Drak

Sooooo......

What kind of paint is it anyway, and what's the special deal with having to have the body sealed?

Details please.

PS, my favorite sealer is CYA (super glue) Hot Stuff wiped on (in) with a playing card.

You can bring the body to a completely hard dead-flat surface that will not settle into the grain later on.

If it were me and what happened to you happened to me, this is what I would do.

I wouldn't use any sanding sealer (I never use that stuff anyway)

I'd wait 24 hours between coats and probably steel-wool or lightly sand with a high grit between each coat.

I'd find another bottle to use.

My best guess is somewhere between the varnish maybe being old and the coats not having enough cure-time between applications.

Before I would ever use that bottle on my guitar again, I'd do some testing on scrap waiting 24 hours between coats and see how that goes...

PS, in my finishing 'bible', it does say that for a wipe-on finish, varnish is your best bet, so I wouldn't discount it as a finish, just maybe that bottle...

PPS, stash this in the 'FWIW' dept., but I've found that I've picked up some of my most valuable information from making mistakes, and I've made hundreds!

...So don't look at the re-fin as a suck thing, it's not, you're just picking up information as you progress.

Ford, it's just the wood, no enhancements at all.

Finish is 3-4 coats of catalyzed lacquer followed up with (probably) 8 or so coats of regular lacquer. Catalyzed lac can be deadly, so protect yourself to the 9's.

Paul: C-B presents no problems to me, but a lot of people are sensitive to it.

Hey, that guitar took me 7 years to complete, mostly because it took me that long to find a finish formulation that worked on all counts.

There are several things to consider when using any oily wood. Rosewood, Ebony, Teak, Paduak, etc...

Generally, it's very heavy.

Not all glues stick to it well.

Not all finishes stick to it well.

The sanding dust can be an -extreme- (like, put-you-in-the-hospital) irritant to the chosen few who are allergic to it.

If you use a finish where the new coats melt into the old ones (lacquer) the oils from the wood will creep up into your finish coats and darken the overall appearance considerably.

I started that guitar really not too awfully long after I first started building also, so I know just how you feel. What the hell, go for it.

The shark is also Poplar-based, and it ROCKS!!!!

About tone, this is very shakey ground, since I think everyone has their own idea about what is good and bad tone, but solid C-B I think would be overly bright to the point of -dead- tonally, and unrealistically heavy. Again, that's just my opinion, worthless as it is.

PS, Binding flat-out ROCKS with Rosewoods, it looks tremendous, be sure to do some 5 or 7-layer w-b-w-b-w binding with your C-B project.

All said, between the catalyzed lacquer and the rosewood itself, this isn't exactly a walk-in-the-park project, but you know, I didn't know any of this stuff when I bought my first piece, and I saw my way thru it all not knowing squat about what I was getting into...

Well, I'm no steenkin' expert on glue, but on other 'boards it was explained like this:

T-2 has something in it that allows outdoor woods to swell and contract w/o breaking the glue (ummm, can you say 'flexable', and 'never 100% curing'?)

Where T-O, being for indoor woods where no swelling is expected, dries properly and tightly, dry and hard.

I've read posts by some on other 'boards that said they experienced wet T-2 after removing some tops several months after application.

No thanks.

'Tacky' varnish...

1) The air is too cold

2) There is uncured oil in the wood

3) The wood is an oily wood like Ebony, Teak, or Rosewood

I hate to say this, but if it hasn't cured in 6 weeks, you might have to strip it and try again. It shouldn't take that long.

To me, stripping finishes is a way of life with guitar-building. I've stripped more finishes than I ever care to tell you about, but I've just gotten used to it, it's (sometimes) just part of the process. You curse a few times, strip it off, and just get on with it again until you get it right.

What kind of wood is it, and tell us the steps you used leading up to the application of the varnish.

Also, you might have gotten an old can. Any date-codes?

Varnish (as a rule) dries to a very hard surface. Also, it is recommended that you wait 24 hours between coats w/ most varnishes.

My Rhoads Shark is Rosewood capped top and back and sides, about 3/16" thick 'panels'.

Coco-Bolo is South American Rosewood.

Then there's Indian Rosewood (the 'plainest', and generally the least expensive)

Brazilian Rosewood (the most coveted)

Bolivian Rosewood

etc., etc...

