pan_kara

ok nevermind, 40 minutes with turpentine and rags, its gone. 2nd try tonight

yea I think I'll do the shellac barrier coat like last time. It will still be fun, I plan to use those auto 2K aerosols that you mix before spraying, so when I fire up one of those I have to use up the whole can before it goes hard - so I can't really spray a test piece and wait a day to check compatibility.. I can however spray a test piece and wait a few minutes - so I think I'll just have to go for it. Another problem is the unevenness of the paint - I don't think I'll shoot enough clear to bury that without sanding between coats, so I'll probably do one full can, wait a day for it to cure, sand flat and then shoot another can. I hope they'll adhere to each other fine. Anyway, here's a pic - actually a framegrab from a gopro lying at the bottom of the water tank - the big blue-ish blob in the middle is foreground, it's still floating on the water. Also the huge blotch around the lower horn. Instead of a swirl it looks like the guitar was in a paint shop during an explosion

yea I think I understand the concept more or less, I just don't think I managed to get rid of ALL orange peel and at the same time get the surface flat on a macroscopic level. I guess this is some linear combination of crappy paint, lack of patience and fear of sanding through. On the 5 or so attempts at a clearcoated body that I've tried up to now - so yes, this is a completely different league that I'm in

yea, no idea why we keep doing this to ourselves... I made an attempt already last night. Before starting I discovered that my ~3yr old magic marbles have dried out (some of them) or turned into jelly (some others). But a few seemed ok. I didn't really have a color combination in mind before starting, though I kind of missed having black and white, but I had yellow, green, three different blues/violets, and some orange that would only ooze out of the container when strongly persuaded. Well I'm not sure whether I like the end result or not. The paint was dripping really badly out of the small bottles so instead of a swirl I have tons of little colorful dots (mostly). One of the violets was messed up I think and formed these weird washed-out puddles with weird edges. I couldn't really "swirl" the paint on the water surface because of how quickly the magic mables are drying out (which is my biggest problem with them). Right now its drying back home, this evening I'll have to decide what to do with it. There's still the clearcoat saga to go afterwards ... I should have a pic somewhere of the current state, I'll post it when I find it.

Ok time to finish the body. I've fretted three other necks in the meantime and now its time to move onwards with this build I think there's enough primer on, pretty much all texture is gone from the body (except 1 or 2 places), I also brushed some nitro sealer (at least I think its a sealer) on the back of the neck after sanding it to P320. So time for the swirl job. I checked yesterday and the baby bathtub that I hoped to use for this is too small. So today I bought a 70x40x40cm plastic box. Should be just enough.

wow, took me a while. First I thought there's some window or fence in the top left of the picture. That's some super sharp reflections, I can't even see orange peel. Did you manage to get it mirror-flat?

yea, definitely move the hole forward, the two should be flush at the nut side - like Curtisa is saying. Concerning the trem angle - the good thing is that you have some wiggle room here and you can always tweak it to some extent when the guitar is stringed up, IMHO this boils down to player preference. I guess you won't be using a locking nut so the trem will not be meant for stunt dives and pull-ups - so I'd keep the bridge parallel to the body, either resting on it or raised just a tiny bit above (~1mm). Raised allows for some shallow 2-way vibrato. Resting on the body allows you to for example over-tighten the springs so that (1) the bridge is sitting tight against the body and (2) pulling up on a string doesn't make other strings go out of tune. So basically you should be able to get the strings above the frets with the bridge flush to the body without maxing out the saddle adjusters, and then if you raise the bridge on the posts you should be able to lower the saddles a little to get sensible action. Since unlike some I'm too lazy or sloppy to plan out every detail, the way I approach this is to get the neck pocket to a point where the fingerboard is ~1mm above the body, which seems a good starting point (unless the fretboard is really thin or really thick). Then at some stage I the strings, at least the outer two for example, or even just take a straightedge - and see where the bridge falls. If there's a tiny change needed I can always sand a little off the heel to bring the neck down away from the strings, or sand a tine angle into the heel to bring the strings down to the neck.

thanks guys, tons of useful info here. I guess I'll have to experiment more next time. I do the "wetsand with truoil" trick usually, typically when I'm doing fingerboards I do a single flood coat and then the next coats are applied with P600-P800-P1000. All of them wiped off - I'm not sure whether the wipe-off doesn't remove most of the slurry that was supposed to do the pore filling... but in any case I'm not trying to pore-fill fingerboards so I don't worry.

