Drak

Before the black framing. Notice the 'other' yellow area. Thought it was a good idea at the time... Took 2 hours to carefully sand that back out, get back to the red and not destroy anything in the process. 360 Abralon pad to the rescue...'I put that shit on everything'... It was a close call.

So, if I say this, ...maybe I give away the goods too soon... You have to remember this is all background, the pickguard will really be the star of the show. Notice there's no Green (or blue) anywhere...hmmm... If I said the Real Superhero of this Pimpin' 70's Movie rhymes with SuperWizard... I can say no more, I cannot. SuperWizard - Live This is where the Red and Black (power, death) come in: A SuperHero's Journey (The Pursuit of Vikings)

An hour to carve a piece of masking tape, and maybe two minutes to shoot the thing. I carved the tape on a separate piece of wood as I didn't want to dig into the finish. Then I just laid the tape down on the guitar and shot it. Still have to do the edge and the back, then there's more coming (I think). And cleanup, every piece that gets added has a cleanup stage to it. But, so far, no caterwauling backwards down the stairs, I'm liking it, another keeper stage, another slow move forward.

Thanks Biz. The time I've spent on this is both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. I can blow through a 12 layer burst relaxed and enjoying it the whole time throughout. But this has been really slow and cumbersome and extremely thought provoking as I contemplate every color and its affect on the 'big picture'. Ratios, proportions, too much, overbaked, not enough, what needs to be there and what works against the final look. How different colors powerfully affect the other colors around them. Nothing I've done on this was just 'tossed out', it was contemplated for hours upon hours. Tho to someone just looking at it, it may not appear such a thought provoking theme (yet). Not saying its anything great, but I have had to put more thought into this than most other projects w/o a doubt. Primarily because there's nearly no room for error. Spraying lacquer is not a great medium for changing your mind along the way. No Sir it is not amenable to 'eraser and edit' mentality. So everything counts, as layer by layer, everything must be 'a keeper', no room to caterwaul backwards down the stairs here. Some takeaways I've learned through sitting with, and staring at, this for so many hours: The 'North Star' (Belew's pastel schizoid-ish fun themed guitar) elicits a frolicsome scatterbrained lightheartedness. Mine, OTOH, could not have been more serious if I purposely tried to make it so, as it started out. Black and White is basically Life and Death, Yin and Yang, in proper proportions. A reasonable starting point. But all of Life happens between those two guardrails. Red and Black are the colors of Stern Authority, Power, Lust, Control, and Death...very adult themes, not very frolicsome at all. But something inside me really liked those colors, and the curve, I love the curve. The curve is what differentiates his from mine, the patterns on his being scattershot, the curve asserting control and a specific direction. So it has been a journey, to 'find the center' where they can meet, to bring together the adult power, and the childish lightheartedness, in equal proportions that 'get along'. So the 'gathering place' is the yellow, but you can overdo yellow really fast, yellow really needs some restraint, as its so powerful...a little goes a long way. Yellow is highly accentuated when black is used to frame it out, those two love to hang out together. I have pics of it before I put the black boundaries on it, I didn't like it nearly as much. I have decided so far not to intrude on the red or the black (tho I might by the end), so any new material 'eats away' at the white substrate, which I want to maintain a certain ratio of. I don't want to 'lose' the white as it gives everything else something to bounce off of. The white is the backdrop holding everything else in place. If the shoot goes OK, I should have some more pics tomorrow, I have the next step laid out, which hopefully will add in some 'fun'. The 'serious' side is already nearly too strong, so from here forward, the momentum is all pointed towards the fun and 'glitchy' side of it.

