Drak

Well, I certainly don't have the greatest build chops in the world, most people here can easily clean my clock. I mean, I'm perfectly happy and content with what I do, but I'm no D'Angelico. But finishing, really, was the whole reason I started building, that's where my attention and primary enjoyment has always been.

So I actually added some retarder and crossed my fingers. Worked. We go from this 2-3 days ago: To this today, slightly darker edged version, w/ Floyd:

Much progress. I dyed and lacquered the patch, then glued it in, then re-routed the pickup cavity. Can't barely tell the difference now. Blacked out the Floyd cavities. Scuff-sanded the body and neck w/ a 320 Abralon pad. I mixed up a burst batch of Nutmeg Brown, Blood Red, and a little bit of Black pigment. The original body was bursted to end in a Caramel Brown, which looked great and I liked it for what it was at the time. But since it now is going to have gold hardware, and is now a Rock machine, I wanted to darken the edges up to blow up the contrast against the gold. So that's all done now and looking great. And functionally right where I want it. It's humid as hell around here lately. So I can shoot paper-thin bursted edges and get away with it. But no thick clearcoats, that's totally out of the question until the weather settles down a bit.

Perfect choice.

That looks like Spruce topwood? It actually genuinely looks like what they would have used on a Saturn. Like.

I took that as a meditational path to higher consciousness. Your 'boogity boogity shoop' going all 'bomp bah bomp' is your lower mental plane of desires which must be brought under control. Then discarded, once discipline has been brought into awareness. Discipline

If you're using 2K over shellac, I would keep the shellac paper thin, as thin as possible. I know the old adage 'everything sticks to shellac'... But there's an older finishing adage that says never apply a harder finish over a softer one. And 2K over shellac is 'that' I would believe. If it goes south, I don't think it would be immediate, more like after a year or so, which maybe would be OK with you on this. Its not a delamination issue (because everything sticks to shellac) but more a different expansion/contraction ratio per finish. They're dissimilar finishes, and so have different expansion and contraction characteristics. I think if you keep the shellac from building, it will help that potential future tissue <pun intended>

Just hunted around in the scrap box for a spalted cutoff piece. Still needs a tiny bit of trimming, but good fit, good color match. I'm going to lacquer it up before I glue it in, then I'll put the template back on and re-route it.

Now you know this ain't no through street, the end is dead ahead The poor folks play for keeps down here, they're the living dead

I will tell you what definitely will produce clacking, when your guitar hits the ground from some junk-ass strap button. This is secure, and follows my formula of function over cosmetics all day long. Functionally, it's as secure as you could ever hope for. Cosmetically, up to you.

Wanker Tone That 3/16" is the difference between The Shaggs and Mean Street.

OK, we live on pics and images here, so here we go. This is what I'm starting with, this is/was the finished & bursted body, drilled for the Gotoh Tele bridge. We'll start with the rear route first. I had already measured the depth of the pickup cavities and knew I would run into the bridge when routing the rear pocket. So instead of trying to leave a paper-thin wafer of wood, I decided to just blow right through it right into the pickup cavity. Because I have lots of 1/16" blank wedges of Mahogany, as you can see I had already cut a patch kit out, ready to go. So instead of routing 5/8" (10/16"), I routed it to 11/16" and glued in the patch with CA glue, took about 1 minute. You can see the Mahogany patch is already in place and a layer of CA glue applied (basecoat for the black spray coming) This whole entire Floyd procedure I learned from Dan, from a Stew-Mac VHS tape, about 30 years ago. That is a drill bit epoxied into a hollow tube, its the only thing I ever use it for, with the standoff to get the right angle. Got it all from Dan. That little block of wood has a notch in it to hold the tube in position. OK, on to the top route. You can see how close the bridge pickup is sitting, my 'shenanigan in waiting'. Once routed, the entire thing, every single surface (especially that freshly exposed spalt), gets CA glued, then sanded, in prep for the black spray. You can see the Mahogany patch from the topside here, I used some accelerator as you can tell by the white snowy spots. Yeah, not happy, I can foresee some very compromised thin wanker tone here. Welcome to my shenanigan. Let's give this thing some BAWLZ! Finished route and the repair area that needs to be addressed.

I bought a bunch of those (about 6 maybe) a long time ago, they're sitting in my parts drawer, as (IMO) they never really worked as well as I imagined they would.

So I took some measurements of this build compared to the Oak Floyd (I took some pics, will post later) From the nose of the high E saddle to the edge of the pickup on the Oak is 1 1/16". The same measurement on the deconstructed Eddie is 7/8", so that's a 3/16" difference. Which I consider quite substantial at that end of the pool. I asked myself if I really wanted to go to the trouble and spend the time doing a patch job. So you know what I did? I looked up some pics of Frankie for reference . From what I can see, I would estimate the high E edge of the Frank is about 1" away from his saddle. And since he had it slanted, with the bass side even further away, that end was even substantially more distant. So...yes, we're moving the bridge back, yes indeed we are. The real question now is: Since I'm going to re-route...Do I want to slant a gold covered pickup on a pickup ring and go Full-On Super-Nerd? I would, ...but that would make the patch job 100 times harder, so, no super-nerd this time, just a little bump northward will do.