That Tele looks just like Indian Rosewood. I have slabs of Indian Rosewood and Coco-Bolo here, Indian is usually very straight-grained like that Tele is. The slabs I have here look pretty much just like it, as does most Indian Rosewood lumber.

I've also done a Tele and 2 Icemen in Coco-Bolo, which is I think the most attractive of the Rosewoods next to some sweet Brazilian...but Brazilian is almost unnatainable these days.

Rosewood is as heavy and dense and oily as Ebony, I personally would never want to strap on a solid Rosewood guitar, it would be worse than a solid Maple guitar tonewise and weightwise (IMO anyway)

I would think it would come in around 12-14 lbs.

Rosewood Shark

Nope, just noticed the joint had separated about a 1/32" after a month or two.

That's sizable enough to notice...

Well, you can file this in the FWIW file, but I used T-II for a top, and sure damned enough, it separated after a few months.

I didn't know about the T-II creep at the time, but after I read a post about it, I threw that stuff away and have never used it since, and haven't had any joints separate on me with T-Original.

Coincidence?

I'd like to make a hardshell case for my Rhoads Shark.

Anybodt know of any tutorials or sites where it's shown how to do it?

I'm seeing leopard-prints for the fabric inside!

Gorgeous!

Is there any Cripes (Garcia) influence in there or is that my imagination?

Tell us how you went about the carving!

Very sweet indeed.

I started off doing all my binding channels with it, but now I use my router for body bindings, and the Dremel (still) for headstock binding channels.

I use the Stew-Mac router base.

I also use it to polish fretboards and frets, using the red polishing compound for the frets. You could brush your teeth on 'em! I use the white flannel buffing wheel for those.

I also use it to remove the lacquer from the frets after I shoot a Maple neck, using the white bullet-shaped hard cloth bit.

I used it to route out the wood for the side-mounted strat jackplate on the Rhoads Shark.

But the most important function it serves for me is the ability to cleanly and sharply route out the Fender-styled 5-way switch slot (I don't use pickguards) on the body top, also using the router base as a guide. I double-stick a straight-edge down on the body and let the dremel router base glide along it for a perfectly straight cut for the switch opening.

Thanks Ca-!

Well, I buy it wherever I can find it these days!

But the last three guitars I've posted here, all the wood came from my local guy, but they were all started years ago, he doesn't carry quite the same 'creme de la creme' wood as he used to, which is one reason I started shopping the 'net for woods. When I first started and for several years, I got 100% of everything I built from him. Those were the days...

He used to get Coco-Bolo shipments in, heck, about 3-4 times a year.

I bet he hasn't gotten a C-B delivery in a year or better, just to give you an example of how things changed there.

He had so much Honduran Mahogony it would make you throw up. He'd keep 15-20 boards, all 2" thick, some up to 4" thick, most were wide enough to get a 1-piece out of, all about 20-30 feet long, at all times.

I haven't seen more than one or two big boards of HM thereat a time in, I swear, 2 years now.

He used to have tons and tons of burls, all gone years ago.

...But you should see my wood box! I bought while the gettin' was good, I'm stocked up for awile to come anyway...No real gross amounts, but I've still got some good fat pieces I bought back then, when I could hand-pick and be very choosy...

One thing that happened was he used to get his stellar Maple from David Boreck who ran Maple Specialties out of Washington State. That guy had the wildest Maple out there in circulation, then HE closed up his shop years ago.

Most of my quilted Maple (this top included) came from Boreck's operation. I was lucky to be there at that time I was I guess. Never had to pay a dime for shipping!

Hey All.

Boy has this been a productive period for me lately.

I've never pumped out this many guitars this fast before, but I used to start a lot of 'em all at once and never do the followups, I've has as many as 16 on-going guitars all at once...retarded maybe, but with the best intentions!

I swore I was going to stop all new projects (and I have indeed done that, that's probably why I'm getting things done now) until the backlog had been finished, and these ones lately are the ones that have been sitting around in various states of dress...some for several years...

Anyhoo, I built this one specifically to harbor a set of Lace Sensor Hot Gold pkps.

Thanks to the great weather the past few days, I was able to shoot the final coats on it yesterday. Now the agonizing wait for the final cure (6 weeks)

I didn't route for any bridge because I could NOT decide what bridge I was going to use, but I just decided tonight... it's going to be another gold FLOYD!

