Mark Fergel

What's the best order for finishing? In this case an ash body that will be stained with and have a single burst. Does this look right? grain sealer sand pre stain treatment black stain sand black stain sand (these were to have the grain stand out) green stain sand green stain airbrush a black stain burst (or should I use an acrylic paint?) tung oil tung oil sand with steel wool tung oil sand with steel wool tung oil polish should I use a sealer at some point?

Quite a bit of progress on the Washburn redo. Because I sanded the body and removed a significant layer of paint and sealer, the control cavity plates now stuck way out from the body. I fixed this by scoring along the edge of each cavity with a sharp Xacto knife. I then put a router bit into my dremel, set the depth and went back in and cut the cavities deaper. Worked out really well. I also went in and painted the tremolo cavity area with some flat black paint. I also decided I didn't want a tone knob so I filled the tone hole with a plug. Doesn't matter that it doesn't match as I'll be placing the N3 sticker over the top. As with the control cavities, the extended cutaway portion on the neck needed to be sanded flush with the body as well. Finally, with all of the sanding complete I went in with a few coats of tung oil and sanded with fine steel wool between coats. When all was dry I did a final sanding with the fine steel wool.

.......and here's another project. Really need to finish one first. :-D Washburn Nextar NX3 Nuno. It's an import Nuno model they made for a few years. I knew it would be a three piece body under the paint and I think I got somewhat lucky in that the pieces match up reasonably well. Stripped everything out and sanded the body down. I think Washburn was giving away a free gallon of sealer with each guitar when they made this thing. It was as bad as some of the Squier's I've stripped. Kind of had a little accident when I was routing the edge. Hoping I can fix that as my goal is to just leave it unfinished similar to the Washburn N4 vintage/relic. I also have a new maple fretboard and stainless steel frets for this. Need to radius and size the fretboard first. Will be a bit harder to fit the fretboard properly since the Stephen's Extended Cutaway runs along the low E string near the body.

OK. Way behind on posting updates because I had to order parts. Thank goodness for tax refunds. Most of the parts for the superstrat have arrived. I'm waiting on a new pickguard. I ordered a new tremolo, pots and switches, rear cover plate and stainless steel fretwire. Have to route out the tremolo cavity properly first. This is where the guitar sits but these items are being replaced. Not that there is anything wrong with this stuff but I just wanted a new tremolo and wanted to go with a blacked out look similar to a Charvel superstrat.

Drilled the holes today for the studs. Went well except that the bit went a bit off on one side so I had to plug it and redrill the hole. The advantage to tremolo's with one flat fulcrum point is that little variances like that aren't an issue. You can see it's the bottom stud that received the plug. All that remains is to route the area for the tremolo where I plugged it and to route for the tremolo arm portion.

Did some more work on the super strat. Decided to use an old neck I had with rosewood board. I really wanted maple but decided to just use what I have laying around. Here's a shot of the old nut slot. I took a razor saw to the old nut slot and cut it down and then sawed back and wound up with this. It was then just a matter of cleaning up what remained and drilling new holes for the locking nut. Just need to make sure that what you use is going to clear the truss rod. I was in luck. :-) Another reason I decided to use and old neck. In the end it sits on there real nice. I'm sure I'll have to shim it a bit. Will take care of that when I get closer to stringing it up. Here's the backside. Still need to countersink for the bolts. Want to do that with the drill press though to make sure it's nice and straight. Once I had the locking nut on, I threw the floyd on and added a couple of strings to get the alignment taken care of and mark out the position for the tremolo posts. Measure 100 times, cut/drill once.

The Ibanez is on temporary hold. In the meantime, I've started working on this. Wish I had taken a picture of it before I started on it. Bought this from fellow forum member aldridt1. I may have to see if he has an original photo. Guitar came with a maple neck and 70's style Fender headstock. Last few frets had been scalloped. Body was stained green with a coat of poly on it. Took a lot of work to strip the finish. Neck is from another project. Pulled the frets and did a 16" radius. Not sure if I will use this neck or not. Plan on putting a floyd and locking nut on it.