So, in alignment with this theory, I swapped the bridge pickup again. It's now, really, an Andy Timmons guitar, sonically. I put a White AT-1 in the bridge, and a Cruiser Bridge in the neck (still a white cover). And I put a treble bypass circuit in it, something I found while shopping for pots awhile back. It's called a V-Treb (YT it), there's exactly One YT on it. These are all components of Andy's signature guitar circuit. I'm thinking of using a chrome Floyd (something I would never otherwise do) As chrome is 'less' of a color than gold. I'm now extracting colors away from it. Every time I tried to put colorful pickups in it, it just didn't seem right, it seemed intrusive or invasive or overbaked, for lack of a better description. So now it has white pickups and will probably have a chrome Floyd and hardware. Its a guitar. The 'art' is supposed to be coming from the player in the form of sound and music. And it IS called the Sonic Crayon, I think still a fitting name, even with the new entanglement theory.

I like it. I don't love it, but I like it, so thumbs-up from me.

We're actually tracking together, as I just took it another step in understanding. To continue, the pickguard, with all the acrylic paint blobs, is also in a state of 'pre-creation'. All the Colors of Creation are there for the artist's paintbrush to choose a color and then to create 'a thing' from the materials available. But it hasn't happened yet. And the human mind doesn't like that, the mind likes definition, the mind wants answers, dammit, the mind yearns for 'the (completed) thing'. And this is sitting in a 'pre-thing' state of beingness. So it creates a natural 'anxiety' of a sort in the mind to 'do something' about it. But...The 'Thing' is actually the music that is spawned from the instrument, on a minute-to-minute basis. I never had this overall concept before I built it, Its all just kind of coming to me now.

I have thought long and hard about it actually. It's kind of like God (the 'I Am') The minute you put any word after those two words... You then define it and confine it, put it in a box and put yourself above it. If you can define a thing, you hold yourself as knowing more about the thing than the thing. It no longer means everything, every possibility, all possibilities, The All, The All That Is. I have often thought this is like that, the black/white is like I Am, It contains everything because it is undefined. It is Creation without having created anything of particularity. Creation in a resting position. What is Creation before it creates? The very minute you touch it with any pattern or color, it is then defined. It then becomes 'something' in particular, to the exclusion of all other possibilities. The pickguard, in comparison, reflects back to the undefined nature of what is holding it in place. Maybe better off to leave it alone. Ohmmmm.

I never noticed how thick the body looked until one of the pics you just posted. I would believe we're in for a Carve-a-geddon experience coming up.

I got everything Floyd-related done to the body today, will do the (required) black cavity spray tomorrow probably, weather permitting. Then pics, once everything's blacked out properly. I decided once this is all done, I'm going to scuff-scratch the finish w/ 400 and spray another coat or two over the whole thing. It's not that hard, and I think it'll look sharper with another clear over all the Floyd cavities. Especially if I have to 'fix a shennanigan' at the bridge/pickup area which may be coming up. It doesn't make sense to me to go to all the trouble of building a guitar and leave it with a less-than-optional functional situation. Proper function over cosmetic flaws, all day long, they're not wall-art after all. And I never liked bridge pickups that sit too close to the bridge, I typically always move mine forward just a scratch, a pet peeve of mine. Not so much that anyone would notice unless they were looking closely, but I usually move them 1/4" forward from 'normal' or so.

I had to think about this for a very long minute, and I'm still not sure I 'have it'. Like, how could you tell which hand I use to take pics with? But Yes, I AM (primarily) left-handed! I'm primarily left-handed ...but do several things naturally right-handed. And I could never do whatever it 'is', the other way around, I have no choice in the matter. I throw left-handed, but bat right handed. And I could never throw right handed, nor bat left-handed. Never. Told you I was schizoid, I wasn't kidding, haha! But...how did you pick up on that, I'm fascinated how you observed that...

Bullshit talks, and Talent walks. That is Gorgeous.

You also, Sir, make very good and valid points, some which cannot be disputed, and so we shall leave it at that. I still toss guitars away, free of any sin debt, haha!

I have this weird feeling this isn't done yet. I just haven't found the right color or pattern to enhance that black/white yet. But no matter how many times I look at it, it keeps saying its not done yet. Its been saying that for nearly a year, and I tried a few things, but nothing hit the spot. So it'll get put in a hold pattern until I get it figured out. It just needs some kind of color explosion. Tasty and refined, but bold, basic colors, like green, red, yellow, or blue. Something.

So here is an intended mock-up from years ago, I was going to use a black Gotoh HB Tele bridge on it. The finish isn't done, I bursted it later on. Kinda liked that black hardware look, and I think I'm going to use a black Floyd on it. I think it'll look nice with the gold pickups and spalted look. The next pics you see will be right here, right now, live updates, I'm getting ready to route for the Floyd. The bridge pickup was routed to fit for for the Gotoh Tele bridge, and it's a little too close to the Floyd for my liking. Had I known, I would have moved the bridge pickup location up a little, but we gotta deal wid it. I'm locked in at the top, no room to maneuver the neck forward to move the bridge back any. The only thing I can do is to re-cut the bridge pocket a little bit forward and try to hide or patch any obvious shennanigans in the area between the Floyd pocket and the bridge pickup ring. But I'll wait and cut the Floyd before I make any decisions for that detail. I would really like the pickup set towards the neck just a tad more.