mistermikev

20 minutes ago, ScottR said:

I use an airbrush for bursts and tinting. I've also used it applying dye to wood, and once applied Tru-Oil  layer by layer to a build--Stripy double-cut with an F-hole. Its a very useful tool. I also save figured maple off cuts like they were gold, and during times where the build says I must wait for the glue to dry or the lacquer to cure, I sand up little pieces and test dye combinations and techniques. The airbrush is great for mixing up small batches of tinted lacquer for testing as well.

SR

 

all great ideas... (stored for later) but I'm saving all my offcuts in hopes of someday doing a build with a mountain/stream/mackaray thingy!  probably never happen but a guy can dream right!  haven't used an airbrush since high school... model building... this should be a real trip down memory lane! gonna try the preval first cause i'm told they are pretty awesome.

2 hours ago, ScottR said:

I don't know how Gibson did/does it, but I've done it a number of ways. I've sprayed dye bursts directly on the wood, I've dyed the wood the under color of the burst and used tinted lacquer to add the burst, and I've done every part of the coloring as a tint.

The flame figure will  still show up through tinted lacquer (clear nitro with some keda in it). Dying the wood enhances the flame more so than dying the clear. The trade off is the dye in the wood lessens the chatoyance some. These days I enhance the figure with multiple dye layers and multiple sand backs, polishing the bejesus out of the wood till it dances like the last drunk on the floor at 2:00am. That greatly enhances the chatoyance, and greatly worries normal woodworkers about the ability of the lacquer to stick to that polished surface. With the figure now greatly enhanced I use tinted lacquer to color and burst the wood, so the additional dye doesn't hid the extra chatoyance I worked hard to find.

AS far as the picture you posted, you can get similar results either dying the wood directly or using tinted lacquer.

SR

you are a wealth of info.  I very much appreciate.  your finish work is outstanding so I'll take it like the bible.  this will be my first time tinting lacquer myself (using preval and perhaps airbrush depending)... so no confidence yet.  also cracked me up with 'last drunk on the floor' hehe!

wow, feels like I stepped away for 3 seconds and blammo - looking beautiful.  that top is really coming to life.  looks like a mars dust storm.

7 hours ago, komodo said:

I’ve got a big stash, from multiple sources. StewMac pearl is good maybe not inexpensive. Allied has great stuff but maybe not the whitest. I bought a large amount off Ebay that was silvery with lots of figure but of varying thickness. I’ve just gone through what I had and pulled an excess pile I’m about to list on Ebay. Probably 6-7oz for $100-120.

@ScottR That does sound similar. I could just carefully apply tape and do the same thing. If I use paper, I’m going to use the old brewers trick of applying labels to bottles. Paint the back with milk, apply. Milk is essentially glue.

I've had mixed results with what i've come across... and it makes total sense that what you've got there is sort of cherry picked.  Every time I order stuff I seem to get a few outstanding pieces... and then quite a bit of 'bla'.  Pictures are so hard to gauge.  I was wondering if perhaps you were going to a wholesaler like gondor and then picking thru to get decent stuff.  might try that next.  thanks for the response.

so... I'm using nitro and I've laid down some lemon keda dye.  have started working towards building up some clear nitro over that so that when I spray a burst, and inevitably get it wrong... I can wetsand and start over without going thru my clear/yellow. 

Then it hit me... I love the look of old les paul lemon burst/lemon drop/amberburst... and am wondering if the way they did it was to spray right on the yellow dye with no clear on top.  the reason I ask is because the orange/cherry/brown/amber that would go on top... always seems to display the figured maple well... not cover it up. 

I'm wondering now... if some clear nitro with some keda in it is going to lay on top and now allow the flames of the flamed maple to show thru... does that make sense?  let me rephrase that in the form of a question... anyone know if that's how gibson did it and/or if when you burst on top of clear nitro if the flame will still show highlights? 

going for this below, but with a light cherry which will be a bit darker than the orange here:

On 4/5/2020 at 1:08 AM, curtisa said:

My problem was playing with the completed model and expecting it to magically stay in one piece despite my animated VROOOOOOOMS and divebombs.

On 4/5/2020 at 8:05 AM, komodo said:

We blew them up with firecrackers. 

my gawd I thought it was only me.  early memory breaking a motercycle that my dad, me and my brother just glued up... don't tell them. 