'70's Pimpin' Superhero theme, take your pick. Speaking of pics, the Pickguard (which can only add to the Superhero theme) ...still not here yet. I put a little bit of white in with the yellow so it wasn't so super-dark yellow, not much, but effective enough. So now it's '70's Movie Superhero instead of 'Chuck E Cheese's Sunday Afternoon W/ Free Chicklets Party'. "Hey Kids, Remember to Bring Your Mom! "

It's the next big thing fellas. Don't get caught behind the wave, its just gaining steam now. Parlor Rubber Harmony Montclair Rubber 1946 harmony Rubber DIY Your Own Rubber

I've always run my router in the opposite direction while removing the bulk of the material. Then when I'm down to a hair's breath distance from done do I run it forwards for the final pass. Don't exactly know why I adopted that, but I've been doing that for decades, works for me. Much, much less tearout and risky digs and chips that way.

I'll add something else I learned while building the subwoofer box for my car. If its going to be one large fully sealed enclosure, you don't want much free space in it. I'd batten the shit out of it. I used to have a bunch of great info from Electro-Voice about how to tune both closed and open cabs properly. There is a lot to it to make a sealed cab operate properly with the appropriate amount of backpressure for the cone/spider to 'cushion' off of.

Just another observation looking at your cardboard mockup. Chances are those cabs load from the front, not the back. So you need to make sure you have all the room you need for a FULL 12" circumference. With room for the 'tangs' (the speaker clips) if you're planning on using them. If you're drilling straight in and just using screws for mounts, make sure you've got good wood meat there. From the cardboard mockup, it looks a little tight and thin on the edges there for my blood. I'm not sure what your holes represent, a full-on 12" cutout or the cone cutout. If you wanted to go full-nuts-on custom with it... If you add separators to each section to isolate them... You could then add partial ports to either just the sides or all three sections. So you could have any combination of closed back / open back / ported back. Just depends on how you design it. If I were going to all that trouble, I'd want options. I'd build it in.

If I were actually doing that (which I am certainly not) I would do a 12" in the bottom and 10's on the sides. Just me. I used to experiment a lot with different size speakers in the same cab many years ago, most of which were duds and fails. Tho it was a great learning experience and I enjoyed the hell out of doing it. And different types of 10's in a 4-10 (Super) setup, which was a most profitable and rewarding experience with many payoffs. But if it were this, I'd go 12" in the bottom and 10's in the sides, no question. And I'd work my ass off on the weight reduction factor. Anywhere in the construction where I could shed a pound here and a pound there in materials selection, I'd do it.

You just quit too soon, it takes a while to sand that out. Its normal, it happens, to more or lesser extents. No need to start over, its completely savable. I'm guessing you don't have a bench sander or belt sander. If you have an orbital sander you can use that to get most of them all out. If its down to you doing it manually, use a block of wood to keep things perpendicular. And yeah, if doing it manually, that's an afternoon of sanding. That's more than 10 minutes right there. But that all will come out, just not as fast as you would hope for.

That's exactly what it is, good eye Sir.

Which leads me to wonder... If the cabs used the metal mesh screens to match the heads they went with... And there (obviously) were cloth screen flat front versions... I'm guessing the heads would have had, at that point in time or level of cost, cloth grills too... Metal grille with indented frame (top stack?) Metal grille with flat face front frame (bottom stack?) Cloth grille, BOTH flat fronts (both bottom stacks?)

I found a ton of pics of them, apparently they were around for at least a few short years. I wanted to verify they were closed back, which they are. I saw at least two, maybe three different iterations of them. The one above with the indented top and metal mesh screens. Another with a squared front (just like a 4-12 straight) with flat cloth grille. A third I couldn't see very well so not sure, maybe it was the difference between a top and a bottom stack model. I would guess the squared front and cloth grille were made later, or were a lower-cost version. Because (most likely) those design parameters reduced the cost of production by a reasonable sum. Just a guess. You go Ritchie.

That was good, I've added them to my list. I'll trade you a phaser band for a phaser band. He usually has a phaser going on his Saz, almost all the time. Some shows you can hear it more present than others, but its usually there. Altin Gun 2021 KEXP Altin Gun 2019 KEXP

I agree, I wish he would build one and leave it at that stage, as it is a design element that can stand on it's own and be its own thing. Tho he probably wouldn't, as it would probably continually bug the shit out of him as 'unfinished'.

