thirdstone

You have to wrap the hotrod with fibre tape tightly..

Congrats for joining the LP Jr club, You have done a great job for a first attempt , I don't mind the finnish and scratch plate in fact they look suited to each other. There is an issue with the bridge as maiden pointed out , Once fixed I think that the pickup wont look so far away.I am not a big fan of badass bridges as they look like they could mame you. Try a standard fixed intonated wrap around , if the intonation is close it would tidy it up a bit. We always can look back on our first attempt and see where we could improve and yours IMHO has less than most. Cheers

Milling Machine ? I wish; Nah just a file and some wet and dry polishing. About the wear problem; If I were Stev Vai I would agree that it wold be a bad choice but the whole idea of removing the locking nut was that the user don't use the wammy bar and as such it won't be a big deal. This is a budget rework so I kept the floyd bridge but as the user likes to swap between standard tuning and drop D a bit the locking nut was a pain. I am using aliminium as I prefer it as a material for bridges over steel or cast material. Its a bit of an experiment but if it does wear too quick I can change it later fairly easily.

I have made an aluminium nut replacement for the floyd nut. I have made ali nuts for other guitars and they have been good but this is the first ali nut for a trem fitted guitar. ali nut

The paint is now done , black is the worst to polish. The photo is of a test fit out.Whoops forgot the wiring route. easy to fix.

Fookgub thanks for the input ,thats one of the ideas I had but now I can see it I think that makes the most sense. Here is a pic of the guitar a few years ago, red one on the right. Close up I liked the trans colour,the clear nitro had done the cracked/crazed thing which gave it a nice vintage vibe but time for a change.

I haven’t got around to thinking about the nut yet, My next step is to paint it black. But as you mentioned it I will have to make a custom nut or modify the locking nut. A couple of problems are , 1- the locking nut is not at right angle to the fret board so the fret board is actually cut short. Any new nut will have to be the same. 2- The locking nut is fixed with two screws which are accessed from the rear of the neck. This leaves two holes which I am thinking of filling with maple dowl, or use the locking nut base modified with a bone nut.

Hang on to your hats . This is a rather brutal strat rebuild , I have a rather heavy strat that I bought second hand in the late 80’s. It is a kit build from an unknown source and came fitted with the lace sensor pup’s ,two gold ,1 blue, and an original floyd rose trem. It has served well over the years as a backup guitar but now with time on my hands and an idea in my head its up for a makeover. The first thing that needs to be done is a refret. The frets are fairly well worn but the bigger problem is that the neck has already had a rather average refret before, not by me. The wood at the fret ends where the tang is exposed is a bit chewed out and the fretboard is well worn from playing. I did considered routing a thin channel on the side to put binding on but after cleaning up the neck and refretting it I decided that I could get away with cutting the tangs a bit short. Same as you would with binding ,then add some filler made from superglue and wood dust. The Body wood, I always thought was mahogany but after stripping it looks more like walnut, I am still not sure what wood it is. To cure the weight problem I wanted to chamber it. To do this I planed off 10mm then routed out some chambers ,free hand -no planing but lots of fun. Next was to glue on a maple cap, no flame or quilt here as its going to be painted black. Floyd Rose trems are great but I have got tired of looking for my allan key so I want to revert to a normal nut. I basically don’t use trems any more but I will keep the unit fitted but I will block it for down bends only. This should reduce tuning hassles down the track. Guitar and Neck Top Routed Gluing Cap glued cap on

No Worries mate I notice that you are in Australia like me. Thouse pup's can be ordered in from the states and landed for less than a bought SD or Gibson P90. maple neck will be brighter sounding than a mahogany neck. I have a sort of les paul with a maple neck set in a mahogany / maple cap body.The neck sound is good as the maple neck brightens up the normaly slightly muddy sounding LP neck pup however I am not sure I like the bridge as its quite harsh sort of brittle sounding. Pup's are fralin vintage spec humbuckers.I put this down to the Neck as the pup's are voiced for a mahogany neck. the same might happen on a Jr. just something to consider when designing the guitar.

