Doc

I'd do exactly what Jay said and I would also consider veneering the back just for grins and strength. Sand or scrape the required thickness. Turns your head into plywood.

I agree completely. The Hutchins is a first rate tool for polishing out solid surface countertops. I've used some of theri stuff and it's really good. If you have any pre-drilled holes like pickguard holes you risk having the wood swell and mess up your freshly painted candy apple tangerine guiter. Ask me how I know. You're better off with a spray bottle.

I just went to my sandpaper cabinet and looked. Mirka and Klingspore 5 and 6 inch disks 36, 80, 100, 120, 150, 180, 220. Mirka Abralon disks 360, 500, 600 3M Tri-m-ite sheet sandpaper 220, 280 Klingspore waterproof sheets 400, 600, 900 Mirka sheet 120, 150, 180 3-M Scotch brite maroon, grey, white I don't sand as finely as a lot of folks here do. But, then I probably use a cabinet scraper a lot more than most. I also use a Festool radom orbit sander which absolutely kicks the butt of everthing but a Dynabarade. Oh, that's just an opinion.

If you go online there are a bunch of sites devoted to tool wackos who pay ungodly amounts of money collecting tools. They also have great histories of said hand tools. The Lie-neilson sie has some good info. The grooved planes were an attempt to cut down friction. At least this is what I've always heard and read. You haven't lived until you've dressed a boaut 100 board feet of walnut or cherry using a 3ft long Stanley jointer plane. The really awful thing is that a surface that is just planed instead of being sanded is unbelievably slick. No swirls or fuzzy places. I've got a couple of old Stanley's and a couple of Lie-neilson's and I use them when I can.

3-M makes good stuff but it tends to be, IMHO, grossly overpriced. The only 3-M that I routinely use is the grey Tri-m-ite for rubbing out finish in between coats. Oh, I also use Scotch-brite. Klingspore has comparable quality at much better pricing. They have a pretty good website. Mirka also makes good abrasives, including Abralon and Abranet, which are pricey but amazing. Abralon is incredible for sanding finish. Abranet is likewise for doing the woodworking part.

Dan, Another thought: You could probably talk one of the regulars here into banging out a neck or at least doing the hard parts for you.

Jim, Go to Atlantic City. Put a quarter in the first slot machine you see. If you hit the big jackpot with one pull you have the kind of luck requred to not sand through veneer. I don't and sand through every time I try. At least a little. Even if you don't go through you can get it so thin that the grain figure sort of washes out.

I've done a ton of funiture inlay with ebony. As long as the moisture content is okay it should be stable. It's hard as a brick!! Get a moisture meter and check it, especially if you get raw stock from a fly by nighter. Even if the content is hign a thin 3/8 board should balance pretty quickly being air dried.

Dan, If you have the old neck why don't you take a deep breath, read through some of the posts and tutorials and try making your own. The folks on this site are incredibly helpful and will help you find your way through. I was playing pretty actively when that guitar was new and I can honestly say that I don't recall ever seeing one anywhere. This means that they're probably rare enough tht you're gonna have a devil of a time finding a neck with no guitar attached to it. Just a thought.

You're gonna run out of shop space pretty soon guy!! Woodmasters have been around in one incarnation or another for a right good while. I've only known one person who had one and he ran the devil out of the thing. Mostly used it as a molder making custom trim and picture frame moldings, but he did do planing and sanding with it. If Bob couldn't kill it it probably is close to indestructable. The combo planer molders are great tools for people with limited space and somewhat limited budgets. Setup time isn't bad when converting back and forth, and I think that that is the main drawback to them,as opposed to a couple of dedicated machines. As far as I know this is the only one that also has a sanding feature. May be wrong but I've never seen another one with Woodmaster's versitility. Definitely look at the spiral cutterhead option. Using disposable blades saves an unbelievable amount of tool fidgiting time. They also will plane damn near anything no matter how squiggly the grain with very little tearout.

Lacquer doesn't eat PVA glue. What is probably happening is that the glue is continueing to dry and shrink a little bit. The line is there it just doesn't show up until you coat it wiht shiney lacquer or other dipped in glass finish. Build and sand just that area until it cooperates. We built an eight foot long four foot wide inlaid conference table for an architect and he wanted a flawless high gloss finish. I don't even want to guess how many coats we wound up spraying and snding. High gloss shows every single flaw. Satin doesn't and that's why the factories sell satin finish for less.

David, I've posted it before and here it is again. If you feel the effects of this stuff your mask ain't working. It may need replacing. Today. After too many years in the goo I have lost a significant amount of feeling in my fingers and toes. I've gotten good about wearing a good mask and using ventilation for the lst ten or so and I'm not getting any worse. I'm also not one whit better. It doesn't grow back. Take care of yourself!!!!

Roman's site is a scary, scary place and I try not to look at it directly. Looking right at it turns you into an old used car salesman with too many gold chains and fluffed up chest hair. I guess what is being said is that you want the greatest spread between the two and the rest is voodoo and luck. The worst that can happen is that the guitar will sound a little dead and I'll just have to make anoather one and experiment. That would be terrible, making another guitar. I went through my wood pile and I figure I can screw up about 15 more before I run out of cherry and walnut. I think I'll go with my original neck placement idea,1/4" down, and move the bridge pu to right up against the plate.

The only holes that I have left fo rout in my walnut tele are the pickup cavities. I was going to set the neck pickup about a quarter inch from the neck, but I see that a lot of folks put 'em right up against it. Any advice on pros and cons of location?