Body is Honduran Mahogony, totally chambered on both sides, w/ Big Leaf Maple caps on body and headstock.

Neck is standard issue Carvin with some slight mods, not much.

I'll route the Floyd in by the weekend.

This Was The First Draft Look

Finished Body Shot (less bridge route)

Headstock Shot

Close-Up 'Burst Shot

I remember a company called Shergold that made modules somewhat like that back in the mid-late '70's I think.

Mike Rutherford of Genesis was the only guy I ever saw actually playing one of them...

That is a very nicely done body tho...

One last symptom...

If it's not really a 'wrinkle' but a 'lifted spot' (blister) that didn't go down, that's usually a sign of not enough clamps, not hard enough clamper also...FWIW.

If when you press on it it feels squishy or soft in any way, that's trapped glue spots.

If when you press on it it goes down but doesn't stick, that's probably an uneven clamping pressure-related thing. Those kind of spots is where a super-hard clamper like Maple comes in.

If you don't use Maple, you need some other hardwood that's REALLY hard and un-flexing, like Paduak, Ash, Walnut, Cherry. One of the really 'hard' woods. I think out of all of those a nice chunk of regular Maple is the cheapest (most plentiful) option. Gotta be 1/2" thick or better.

In my experience, the wrinkling comes from either too much glue, the clamper board is not hard enough, or not enough clamps.

You get those three things right, it won't wrinkle on ya.

The amount of glue (I've found) is pretty damn critical with veneer. Too much, you get wrinkles with glue puddles trapped underneath the wrinkles. Too little, and it'll come back up in spots when you spray finish on it. The amount of glue is part of the art of veneering I've found.

If you have enough clamps and a hard enough wood, it'll come out flat as a freakin' pancake every time.

I'm too cheap to spend that much(!) I'll always keep at it until I find a way to do something with what I have around me, but I also have wanted to try a vacuum press for some wilder ideas...it is a pretty cool thing to have around.

Usually yes, just sand it good. I can't remember having any blotch problems (that I can remember anyway...)

There is a way to find out what is causing the wrinkle. If you take a brand new X-acto blade and cut a slit into the wrinkle, if you can squeeze out any glue, you used too much glue, or trapped it. If you can't get any glue out of it, you probably need a harder clamper board or more clamps.

Believe me, I've been there and it has driven me crazy until I finally figured out what was going wrong and it came down to Maple clamper, lots of clamps, and the right amount of glue = pancake dead-flat results.

Lessee...

If your problem is curling due to one side of the veneer being wet with glue while the other side is dry, take a mister/spritzer pump bottle and (lightly) spritz the dry side with water to flatten things out. If you go too heavy, the glue will use the water as a channel to creep up into the top (sometimes)

Personally, I haven't tried the sandbag way, I developed the way I do it a few years ago, and I use a 1/2" thick piece of Maple and clamp as you described. I try to place my clamps around the center area first then add clamps moving toward the outside so I don't trap any glue in puddles underneath, FWIW. I will normally have about 15-20 clamps on it when I'm done, and it's gotta be a really hard and stiff hardwood like Maple to get really good results (I've found anyway) and a LOT of clamps. As many as you can get on there.

I've got some gorgeous Waterfall Bubinga that I've done that way, it didn't give me much trouble...BTW, before I put the Maple down, I tape a piece of wax paper to the underside, so me no get veneer-glued-to-the-clamper-board syndrome...

If the conditions are right, I also will use an iron and iron it down. You mix up some Titebond with water, apply to both surfaces to be glued with a paintbrush, let dry, lightly sand, then iron them together within a few hours of the glue drying. That way has it's good points and bad points like anything else.

You need to pre-iron the veneer tho, 'cause it'll shrink with the iron, especially doing booked halves...one-piece probably wouldn't make a difference.

Hey PS, I just remembered when I was doing the Waterfall Bubinga, I remember using the iron on it, and I remember hearing a cracking sound, I thought it was the iron travelling over the veneer, but it was the veneer actually drying out and cracking and splitting due to the extreme heat. Bubinga is funny like that I guess.

Does any of that help?

THAT DID IT THAT DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Switched the in and out wires on the SPC and IT BREATHED LIFE!!!