Yeah, i have an emg p90, its not dogear covered though, any ideas where to get some decent de'd p90's? Basically i want a light color with all black hardware, its the way i like things! Yeah I have two makes in different juniors, Lollar and Vintage Vibe Both are very good ,the Lollars (alnico)are sweet sounding having a standard output (ie normal) and the the Vintage vibe P90's are slightly overwound ,however the VV's have the option of fitting ceramic or alnico magnets.I have the ceramics in mine and the pup in this configuration is better for heavier styles of music. My preferance is the Lollars as I play 60's 70's style rock but my son prefers the VV as he is into more punk style music. I should add that we have not tried the VV with the alnico magnet yet So if you want classic tone go for the Lollar If you want it to roar fit the VV with ceramic mag. PS the VV is electricaly less noisy due to its shielded coil.

What do you mean by amber? is it TV yallow? As you haven't built the neck yet , have you considered extending the neck tenon into the body a bit further. I take it you are just fitting one pup. All white with black binding and a black emg pup and black bridge, black pick guard would look cool ,kinda like a Hives guitar. Add a ebony fret board et voila. I can't picture any other way binding would look good on a Jr double cut though. It would look better with a black dogear P90.If you need a hot one thay are around. You can even get P90 that are in fact humbucking side by side coils, not the stacked kind.

I can see where you are coming from with the neck pocket, i usually make the neck first, but i have made the neck pocket template from the neck template, so it should fit. (theoretically ) I think your right about the fb wood, i think it will look better with rosewood or ebony personally. The rounding was done, and ended up looking great! BUT, while routing my neck my routers depth stop died so i will have to wait a little while until i either repair or buy a new one, but luckily i got most of it done, and the neck pocket is fine! Thanks for the tips biliousfrog, i think its a good idea to slow down and work out exactly what i want, like you said. The Blackwood might not be hard wearing enougth for a fretboard. Its pretty similar to mahogany in that regard and you don't see that being used. I love Jr`s ,I have made two , one fancy and one standard ie basic. The basic finish works better for juniors in my opinion but in the end its your guitar so do what you want...Kev

Try drilling thorugh another piece of wood clamped to the body.

Thanks guys The guitar had about a week of playing on it before the photo's hence the dust Whoops. I'll get a full length shot of it soon. I am also keen to try out the alnico magnets in the pup to see if there is any differance. I'll let you know.

Its now finished thank god, wired up and playing. I am , in the end very pleased with the outcome. Its every thing I was aiming for , very punchy and lively. The guitar has a good acoustic tone unpluged which is always promising. Its fairly narrow focused as are all single pup guitars. The Vintage vibe P90 fitted with ceramic magnet,I have not tried the alnico that comes with it yet, is hotter sounding than the lollars I have in another guitar and helps give the guitar a nice raw sound. Now after all that, some playing to do. Bound Neck Back of Guitar Neck Angle pup 55 Jr spacing Later

Nice Job John My guess is that the sandthrough has changed the plan a bit resulting in a wider than planed burst. As constructive criticism , to me the burst pattern is not quite tear drop something I would not have noticed except I have attempted a couple myself. Still its reminiscent of pre 60's Gibson bursts which I think look cooler than a standard perimeter burst. Look forward to seeing the guitar strung up. Congrats.

Thanks Wez ; Its getting close now but first the ritual of putting some soul into it , not for the squemish Gluing the neck on Yee Ha a Geetar Closer look under lights

They look very nice but be careful when you drill the bridge holes. If the lacquor is not completly dry you can lift it around the hole area(from experiance). More than likely you have already drilled them by now i guess.