I don't know for sure, but I had a really beat up SG I bought in 1971. The chips, dents and dings were all still colored, so I'm guessing that at least back then the body is grain filled, stained with a dye, sealed and clear coated. They may also tint the lacquer some.

Having a burnt taco must be really painfull!!! Okay back to heat lamps. The only problem with heat lamps and lacquer is that when you build a really thick finish and cook it, You can get blistering. If you cook each coat until most of the solvents have off gassed you're okay. I'd worry about taking it to 200F. A little high for my taste. !50F with a lot of moving air, sort of a guitar convection oven should do the trick. The more moving air the better.

Also try Certainly Wood. They are user friendly and can turn what you describe on the phone into a piece of veneer with no surprizes or disappointments. They have a website too..

I got pretty much everything but the wire and a capcitor from him. The quality on everything is really good. I don't know what the humbuckers sound like yet but they look like they're pretty well made. The bridge is really heavy metal with clean plating. Good qulity switch and pots too. Took three days for everything to show up.

The plate is a control plate. I'm actually going to run a pair of 2"x 1/8" bolts through the back into threaded fasteners. I hate little screws in nice wooden stuff. I may make pickup rings and do the same thing. I ran the string guides up all the way towards the head, backed them back a little more than an eight inch and set it. Should have enough room to set the intonation, I hope! Should have 1/2" of travel or so. Oak is fairly springy if you heat it. I've used it as a detail on furniture. Never bent it quite as much as the radiius we have to work with here, but heat and patience should do it. The maple I've got is just amazingly heavily figured. I got 150 board feet for a bookcase job and there was one 10" wide 12' piece that is all figure end to end. Don't see many like that. The yard I buy my stuff from doesn't let you pick, which is bad, but they don't cull it either so sometimes you get a piece of gold or two.

Okay, Now that I've cught this bug here goes. I've cut out and sanded a walnut tele knockoff body. Got a neck from ebay. Maple and rosewood. Got a big box of stuff from Guitar Fetish. I've routed the neck pocket so that when the bridge, a hardtail strat type, is cranked down the fretboard and bridge are the same height. Got the string through holes drilled with the backs two stepped so the ferrules are flush. I moved the string supports up about 7/8 of the way to the head and set the bridge at 25.5 from the nut. I think I'm going to route the neck pickup so it sits 1/4" down from the fingerboard and the bridge so that it's about a 1/4 above the bridge. I've got a curly maple plate 3/16 thick made from some outrageously curly maple and I'm going to set it flush with the face and screw it down from the back through the body. I think I'm going to bind the whole thing with curly maple. I'd like to do abalone but that would mean waiting till it gets here from some outpost in Austrailia and I don't really want to wait. I've got two humbuckers and all of the other electronic doodads and a seymore duncan diagram and am pretty sure I can figure it out. Any suggestions on what guage wire to use to tie everything together and ground? I was going to put a figured maple face on but this walnut is just too pretty to cover and anyhow I can always make another one or four. I'll finish this one with a bunch of coats of tung oil followed by wax and elbow grease. The small sample turns a great color with not much else added. Maybe a little red analine, have to see. Anyone see any landmines that I haven't anticipated? I really had the most fun I've had doing any woodworking in years last night when I did a preliminary screw it together and everything just fit. Most of what I've done I got from the posts here and it was great how it all went together. The neck slides in with almost no force. If you put a piece of notebook paper on one side it doesn't. Tight or what? When I'm done I'll post some of the shots I took of setups while I was working.

Guys my final comment on this or any other discussion of spray equipment is 1) Unusual 71 is dead right. It's more in the skill and experience of the user than the equipment if you have at least decent equipment. Every guy I know who sprays has their own way of getting to the same end. What works for you may not work for me. 2) I was assuming that we were working with about a $500 budget. For that you are going to get far more bang for the buck with your Accuspray than with a conventional setup. If you add up all of the goodies discussed throughout this thread a good versitle conventional setup will run you about double that.

This happens in furniture a lot. I'd follow Lovecraft's advice and hit it with VM&P Naptha first See how tacky it is after that. If it's only a little tacky you can recoat it. I'd recommend Deft spray cans because the solvents in that seem to be able to cope with stuff like you're dealing with. One or two really light dust coats and then an good wet coat. Can't hurt and the worst that can happen is that you'll need ato strip it downto the wood and re-do it.

opps sorry... FEW. as in almost none never.

What tools do you have access to? You can make a pattern and run a router with a collet on it around your perimeter. Then shrink your pattern and run it around decreasing the depth of cut at each width. Cut it to three or four steps. This gives you a terraced "rice paddy' look. Then you use your sander to even it out. You can do it the old fashioned way and actually carve it with a gouge. Whacking the gouge with a mallet. Wengie isn't as tough as some maple or cherry. Use a real gouge. Check Hartvilletool.com for HMK gouges. I have a rotary carver that fits on a side grinder that I use to carve stuff like Windsor chair seats. Takes a little while to learn how to use it though. Screwed up a couple of good board before got the hang of it. Wengie isn't supposed to be toxic but my experience with it doesn't agree. The dust is nasty bad tasting and irritating. Wear a mask and blow yourself off good before you take off the mask.

Yeah the Costco chisels are really good for say opening paint cans and such. Chinese steel still doesn't hold much of an edge. If you want to look at a great buy in really good chisels go to Hartvilletool.com. They sell a set of six unboxed HMG German steel chisels for about a C-note. Wooden hooped handles. Take and hold a razor edge. Close or equal to Heckels or Two Cherries.