If you're willing to go 'there' with the sharp angles of a BC Rich, I would offer this. Its kinda like a BC Rich 'lite', but I quite like it a lot. More streamlined and grown up, not quite so 'teenager exaggerated' in the angles. But definitely has BC Rich in the bloodline. There are ways to be really creative w/o having to rely on finishing skills, Conklin being an excellent example. Although of course his finishing skills are excellent, these types of designs don't count on that ability so much. Yet in their own way are immensely creative and don't look like a copy of everything else out there. A twist on your Aria idea.

I don't know where you live, but if you have any guitar repair shops around, make an appointment for an estimate. Estimates are (usually) free, and you can find out what the true assessment is for the guitar. Right now, you're just guessing at it. We can play the guessing game all day long and just go 'round in circles. Take it to someone who professionally repairs guitars and gets paid for it to give you a real-time analysis of what you have. If the guitar is as valuable as you think it is, they'll tell you what it needs. If you want to do it yourself, you'll at least be armed with accurate information from an experienced pair of eyes who held it in their hands. Any truly valuable instrument is easily well-worth a trip to a real doctor for a real evaluation.

It's not a solid Spruce top, it's a Plywood top from what I can see. The top ply came off with the bridge and you're seeing the next ply under it. The plys in plywood always run cross-grain to each other, that's what gives it its strength. Most budget acoustics use Plywood, its nothing unusual. You only get real solid Spruce when you get into the upper price brackets.

I still love you <hugs> Some of us are just naturally attracted to jailbirds and bad boys. I'll have a quick look 'round the kitchen to see if I can find you a shiv, might come in handy.

I would most definitely try the muriatic acid on a scrap piece first, of course. That will tell you everything you need to know about how long it will take and whether the finished look is something you like or not. Looks great so far! I used to own several of those old '60's semi-hollow jobs, Mine were Japanese Matsumoku's, but basically the same thing. What they did was to take a little piece of wood, about 1" x 2", and literally stick it right under the bridge area for support. I'm not sure if it was glued in or not, but the three I had I could pull them all out by hand. You had to tug on them, they were a tight fit top to bottom tho. Not saying or recommending it, just giving you some reference on how they dealt with that. On mine, I removed those and installed two new posts and drilled them for TOM's.

Updated Pic.

@Bizman62 I totally trolled you (since you called me a troll, I felt rather justified) And you fell for it faster than a juicy steak presented to a man dying of starvation. The rat squarely sequestered in the cage. (I actually love rats, used to keep them for years) You just got double-dwarfed, my good man. We all know no one needs to see any more spandex pics, there was even a warning about it as I recall. So, there is progress. I actually like the expanded black section that now meets the red with no white gaps. That in itself I like better, so that's a firm step forward. I may or may not wind up doing any colors on the body now, the way it looks, I think, is strong enough to support the 'guard as it sits. Once bitten, twice shy, as they say.

Thanks Biz. I agree with the lighthearted comment, I absolutely saw that too, and thought it was a bit 'too' lighthearted for my tastes. A little too Starburst Candy. I didn't 'not' like it, but I wasn't falling head over tincups for it either. The thing you all can't see is the pickguard assy, which is going to have Lots of its own color. There's color coming, believe me there is. Its just about whether I wanted to mimic/mirror those colors on the pickguard assembly, onto the body or not. I can see 'that' part, and I know none of you can yet. This is still background, this is still supporting cast material. The Diva, with her bodyguards and paparazzi overflow, has not arrived on the scene yet. Hold tight, I think it'll all work out by the end, we're not in crash and burn territory yet. I believe there is a song for the Fat Lady to still sing in it. And as I am apparently a fat bearded troll, we shall both need some leopard spandex outfits. Uhh..btw, do they sell extra-extra large leopard Spandex?