After stripping Well I am back on track after a long and expensive” learning how to finish the hard way” period . I had a particular reactive piece of mahogany that did not get on with the lacquer. This is what I did for the top. 1 Bleach the wood , this may not have been necessary I’ll explain later. 2. Grain fill twice 3. Sand sealer twice by brushing on . After the second coat had dried I sanded it flat but not through then sprayed a light coat on and again light sanding with 400 grit. 4.I sprayed the face of the guitar with clear to test the sealing and think god no more problems.I also sprayed in a rough guide for the brown part. 5. Now another problem I had been facing was how to get the mahogany light enough to make the yellow the correct brightness. That is the reason I bleached the wood in the first place but by the time all the grain filling and sealing had taken place I had lost about 2 steps of tone on the wood which brought it almost back to sanded mahogany. I know that if I put the yellow on this it would end up too dark so I sprayed some opaque white car paint from a spray can into some thinners. I filtered out some solids then let it dissolve in the thinners overnight. I mixed this with some clear lacquer and sprayed in on thinly. This worked a treat as it lifted the tone of the wood back about two steps. The down side is that although it was no longer opaque is was not totally clear either. This means that the grain of the wood is not as visible as it would have been with straight clear. It was an okay trade off and its no worse than Gibson VOS juniors. This step negates the need to bleach the wood.See Here 6. Next I sprayed the sides with brown and a touch of black mixed in. This gives the overspray on the edge radius a nice blend in with the brown on the face. After that a light coat of yellow on the front. I did this to make it easier to gauge how the burst will go. 7. The burst was next using dark brown, when sprayed a few times like on the horn areas it get very dark, almost black. 8. The back came next which is brown stain with brown / black around the perimeter. I did this on a previous attempt on this guitar and I liked it a lot. It makes for a nice blend with the sides and gives it a bit of individuality. 9. After all the spraying there were a few brown spits that had landed on the yellow front so leaving the yellow to last gave me the opportunity to fix it up by rubbing it back. The yellow is sprayed all over the front bringing every thing together. After lots of trialing I ended up not using a template for the burst. Both methods have their pros and cons but in the end I think you have a bit more artistic control by not using the template although the chances of cocking it up are greatly increased. Next for me to do is glue the neck in before I spray clear over the body.

Good job mate. I know from experiance how fine a line it is between perfection and disaster. Love the cavity cover....

Well yes happy ending of sorts as I have solved the problem but.............Not that happy with my burst so Its coming off Again. Don't laugh , I have a 4 day plan to get me out of strife Day 1 ,strip,Bleach,Grainfill Day 2,seal 3 coats Day 3 Clear lacquor wait two hours , Spray yellow Day 4 Spray burst and Clear on top. For pics check out my other post of the build http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...24927&st=30. Thats where I started the LP Jr post so I'll keep it going there. Thanks for your input.Kev

Yeah the new spray job actualy looks a bit better in daylight but it still is a disappointment. I managed to get a day in a real spray booth but I am afraid I have wasted that opportunity. Its gonna hurt stripping this.

haha looks like I fixed the problem. I just needed to seal the thing better to stop the lacquor from making contact with the wood.Doh

Alright , it looks like I have the spray paint bubble problem is sorted. In the end of a very long saga I find you just have to be very careful sealing the surface. I did the burst but I must admit there are problems with it, maybe I rushed it a bit as I had a deadline to meat. Looks like that has to be forgoten now as I will probably sand it back AGAIN. see for yourself The overall thing is too dark , the transition is too harsh and the center has to be a brighter yellow. Compair with an earlier attempt

The first time I just grain filled and then sprayed a coat of clear. The intention was to sand that flat. That was a disaster. second attempt was to grain fill then sand seal using feast watson sanding sealer. This was also terrible but thinking about it I realise that in sanding it flat I have sanded down to the wood surface. At the time I thought the idea was to have a flat surface only ie just the grain pores filled. The next attemp was to use schallac as the sealer. This improved things quite a bit but I was still getting bubbles around the edges dispite all the other settings I was also trying. Now i am poring on the feast watson proof seal. I have used this product before although not with acrylic lacquor so I am doing a test piece as well to try the compatability. With this I hope to get it mirror flat and 100% coverage of the surface before I go any further. To answer you questions; I have used low temp heat lamps at various stages. I stoped using them after realising that they may have exaspirated the problem although in hindsite I don't think they played a big part in the bubbles as the bubbles start to form before the heat lamps were turned on. I did try lighter coats but It had to be so light that there was hardly any lacquor going on and it was a very dry flaky result. Thanks for your comments.