ByronBlack

Digi, i've never read an AD2000, in fact I never even heard of the comics until quite recently. Do you have any pics - it would be interesting to have a look!

Yes. Vintage collectors like a nice unscathed piece of wood but scratches and wear and tear are acceptable....refinish is not and devalues the piece, usually a lot. I think the 250 was more than a generous offer. From what I've seen of these they get around $250 USD over here which is a lot less than your pounds or Euros or whatever you guys use to buy stuff today (plus I don't have one of those cool looking "L" shaped thingy's on my computer ) ← Thanks for the info guy's. I think i'll just clean it up, re-fret and setup and leave it that. :-)

Cud, this is a very inspirational thread, and I thank you for taking the time to explain the finishing process, its extremely useful to guy's like me. The finish you have got is wonderful, but to me the best part isn't the shine or mirror effect, but is the quality of the staining, to me the grain looks really sweet and the colour is a superb choice. It just goes to show that results come from patience and diligence - something i'll have to be disciplined to do, but nonetheless your guitar is going to be a very professional and inspirational looking instrument.

Ok guy's, some of you may or may not be interested, but I thought i'd start an on-going thread of my first build. Maybe something I do will be of use to someone. Also as I go along it will be good to get some feedback, advice, tips etc. http://www.flickr.com/photos/byronblack/sets/775858/ That is a link to the photoset that I will be updating as I go along. So far, i've received all the wood, hardware, tools etc. I've drawn full-scale plans from a previous CAD drawing I got of the 'net. I've changed the orginal scale length from 25.5 to 24.7(gibson). For this build i'm going to be using a stew-mac pre-slotted fingerboard as I want this first instrument to be atleast playable and in-tune I've taken the plans and used them to cut my templates, i've got them all shaped and sized and will be gluing my neck laminates together tomorrow (i've had to order my clamps). I did all the cutting on a bandsaw, and used a combination of surform planer and 60 grit paper to get the edges straight, this is very easy with MDF. I will also be posting a link to a costings page so that anyone who is thinking of doing this will know roughly how much they'll need for a basic guitar. My cost is probably slightly high as I've literaly had to buy every tool from new as I owned very little previously. The guitar will have a natural finish - probably with nitro as i've just purchased a compressor (need to get a gun, anyone used the stewmac one?). The pickups are Mighty Mite Motherbuckers, all the hardware will be gold, and its a neck through design using larger sized maple pieces sitting aside a thinner piece of mahogany. I've changed some elements of the design to make it a bit more rock. The contours are now slightly more straighter and pointy, i've also designed a new headstock to get away from the often copied Ken Lawrence Samurai.

I have some shellac sanding sealer which will be put on before the wax. I've already been informed that if I wish to put on a nitro colour coat, the shellac sandind sealer will indeed act as a buffer coat and will allow a perfect finish.

So your template is just for your neck section?, or do you cut a template for the full neck-thru including the part that goes through the body?

But the thing is, it really isn't that nice a wood - rather featureless and a dull green. However, I do love natural wood finishes, so I think nitefly's suggestion of staining the front (and keeping it natural) is a good compromise, it will take the dull green-ness away and add some richness while at the same time keeping the natural wood and odd laminate dimensions. ← It's really all perspective. You may like a piece of wood that others hate or you may hate a piece of wood that others like. In the end it's your guitar, have fun with it. I like the wood natural, it's so imperfect that it has kind of a cool vibe to me. Maybe I just think you have great finishing skillz. Either way, have fun, do what makes you happy. ← Thank you for the compliment - i'm due to wax it tonight and tomorrow, so it should look that little bit better. I will post the final pics and see what people think. I agree with you about it all being subjective though, and I can kind of see where are you coming from with regards that its so bad its cool kind of way..

It's the tapering of the neck that I was referring to. For example, at the point where the fingerboard starts at the body, the width is approx 55mm and at the nut end it is 40mm so I need to cut this taper. I can't really use a jointer come to think of it because it needs to remain straight at the body section. I suppose the only real way to it is cut as accurate as poss on a bandsaw using a mitre guage, and then using a combination of hand planes and sanding, get it accurate.. Any more ideas on this?

But the thing is, it really isn't that nice a wood - rather featureless and a dull green. However, I do love natural wood finishes, so I think nitefly's suggestion of staining the front (and keeping it natural) is a good compromise, it will take the dull green-ness away and add some richness while at the same time keeping the natural wood and odd laminate dimensions.

Hi guy's. I received my wood today all planned and jointed and ready for glueing, which makes things a bit easier :-) I've drawn on the taper and all the other details, I just wanted to hear your experiences of how you cut the taper. My first thought was to cut it on a bandsaw, and then plane straight, or use a router around a template. Are there any jigs that I could put together to make this easier and more accurate??