Thanks for the explanation! So for the "initial" (10-20) coats you don't actually wipe them off at the end? You just leave the last wet streaks to dry before the next coat? Everybody seems to be recommending the opposite (wiping off after application) but then the build is very slow. Ont the other hand not wiping off tends to produce wipe marks that are hard to get out, or become gummy when I try to sand them flat later on ...

this tru-oil finish of yours comes out super nice. Do you have any trick for that? Is it just one coat per day wipe on-remove instantly or something else? Do you buff it afterwards? I did I think 2 guitars in full tru-oil but I still have a lot of room for improvement..

ah yes, I heard that belt sander is a pretty cool shaping tool .. I got a set of cheapo sanding drums once, mounting them in the cordless drill works pretty well for tasks like this. But really, I need a proper half-round rasp.

how about scrapers for this?

yea, solid gray is hiding all the wood patchwork now the vise is lined with cork from both sides - should be ok, no? EDIT: ah, you probably mean the earlier pic. True, I should have probably put something in there. I was only clamped lightly for spreading the pore filler so I didn't bother..

but before becoming a beauty she has to become ugly primer, 2nd coat (after sanding back the 1st). should have done more pore filling, though the actual pores are almost gone by now. What remains is various uneven spots and some dings etc. Mostly along the roundovers. Will need some work still

interesting question. I heard the "heavier gauge is better tone" story, but is there really an optimum gauge for, say, a high E? (regardless of feel). In what way does "tone" become "better". I guess some sort of an answer is hidden in comparing open high E vs the various fretted options (5th fret on B, 9th on G etc). There you have changing scale length and changing gauge and ~constant tension. I'd love to do a systematic study some time (or maybe something already exists) There are several things in play when choosing scale length, the tone and feel of the strings, plus for multiscale also the ergonomics of the amount of "fan" chosen. I don't know what people do in general, I imagine one would try to take "standard" cases as guides as in "fan from fender scale to baritone (25.5-27) for a normal/dropA 7-string" or "fan from gibson to fender for playing on 11's that would feel like 10's (I guess)" or something along those lines ...

ok, so it takes me about 1 year to get to this stage in a build I love the bit with the spiral bit, moving that way myself too (not sure if I'll make new templates to use spirals exclusively for body outlines or like you run it with the smallest possible bushing to get close to final shape and then follow with normal bits) but but what is THIS???

"finish" "sanded" LOL I decided to put some pore filler before I shoot the primer coats, here it is then This was then sanded off with up to P320 and I started putting some gray automotive primer on it (pics later). I already see some areas that need work, when that's all done I'll shoot white nitro primer (I hope it's all compatible) and then I'll swirl it. I also need to do the same process on a scrap piece because I'll need to test the compatibility of the magic marble paint that I'll be using for the swirl with the spraycan 2k clear that I want to put on top.

Could be this one from RAD

well KEA my build is basically the opposite of your super-clean ones but do build more! Last week after fretting I did a quick alignment check by locating the outer bridge saddle holes and checking that the strings run parallel to the fretboard edges and that I can set intonation ok. All appears to be fine so I can continue So now the neck, heel, volute etc. So far I build almost only bolt-on guitars so I don't have the process down for carving the heel. ok, this is kind of in the direction I want it to go, but not exactly. The transition from the neck to the body starts pretty early. I took a look at my Mayones Regius to compare, and there the neck retains its profile pretty much until the cutaway actually starts. It's a slightly different thing since there only the back is rounded over, but still. This is a bit closer: I need some tools for the future, probably at least a good quality rasp. Right now its going rather slow, but I'm getting somewhere. The volute is almost done, the purpleheart/maple accenting came out pretty cool: and the heel: Now I think I'll smooth the body a bit and shoot some primer, with this blotchy mess I cant see anything. Plus the super soft pine all over the place freaks me out, I fart and it dents. Oh well.

yea I think nails are not enough .. I tried staples with the "connecting bar" cut off (the stewmac trick for gluing fingerboards) on a multiscale scarf I was gluing and they had nowhere near enough power to hold the wood in place. When I have space on the sides (like in your glueup) I drill two holes with 6mm bits on the sides of the scarf and leave the bits in. That holds it fine. Or, if everything is square, I put the neck on it's side on a flat surface and clamp everything DOWN to the surface. And add some stopping blocks at the ends of the two pieces of wood that keep them from sliding in the directions they want to slide (away from the joint) but anyway, its done now

wow thanks for this little tutorial. I was just researching this Doesn't the CA/sawdust mixture set up really quickly when you mix them together? Or do you put sawdust into the holes and then add a drop of superglue? (I think that's what I'd try to do)

lol I had to do some variation of this on pretty much every other scarfed neck that I did. Either taking wood off the neck face, the headstock face, or gluing on a faceplate and of course the classic that you mention above (realizing that after I level everything my nut line has moved by a cm (and the headstock is now too short)) I do both typically, laminate together a straight blank and then cut the scarf in that. Best of both worlds man, that ebony board is awesome! I have 4 of this type, and I can't fit them into any build since I usually go with busy figured tops and then its just too much to have a wacky fingeboard ...

been away for two weeks, but the frets are in now:

hah welcome to the 23 fret club, I also made a fretboard like that by accident but decided to "fix" it (despite comments on 23 frets being perfectly fine )

ok, time for some fretting ... [missing image ...]