OH MY GOD, IT'S ALIVE, IT'S A-LIVE HAHAHAHA!!!!!

BUT!...it's too damned late to be able to do anything productive with it here at home tonight.

But, everything works! Pkps work fine, toggler is A-OK, A-burner is good, SPC is working.

Thanks everyone, I knew we'd get 'er done!

I think it was the 'Uli Jon Roth' Mojo workin' for me too, I've got the Scorps' 'Fly to the Rainbow' playin' right now...Thanks Uli!

I feel yer pain Ed.

I've had more than my share of router bits eat my *FREAKIN'* templates over the years! It's enough to make a guy get all likkered up and go trash the townsfolk.

Looks nice sofa tho...

OK, I'm gonna fire up the soldering iron shortly, but I just got home from work and the weather is stunning today, I've got the guns out and shooting finishes right now.

But I have a question for the circuit-mongerers out there, referring to the EMG practice of disconnecting the ground wire to the bridge for the human shield grounding thang.

Why do they do this, and what effect would it have if you DID connect that ground back up, AND using an EMG circuit?

Would your body eat up current and drain the battery faster?

I really have no idea, and my logic can't figure out why it would really affect anything at all...but I would like to know.

Yes wes, that part is all correct, but thanks for the check, that helps me to know the volume pot 'is' wired correctly then.

I appreciate the help. We'll git it figgered out soon.

I'm just too damned lazy to pull one of them out, I'd rather try to hunt the problem down without unsoldering a bunch of stuff. I usually put heat shrink on my connections, and it's a bit of a PITA to cut it back off...

I think after talking it out and the input back from you guys, I think I'm going to swap the 'in' and out' wires on the SPC. Something tells me that might be it.

You know, when you buy something used, you never know what the guy in front of you did to it.

wes: my apologies, I should have stated that this is a hybrid circuit, using regular HB's, regular Gibson-style 3-way, and and regular 500K pot, then it switches over to EMG mainframe into the SPC, A-burner, and EMG output jack.

I should have mentioned that. And I will stick a new battery in there just to check. Thanks.

Dave, nah, don't bother, I don't want you ripping your guts apart, I'll figure it out but thanks for the offer, much appreciated.

Saber, that is some useful information and I bet I'll be able to get further with it armed with that. Thanks a truckload.

My main concern was the volume pot. I'm 'pretty' sure everything else is OK (not 100% tho) I've wired a few circuits very similar to this one before, they all worked fine right out the gate, so I'm familiar with doing what I'm doing, but the volume pot/3-way Gibson toggle is a bit different than my standard Fender-styled 5-way switch...

Just put in a 14 hour day, I'm beat, I'll take it up tomorrah, thanks all!

HAAALP!

Bastard MF'in %*&#*& Piece-O' Steenkin' Trash!

I need someone who's familiar with the EMG controls, or the resident electronic GURU.

Wiring up the Shark, got everything done and there is ONE freakin' problem and I can't quite figure it out although I can isolate it down to a specific area.

OK you wiring guru's, here's the skinny...

Pkps (2 standard-wired HB's) > 3-way Gibson toggle > volume pot > SPC control > Afterburner > output jack.

PS, until the EXG shows up, I figured I'd stick in a SPC control I had lying here. They wire up the same way.

I get no sound unless I pull up, then turn the A-burner up ALL the way, then I can hear a very faint signal, but enough signal to let me know a few things...

1. the 3-way is working, and the pkps are wired correctly. I can toggle the switch and hear it switch the pkps, and I can take a screwdriver and tap them and hear enough of a sound to know that they are wired right and working.

So...pkps are OK, 3-way toggle is OK.

Let's skip the volume pot and SPC (this is where the problem is I think)

And jump on to the A-burner. The A-burner is also working, with what little signal is being fed to it, as when I pull it up and rotate, I can hear the signal come up (but very, very faint and clean)...so the A-burner is OK, and the output jack is OK else I wouldn't hear the effects of the 3-way and a-burner.

So, that leaves the area of the volume pot and the SPC control. Also, the problem is with the hot signal, not grounds. There is no weird hums or buzzes, it's a lack of a hot signal. The hot signal is getting diverted or cut off or something somewhere in this area between these two.

Either I wired the volume pot wrong or the SPC wrong, or the SPC be broke down.