I tried a chemical stripper recently on the rhoades guitar (pictures posted in the in-progress section). After a day the stripper did nothing (was supposed to work after 5 mins) and this was after I sanded through the clear coat. My advise is if you want an easy job, buy 40 and 60 grit paper and a small palm sander, I took my guitar down to wood in about 3 - 4 hours on and off, wasn't difficult to do and as long as you clean up the dust every 15mins or so it's not that messy. When you get near wood, you need to bring the sanding grade upto about 120, then move on to 320. I honestly thing sanding is the best way, you don't risk burning your guitar, you don't risk dodgy chemical accidents, and you have a high degree of accuracy if you step down the grades. And it doesn't take as long as you would think. The palm sander that I used cost only £20 and that came with enough sanding discs to do most of the guitar.

As for re-finishing it, I was going to restore with the same finish, just take out some of the deeper scratches and dents, surely thats no different to restoring a finish on an old beat up piece of furniture? Would it really devalue it?

Sorry to disapoint you curtis, but it's a bit too '70's' for me

Yes, you know rougly where the center of your routs are going to be? Just drill a hole large enough to get a flush trim router bit (on with the bearing underneath the bit) and use the routs that are already there as a guide. The veneer should be thin enough that it wont be a problem to do it this way. ← Excellent - why didn't I think of that ? Luckily I recently purchased a router-bit set with underneath mounted bearings - cheers for all the input chaps, this should be a nice little experiment.

I like that idea a lot - this could be an ideal compromise, thanks Nitefly - you've got me thinking now.

Ain't that the whole purpose of the guitar building thing? Don't tell me because it is too tricky you won't try to do it? On the venneer thing, the edges would be sanded down, there is no way around it, unless you vaccum the venner on to comform to the edges. And then all you have to do is paint the back black with a burst covering the edges were the venneer ends. ← I don't like the pin-stripes anyway! If i do the veneer thing, whats the best way of making sure i've got the correct routing? I was thinking of tracing the shape onto tracing paper, and then use this to cut out templates in ply - is there a more accurate way of doing that?

Sounds a very good deal. I've just recently paid for my order with David Dykes (A UK wood guy - see previous post) and like your experience the guy was great, spent ages on the phone helping to work out the correct dimensions. I ordered Mahogany, and maple to make a neck through explorer, the total cost with planning, surfacing and delivery came to £120 And to top it all off, tomorrow by an uncanny coincedence he is in the area, and is bringing the wood personaly. This sort of service is very good. But to get back to the main subject, some pictures would be great as i'm looking for a place to get my figured tops and veneers.

After talking about this gutiar with a few vintage collectors, I think i'm going to keep it and restore it as it could be worth quite a bit in the future, certainly a lot more than I wanted for it recently. I plugged it into a new Vox Valvetronix amp today and was blown away about it's 'ballsyness' the original dimarzio's have a really nice tone to them.

The pin-stripe could be a bit tricky..

I have some scrap wood, so this will be a nice midweek experiment to do while i'm waiting for the wood to arrive, thanks for the tip, that will save me some money on stewmacs stuff.

Thanks for the info drak, I think i'll give it a few tests on some scrap as i'm a bit worried about the quick drying/curing time - are there retardents that can be added to slow the curing to allow time to get an even coverage?

Haggard - I definitly know what you mean, the wood is pretty grim, I just thougt it would be best to practice a natural finish on this rather than on expensive mahogany, i'm thinking of a nice metallic grey finish after this one to match the black hardware, this way I get to practice two different finishes without ruining a an expensive guitar :-)

Thanks for that - is it likely that the wood is all poplar, or poplar mixed with something else, as the bottom part of the body is a lot paler/grey than the top part. Also, it seems to be a strange way to laminate the body, is it a case of the japanese factories laminating large blocks of wood to cut a number of bodies out, hence the odd proportions of the laminate?

Thanks for the info guy's. Nice tip Drak, I recently purchased some epoxy for a few home projects. I'm assuming that it won't 'cloud' the view of the wood through the clear in any way? And does the epoxy coat require sanding before the sealer and clear coats?

The guitar will be natural no matter how ugly it is as it's really an experiment to see how to do a good natural finish for my upcoming build, when it's done satisfactory, I will probably then put a different finish on it. I was thinking about that, but not sure how accurate I would be with routing and also the pointy bits are contoured on both sides which shows the edge-grain, I think a solid finish after i've done experimenting is the way to go for this one. I havn't tackled the headstock yet, but will probably do the same as its a nice looking maple neck.