mhall

The pores may look like they're lessening, but as your finish dries and shrinks over time, they will more than likely re-appear on you.

Finish is not recommended to use as a pore filler for this reason, although if you have enough patience, it can be done, but it will extend your build time considerably and can come back to haunt you.

Typically, even after I have flat-sanded a finish several times in building finish coats, I still wait 6 weeks or more to do my final sanding/buff out, as the longer you wait, the more the finish is shrinking back, the better your chances your finish will stay flat through the upcoming years.

Self-catalyzing finishes like cat-laq and 2-part poly have hardly any shrinkback issues, but I use regular lacquer, which does continue to shrink as it dries over time.

If you're not too far along in the process, I would sand it back and use either CYA glue (my preferred) or 2-part epoxy as a pore filler, fill those pores, sand it back dead flat, then put your black on and enjoy a perfectly smooth and flat guitar body.

I was just wondering - can I apply sealer over the black until it's flat and then continue with black? Will this work?

Ok, your a little confused here.

Poplar doesnt need grain filler. grain filler is for wood that has open pores, such as mahogany and wenge.

Your seeing the grain lines because you did not spray and sand it back enough. with any wood you need to spray and level it out. with poplar i usually have to put quite a few heavy coats of primer to get teh grain lines hidden.

I've sprayed 3 more black coats and noticed the grain getting less pronounced. If I use enough clear to level it out, will the grain still show since it's showing in the black?

Hi everyone.

I'm on my second build now. Thanks to everyone who offered advice on the first; your experience and insight made molehills out of mountains (particularly Drak and Wes the man). I'm officially an addict. My second build is gloss black with clear gloss topcoats over a poplar body. I was unaware the grain texture would be visible. My first build was just a clearcoat, so I never thought about it. I realize now I should have used grainfiller for that mirror finish. My question is this: does anyone know if gloss black and gloss topcoat looks good over unfilled wood, or does it just look like a sloppy finishing job? Any pics? If it looks interesting I may just go for it. If not, how do I know I've sanded off the sealer coats completely before filling? Thanks.

Matt

I am beveling the slots with the little StewMac file - not the triangular one but the smaller finishing one - so I am not sure if I am beveling them consistently as it is really hard to see, almost impercepible. Could overradiusing the fretwire be a problem; it could have been significantly straighter. I was wondering if this could have led to some of the flat spots on the tops of the frets.

If I were to press them in using StewMac's caul on a drill press, would this be sufficient to seat the fret adequately even if the slot is not exactly perpendicular to the surface of the board? In the future I will likely be buying preslotted boards.

Can be slanted slots, and/or I've seen the actual tang on some fret-wire slanted a little. Mike Stevens even talks about that on one of the Erlewine vids and shows how he'll hammer in the fret with a bit of a sideways motion to try to get that tang to straighten while it's being driven into the slot.

But, I thought most of the wire being sold these days seldom has that problem.

I press my frets and check for any gap under the fret crown and board surface with a .0015" feeler gauge. If that feeler fits under the fret crown, I'm not happy and take action to get rid of the gap. And that's where it really helps when you have a fret-press that can move over to either the treble or bass side and concentrate pressure on a needed area.

But if you've got no gap on one side, then I guess you've gotten them seated down as well as the fret-wire or fret-slots will allow.

LOL ! I just noticed Shred's signature. Did you come up with that ? I know some people who should get some "help" like that . Hahahaha

I've already cut the slots in the fretboard. IF they are not perfectly perpendicular, should I fill and recut (and if so, how?) or is a miniscule gap tolerable as long as they are not moving? Thanks.

Hello all,

I'm a noob and have been experiencing some problems while practicing fretting. I'm using the scrap form my neck (maple/mahogany/maple) as a practice fingerboard.

The specific problems are that when the frets are hammered in, one side appears flush with the board while the back side will not be completely seated. More hammering solves most of this problem but not entirely. This suggests to me that the fret is being hammered into a slot that is not completely perpendicular to the surface of the board. How big a problem is this? Can there be any gap at all between the fret and the surface of the board (thickness of a piece of paper maybe)? It looks a bit ugly but the fret isn't moving.

Also, the tops of the frets do not follow a smooth curve after I get finished with them. I don't know if this is normal or if I'm hitting them too hard or maybe over-radiusing the frets prior to installation.

Any help or suggestions? I've used about 3' of wire so far. Just more practice?

Thanks,

Matt

Yeah, it's a Gotoh hardtail.

I should probably clarify. It will be a string-through bridge. Thanks.

Hello all,

I'm building my first guitar and consulting the Hiscock and Koch books. When grounding the bridge, they both say to drill from the control cavity to the spring cavity and solder the ground to the spring claw. Unfortunately, I am using a fixed bridge with no posts, just five anchoring screws. Any suggestions for how best to ground this type. Thanks.

Matt

Lexington, KY

Hi, and welcome to the forums!

Yes, photos would definately help! Always try to post photos if poss.

What you need to do is upload your digital photo(s) to an online photo hosting site (I use photobucket.com), from there you copy the image tag bit, on photobucket it's called IMG Code, and when you come back here you click the "Insert Image" button just above the box you're typing in, paste the code, and wayhey! Try it, it's fun! ....and really helps the rest of us!

Have you already fitted the fingerboard? If not, you could possibly relocate the fingerboard and re-cut the area for the nut.

I think the real problem here is that, by your description of it, you will have removed quite a bit of wood. This means it may not be as easy as simply filling up an area and sanding it flat - you may have changed the level of the head surface.

You could veneer the front of the head, having built it up level again and sanded it flat.

I'm sure some of the more experienced fellas will chime in and help out as well.

Hope this helps!

DJ

I think I have a picture you can go to now. The quality is not great but you can hopefully see the problem. The low spot is filled in with pencil for easier viewing. http://i514.photobucket.com/albums/t341/Ma...71/tools002.jpg

Hello all, I am building my first guitar and have also created my first problem. I regret that I don't know how to post pictuires, otherwise I would show you what I'm dealing with. Instead I'll do my best to describe it. After cutting the face of the angled headstock, I began to plane the surface smooth. While doing this I inadvertantly removed some wood where the nut will sit. The treble side of the neck is fine, but I removed nearly half of the surface on the bass side where the nut sits (1/4 of total area nut occupies). I estimate the gap to be roughly half a millimeter. Will gap-filling properties of epoxy be enough to mask my mistake or are more drastic measures needed? Thank you in advance. Matt