OK, let's look at the SPC.

Blk- ground- that's going to ground.

Red- battery hot - hooked up to all the other battery hots, that's OK (at least I think)

White and green - this is where the signal comes in and exits the SPC control, and I think it's wired correctly by the diagram but this is the trouble point, so I'm wondering...

...and the volume pot. right side tab bent back to ground and all other grounds hooked up here (pretty normal)

OK...I've got the left hand lug being fed by the 3-way toggle hot output (remember, pkps > 3-way > volume > SPC)

and the center lug going 'out' to feed the 'in' of the SPC control.

Between this point on the volume pot and the signal coming in and going out of the SPC is where the problem lies, the hot signal is getting lost somewhere in that section.

I think one or the other is wired backwards or something.

Many thanks for any troubleshooting tips/advice. I think I wired something backwards in this section.

Brand new battery.

The SPC was bought used from the 'bay, but I bought an EXG from the same guy (I bet he broke down a DG-20 and parted it out) and the EXG works fine.

Help turn my shark into the JAWS OF DEATH!

Sounds like you got a full basket lookin' at ya there, lots of work to be done.

I don't think you will be able to switch to a TOM, since your neck is permanently set.

TOM's need an angle, and you most likely don't have it, and on that guitar there's no way to adjust for it either, so I'd say barring doing something really stupid, like recessing the TOM into the body (at least I think that's a stupid thing to do) your looking at installing a Fender hardtail-style bridge. And even that will need to be checked for proper string passage over it before you go filling anything in...and installing rear ferrules if you've never done it before is always a hoot!

You might want to consider installing all 5 springs on the tremolo and removing the arm, that's the quick and easy way to get you to non-tremolo-land.

To do all the changes you want to do, you are going to have to completely strip that guitar down and do a complete re-finish from scratch on it. Are you OK with that? If so, yes, you can fill in the SC cavities and route out for a HB.

About re-painting and the neck, when you get to that point, re-post. You've got a helluva lot of work to do before that day arrives!

Before you do anything, you should ask yourself this: if the TOM is THAT important to you, then you should consider another guitar, you might still be able to sell that one to help fund something else a little more suited to your wants.

Maybe you could use this guitar to practice your painting skills, so it might bring you a bit more dough when you go to sell it (from your description, it sounds kinda beat) and leave everything else alone for re-sell.

Just an idea...

I've never used Poly, so maybe it would work, dunno...

It seems to take so long to get a finishing system down with solid repeatable results and work out all the possible kinks, once I got lacquer down pat, I had no desire to start off down another road.

The body is actually solid 1-piece Poplar with Coco-Bolo facing on all sides. It's not veneer tho, it's all a good 3/16" thick, Coco-Bolo would be too heavy to use as a solidbody by itself, so as far as the tone, it's a mixture. But it does sound good so far, and is a very comfortable weight, it feels very solid w/o being a boat anchor, just right for me.

It does have a really great ringing tone to it tho, kind of reminds me of a Strat, where you can hear that little extra 'reverby' tone (coming out of the tremolo block) a second after hitting a chord...never expected to hear anything like that with this, but it seems to be there for some reason...can't quite explain it.

I took a pass on the wiring after reading a review on Harmony Central the other night on the Tone Zone. Someone commented about these pkps being too muddy sometimes, and how eliminating the tone control helped that out a lot.

Being an EMG accessory nutcase, I said sure, let's ditch the tone control (I've ditched them before) and I'm going to sub in an EMG EXG pot, which I've got on some other guitars (the Drakulator has an EXG on-board) which boosts bass and highs while cutting the mids.

Well, this pkp is a high-mids pkp, so what a great combination, eh? Roll EXG off, natural fat mids city, roll the EXG up, and bring out some sizzling biting highs. I think it will work good, but if not, I have an SPC control here too...Between the Tone Zone heavy-on-the-mids approach, and the Afterburner pre-amp, and the EXG, I don't think I'll miss that tone pot much.

Sounds good in theory anyway...so I ordered an EXG and have to wait for it to come in, so the completion will get backed out a few days. No biggie, I've got some other things also in the works...

I am chompin' at the bit with this thing to get her plugged in tho...but I have learned impatience is my WORST enemy, so I'm happy to wait a few days...