I like the idea of how you plan to cut the channels.  storing that for later.

also... where do you get your mop?  (if you don't mind)  some fantastic looking stuff and what seems like large pieces.

21 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Fortunately it doesn't happen overnight! You'll have the rest of your life to get used to it.

 

that is NOT very comforting...

12 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Tendonitis sucks balls. I've never had my hands or arms give out on me in my life until this point. What the hell is this middle age bullshit about anyway?!

I hear you there... getting old sux!

37 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

Basically this:

https://www.virutex.es/productos/?action=producte&id=128

It's like an offset router base in action, but having to keep in constant motion as the machine feeds ABS with hot lava EVA. I actually like this as there's an action to it, or a feel. Getting that down is something of an achievement that ticks my boxes. Mostly this machine ends up mounted into a ramshackle table to do more or less what you describe. I did some tables for a casino this way, and the weight of the pieces made me swear more than a few dozen times anyway.

that's pretty cool altho it does look a bit heavy. 

lava... hehe, yeah, that's what it feels like on your skin! 

weight... I don't know how I did that crap back in the day... big ole 6' tables of 1 1/4 mdf... guiding 'em around, that would land me on a couch real quick these days.  hell I can't even lift a porter cable belt sander with one hand any more!

1 hour ago, Prostheta said:

There's two machines for doing this sort of work; one is the static conveyor type which edge bands flat edges with hot melt EVA and contains that scary pin wheel spike roller. Eek. The other is a Virutex manual banding machine which one manipulates at a steady rate around a fixed workpiece. That one would have been ideal for this if only it weren't for the internal corners needing to be so tight. Once you start you're committed. I ended up doing the large internal cutout also.

I wasn't happy with this job for a number of reasons, but as I'm sure you no doubt appreciate, inheriting a project halfway means you also inherit decisions that are baked in by that point, and also fuckups.

interesting.  have never seen the mobile variation.  spent lots of time putting 1/8 abs on various fixtures for stores.  the one I used you could do a 3" radius by manually spinning the work piece.  my back hurts just remembering it.  your picture kind of took me back there.  bitter sweet.

afa inheritance... I know that sentiment.  even if it's perfect it's likely "not how you'd do it".  really bothersome for some reason.

1 minute ago, ADFinlayson said:

I was scraping the faux binding on the purple one the other day - the razor blade slipped and I put a whopping scratch in the top and had to sand back a 3" area and restain. I know all about that too.

happens to the best of us... and also me...

Just now, ADFinlayson said:

Yeah the point I was trying to make ( probably not very clearly) was that if it's a natural finish you're going for and you sand through, going over it again with nitro will make it look completely invisible. Sanding through dye, restaining, resealing and more topcoat is likely to result in a slightly different looking patch, as I found out when I sanded through the red one I did last year.

that's ok... I have just "found this out" more than an avg number of times!

On 3/2/2020 at 12:26 PM, Prostheta said:

Technically, edge banding is like binding a guitar. 40mm thick top bound with 1mm ABS. Ideally one would use EVA glue and an edge banding machine, however this has tight internal radii that needs specific attention. Radio studio console.

 

when I was young I spent some serious time edge banding things.  doing something that big on the machine we had would be tuff if not impossible.  one time I was cleaning the glue pot and dropped a glob of that glue on my hand.  no way to get it off and just sat there and burned.  i can't recommend that experience.  I don't know if your machine has this but ours had a spike wheel to keep the banding taught... I heard that a prior operator tangled with that thing... can't imagine that was pretty.  looked like something out of mad max.

anywho... looks lovely... and fing heavy.

13 hours ago, graniteguitarist said:

That makes a lot of sense as far as the tone pots go, thanks for the thorough explanation of it. 

For the rotary switch, the minimum I would need would be a 2p5t, correct? From what I can find I need the second pole in order to have 2 pickups at once. I thought about adding a 6th position, which would be neck/bridge instead of all 3 pickups so I could stay with a 2 pole switch. If it is cheaper to do it that way I think I just might. 

As far as coil-splitting, that is something I have pondered as well, as I should be able to modify the pickup if I wanted to in order to do so. If I were I would use a push-pull tone pot for it, and let that be that. Why do you say you don't recommend that? At this point I am undecided if I want to go that route, so any information about it would be welcome. 

