to do is finish the black back which I already started since it's already taped up and then I try the metalcast on the front

I did some searching and found some info on Duplicolor Metalcast so I went and bought some. I'll give that a shot tomorrow. Anyone ever try that stuff over lacquer?

I just dyed my guitar and sealed it with sanding sealer as well as a coat of lacquer. The problem is the guitar looked a nice redish color when I dyed it but now it seems to be more of a brownish red (like a violin). I was wondering if there is some sort of tinted or transparent color lacquer that I can spray over it to red'n it up a little before I start building up more lacquer coats. Like I said it already has some lacquer on it so it would have to go over that..........?

Thanks for the help guys... I guess I'll stick with Duplicolor..........

Well, I'm about to do the finish on the PRS style body I made and I was wanting to get some opinions on lacquer rattle cans (clear finishing specifically). My last guitar turned out great with Duplicolor but it took forever and a day for the paint to get to a satisfactory hardness. I think I waited about a month before I started wet sanding. Does anyone know of a better lacquer rattle can (brand wise), something I could find locally like at Home Depot that will give me basically the same results but with out all the wait. There is a PPG store near me; would they have something? I'd prefer to buy locally rather than order stuff from Stewmac or the like..... Any help is greatly appreciated.. Fred

I've never done anything like that but I would look into material finishing...... Click here!!!

That's exactly what mean't to say..... I'm just trying to understand how sanding affects the figuring, absorptoin, etc.. and you hit the nail on the head for me.... I did another test piece that came out much better even though the figurig wasn't as strong on one side compared to the other ( same board the other scrap came from).... I sprayed some duplicolor clear on it (without sand and sealer) just to see how it affected the look of the wood... I post a pic of that later... Anyway, I'll give the raising the grain with the stain a try on some scrap for experimentation purposes and see how it works for me. Thanks for explaining how to raise the grain the normal way too, I'll try it that way too. Thanks for the the help everyone.....

This is what I did: 1. Sanded from 100-320 gr on half of the piece following the grain 2. Took a damp cloth and wiped it over 3. Mixed a strong black (water soluble) with a touch of red and also another batch of strong red with a touch of black (also water soluble). 4. Quickly wiped the black dye on the whole piece. Rag was wet but not too wet, ie dripping 5. Waited an hour and sanded back the piece with 320 grit on a sanding block. I noticed half the board showed the flame really well and the other didn't mostly... Sanded a little more on that side with no improvent (went from all black to semi-bare wood with no real flame character thru the sanding process...) 5. Dyed it red just to see if the flames would show any better on that side.... and here we are........... I can see the flames quite well on that side when moving it in the light , sort of reflective (much better than the camera captered it) but the black definitely didn't soak in the same. Sorry about the Mr.... I do that a lot..... Old military habit I guess

Doh! I've already seen that.... I have it saved in my favorites as a matter of fact..... Thanks for posting it though Mr. Drak. Actually your "how to" a couple of pages back was what I was actually following to test this piece..... The problem is when I started both sides looked relatively the same as far as seeing the flames on the naked wood. Maybe the flames where stronger on top of the wood and then I sanded where it was weaker underneath.... That's the only thing I can think of........ I don't know..... Would using 320 gr instead of 220 gr for the sand back make a difference?

Thanks for reading..... I need to learn a good method for raising the grain. I did some test dying on some scrap flamed maple and the results weren't so good. I'm dying black, sanding back and dying red. In the pic below I sanded the left half down to 320, then wiped it for a bit with a damp rag but I did nothing to the right side (right is as it was when I bought the wood). I stained the piece black and sanded both sides back with 320 grit, then dyed red. As you can see on the unsanded side, the flames popped out great...... but not on the sanded side. What can I do to make the grain really pop out? Any techniques, methods, etc. would be greatly appreciated!!!

Hit the pawn shops! The router I have costs about $100 new but I payed $25 for it in almost new condition ( and it had $15 flush trim bit already on it). The best part is you can haggle with them over the price...

Lookin great Toddler..... I see you did it exactly like I described.... Excellent... Hopefully my method will spread and we'll start seeing arched tops pop up all over the board..... Jivin, obviously that's the method I recommend. Honestly doing it with scrapers, chisels or even doing the whole routing steps up toward the center method is just doing a whole lot of unneccesary work, which probably won't come out as consistant either unless you've been doing it awhile....... Here's the thread I posted on my PRS arched-top clone: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=11848

Someone posted a link on my thread to this one so I thought I put my 2 cents in. I used a cove bit for a router but I took the screw and bearing off and used it in a drill press instead.... This is what I actually said in the reply if that helps: "As for the knob reccesses I used a big cove bit for a router(don't know exact size, just big). Actually I used it incorrectly but it worked. I just took the screw and bearing off the end and put it in a drill press. One thing I noticed when testing it out on some scrap was that when I drilled the pilot hole out larger than the circular part at the bottom of the bit it didn't work very well and got choppy as the wood wanted to jump around. Suprisingly I got excellent results making the pilot hole smaller than the bottom of the bit. Just go slow and don't move to the real guitar until you practice it out on scrap........" The results:

Thanks for the kind words..... Some answers to questions: As for the top I did absolutely no carving (ie: chisels)..... All I did was start out with routing the edges out like the picture above. To get the curve or arching all I did was use the 5 inch orbit sander with a 100 grit disk on it. Basically I just held it at an angle (down toward the edge). I did this for the whole top until I got to about where the top of the neck pickup cavity is on the top horn and the bottom of the same cavity on the bottom horn. That part only took about 30 minutes. After that the curves gets too small for the orbit sander. The top of the horns I just slowly shaped with a dremel using a small sanding roll followed by hand sanding to smooth it out... Doing the horns took a lot longer because of all the hand sanding involved... As for the color, I'm going to die it scarlett red after dying it black and sanding it back. Haven't decided if I'm going to use the spray on type or do it the old fashion way and wipe it on.... The neck is just a 22 fret Ibanez GAX 50 neck. I believe they use the same neck on all the AX and GAX models.... I took the "Ibanez" off using the wife's fingernail polish remover (for some reason they put the silver logo on after they clear coat it). It came off very easy actually but I could still see where it said "Ibanez" because it was shinier where the letters where so I wet sanded it and polished it out and no more logo.... I shaped the top of the head stock with a dremel and sanding roll after chopping excess wood off with one diagonal cut from the hacksaw..... I love that dremel As for the knob reccesses I used a big cove bit for a router(don't know exact size, just big). Actually I used it incorrectly but it worked. I just took the screw and bearing off the end and put it in a drill press. One thing I noticed when testing it out on some scrap was that when I drilled the pilot hole out larger than the circular part at the bottom of the bit it didn't work very well and got choppy as the wood wanted to jump around. Suprisingly I got excellent results making the pilot hole smaller than the bottom of the bit. Just go slow and don't move to the real guitar until you practice it out on scrap........

EDIT: PRS, not Prs.... Don't know why I typed it like that..... Anyway: Well, just thought I'd post up some of the work on my second guitar making attempt. This time I'm turning my Ibanez GAX-50 into a PRS McCarty style guitar. Basically what I did was strip it for parts (ie: neck and bridge) and I'm making the body for it.... Here's some progress photos: 3 pc. poplar back glued to 2 pc flamed maple top: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0067.jpg Body cut out and routing the cavities ( got brave (or stupid) and did everything freehand). Came out perfect though : http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0006.jpg Another shot of the same. As you can see the neck mounting area will be different since I'm adapting the neck: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0007.jpg Routed around the edges and tapered off at the horns in preparation to arch the top: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0010.jpg Drilling out most of the wood for the back cavity: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0011.jpg Arched top using a 5 inch orbit sander (quick work doing it this way too)..... Had to do the horns with a dremel and sand by hand. Still working on the horns at this point: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0020.jpg Done with top and added the knob circle thingamajigs: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0068.jpg Some work on the back side: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0070.jpg Modified the headstock to look like a PRS neck (won't have any logos or anything though: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/sha...RS/DSCF0069.jpg

DOH! I knew something wasn't right. Thanks a million for posting that..... The JS1000 was @$$ backwards Works great now

I'm trying to wire up a high pass filter for the volume on my JS Clone. For some reason when I follow the JS1000 diagram what I get is normal volume control in the down position and in the up postion I get basically an on-off (full on for the whole sweep and then right to off when it bottoms out).... Anyone know what I'm doing wrong or have a different diagram for a high pass filter with a push-pot.....? BTW, I think the above diagram is wrong to begin with as far as the capacitors because the tone sweep only worked in the up position when I wired it up the way it showed..... I wired capacitor differently and now it works in both positions (all the time)..... Thanks for any help you guys have.... Fred

Thanks for the kind words guys. The paint was a mother... I used 4 cans of primer (lots of sanding), 1 can of Gunmetal Grey (Metallic), and 3 cans of clear..... I went straight to 1500 grit (wet) and then finished with 3M Rubbing Compound.... As far as shaping what I did was just run around the whole body with 1/2 radius bit (except close to the neck pocket).. everything else I did with files, chisels and a spokeshave I think it's called.... I also used an orbit sander, sand paper and a sanding block... The most useful tool for me was the spokeshave. I just penciled were I wanted the line to end and then just shaved excess off like butter...

Thanks! It plays excellent suprisingly. I've played real JS guitars before but never like the neck or the pickups.... I didn't think it was going to come out as good as it did being my first and all. The sustain is noticably better than the RG was too.. I opened a a photobucket account since Geocities sucks so here's a new link: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/shadowninja_x/

Thought I'd show you guys my first guitar. I basically just stripped all the parts off my RG220 and remade this guitar with the new body I made and a cuople of misc. parts I bought like push/pull pots. It's basswood with Duplicolor paint.... It's not exact as far as the body goes.. I had to make some revisions to the inner parts of the horns as well as the neck heal to accomdate the neck..... Anyway here's the link: JS guitar It's friggin Geocities so I apologize if it gives you trouble. If it doesn't let you see it because of bandwidth just try back later.............. Hope you like.... Fred EDIT: If the above link doesn't work try this one: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v466/shadowninja_x/

I know this is sort of old but did anyone ever find out the thickness measurements for a PRS body (McCarty solid style), i.e., maple starting thickness, "binding" edge thickness, and back thickness..... Anyone have any info on that? I've got my template all ready to go, just need to know what thickness of woods to buy...........