cole

thanks guys, this has been a great help!

Does anyone have a good tutorial on laminating an arch-top and back? I've searched everywhere and I haven't been able to find anything.

If anybody wants to unload some scrap wood PM me.

I was reading up on nitrocellulose and I relized that they use straight acetone to disolve the chemicals in the lacquer. Up until now I've been using lacquer thinner for my thinning needs, would it be better to use acetone? I know lacquer thinner has acetone in it but it also has alot of other chemicals. Does it work better to use acetone?

I've done alot of dealing on ebay. The thing with selling on ebay is people go to ebay to get the "Deal of the century". So if your trying to make some money selling bodies and necks good luck. You might have a better chance setting up a site, but like stated previously you cant compete with the bigger outfits. If you looking to make money you really need to find somthing that nobody else offers and focus on that, like everyone is saying.

I asked them at lmi about their lacquer and they said it has the same mount of plastifiers as behlens

I do vintage restoration and some clients like the checking when I do a refinish and as thin as I spray the finish it doesn't always check so easily

I was wondering if anybody knows of a supplier that has nitro lacquer that doesn't have the additives that the behlens instrument lacquer has to keep the finish from checking?

I think he spent it on his friends guitar lessons.

...does anybody have a keyboard I can borrow...

The fender reproduction isnt exactly like Jimi's but it that doesnt matter than its not a problem

here's a good one http://www.stratcollector.com/images/news/...xatmonterey.gif

I got that one from HF when it first came out for 8.99. If you dont already know this, you can print off specials online and bring them into the stores and they'll honor them.

right now I'm using a tubeaxel fan with a totaly enclosed motor. Its worked great for a long time now.

thanks that does make sense, and I'll always go for the fan.

I was checking out a Fender factory tour on youtube and I noticed at 4:51 they have a spray booth with a waterfall type configuration. I was wondering what that was for? Heres the link

well the black can be replaced faster than it can be worn off. It takes a matter of seconds. I say try it out on some scrap fretwire and see how it holds up to some steelwool and other stuff. worth a try

Use gun blueing solution. It comes in either a pen or a brush on form. You'll find it in you local Hunting store. Its what they use to make gun barrels black. It works great, but I'm not sure of the effects of constant abuse of direct contact. I assume that it will wear away on the fret where the fret wares down but its easy to reapply so I figure thats your best option.

Its olympic white, but with vintage guitars, due to UV ray and smoke the outer clear coats become yellowed giving it that aged look you are speaking of. To do this I would use a very weak coat of Lacquer+Thinner+stain. I would really dilute the lacquer like 2 parts lacquer 1 part thinner. I use the ready to spray behlens instrument lacquer so depending on what lacquer you use you might need to dilute it more. When mixing the stain remember you can always put more coats of yellow to get what you want, its not so easy to take them off. A little yellow goes a long way especially on white. Hope this helps

I understand the diffrence in butt shape, see I'm making four guitars and I have 4 strats and I would like to make 3 strats and a tele. I guess my main concern is the dimensions of the neck butt and if i were to convert it if it would screw with the scale length.

Can it be done? I was wondering if it was at all possible to convert a Strat neck to a telecaster neck?

what you use and is Teak Oil, its what stew mac puts in their fingerboard finish bottles. You can get alot more for less money when you buy it in the teak oil form. When I stain a fingerboard I put teak oil so it doesn't wear off and it gives a great shine. It really brings out the woods features.

I hear ya, but look at it this way. What was your first guitar, a Squire or some other imitation guitar. I know for me it wasn't the Strat I wanted, but thats what was affordable. The same goes for a replica of a vintage guitar, its not the original...its a imitation, one we can afford.

From searching a lot of forums and seeing many posts I've noticed there is a lot of controversy over relicing ones guitar. I can see the side of not wanting to trash a nice new finish, but I myself am a large advocate for relicing. I've been restoring vintage guitars for many years and this is originally where relicing came into mind. The owners didn't always want the "fresh off the factory line" look so they request it to look 50 years old. Eventually people started wanting new guitars to look 50 years old because of the hefty price tag a original guitar will run and if AND THATS A BIG IF you could get your hands on a original guitar most would be hesitant to take it out of its case let alone play it. The problem comes in when people take a belt sander to a guitar and call it a SRV replica and put a huge price tag on it, to me that’s bogus. I've been making replica vintage guitars for people for some time now and it is completely an art because I take everything into consideration when aging a guitar. I don’t finish a guitar and than take a screwdriver to it, or sand down the contour and call it arm wear. That’s where relicing the "art" is separated from just trashing your guitar. I say if your wanting the vintage look and feel go for it, but don’t forget that its not all random dings. Look at some pics of real vintage guitars, replicate what you see and remember anything involving the making of a guitar is an art from the design all the way to the finish.

thanks for your help man that was really helpful