 

Here is my modified wiring diagram, does it look better?

 

oops, my bad.  you do need 2 poles... because of the combo positions. 

afa switch it matches what you have assuming we are looking at the bottom of the switch and the order is clockwise.  the tone pots are right too.

afa humbucker... no, a push pull won't help you if you just have two wires.  spliltting a pickup requires access to the wire between the two coils.  in a two wire humbucker you've got the start of one coil and the end of another.  you could peel back the tape on the pickup and find a little wire connecting the end of the first coil to the start of the last... and just solder a wire to it... and send that to ground to split using a push pull.  that makes it a 3 wire.  but those wires are so delicate... and if you break them from the coil wire - yer done.  if you are delicate you could do it.  but you could just as easily ruin the pickup.  not recommended. 

7 hours ago, komodo said:

Considering we are headed to good weather, I’d only be spraying the back, I’ve currently got all the time in the world, and I’m fully into another build . . . my patience is OK right at the moment. lol

I'm still like a 4 yo child when I get close to finishing... "but i want it NOW!".  like a game of shoots and ladders... one sandpaper swipe too much and blammo... back to the start.  that said, I know in my heart... if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right - however long it takes. 

good point biz.  it does really start fast and then progressively each step seems to take forever.

AD - the trouble with sand thru + dye = one more swipe and you've got a little 'spot'.  always seems to be the case for me anyway.

21 minutes ago, komodo said:

Why last words? Nitro has to be the most forgiving, it just burns into the last.

oh, I know... but it's the razors edge you walk between sanding it smooth... and waiting another 3 weeks for another few coats of nitro to dry.  perhaps you aren't as impatient as I... but this scenario is one I have bad dreams about.

"If I hit wood I could just spray again."  famous last words.  wishing "thick enough" for you.

i think you may have rivaled me in terms of the number of photos you took of your work... it's fun to just scroll for a minute and almost watch a movie of a guitar being built!  looking good.

looking lovely my friend.

27 minutes ago, killemall8 said:

The "X" is "by" not a times. Like on a deer. A 3x3 is 3 points on each side. 3 by 3

he makes a good point... in keeping with the hillbilly/hunter(my roots) theme... it's 4 by 4 not 4 x 4... even tho it's spelled 4x4, which makes even less sense because there are only 4 wheels but I guess 4 driven wheels so... I forget where this was going!

Just now, Prostheta said:

It's a crazy world where there's enough to go around for all, yet nobody wants to share. BECAUSE IT'S MINE.

at least in the US... you can trademark anything... but whether or not that trademark would hold in court is not reflective of the fact that you have a trademark.  People are silly... they think just because they were the first to think of something they should have exclusive right to it.  I doubt the dimarzio trademark of double cream would be upheld in court, but who wants to spend the money to fight it?  also... it's ALL MINE! 

CONGRATULATIONS!  WELL DESERVED - HAPPY FOR YOU!

as curtisa mentioned... above you've wired those tone pots as combo tone/volume pots.  ie as you drop off tone you will drop off volume because you are placing resistance between the in and out wire.  the tone pot really just needs to 'tap' the audio signal not interrupt it.  so... both wires go to the sm lug. 

afa rotary... I've mounted them on the body... in fact I've even used the 2nd one you've posted above to do just that... but I only had a 1/4" top... and I drilled the hole big enough for the bottom ridge to go into it.  That switch is overkill for you... you only need a 1p5t.  that is a 4p5t.  You can find them cheaper all over but here's one: https://www.taydaelectronics.com/electromechanical/switches-key-pad/rotary-switch.html

note that the 1p12t usually has a special washer that can limit it to 2-12 positions.  (you could just use a 2p6t and wire in one more position with all pickups on -hint hint) 

afa pickups... unfortunately the ones you have chosen will not split unless you re-wired them to be 3/4 wire (not recommended).  the only place it's going to hurt you is when you combine the humbucker with a single coil (pos 4?) it will have a little hum but being in the neck position it probably doesn't really matter as the highs are subdued. 

cheers and look fwd to seeing some build picks!

50 minutes ago, JouniK said:

Tested by attaching the strap at the tip of the horn with duct tape actually got this balanced just right. But the horn is quite pointy and narrow. I am afraid that it will crack/break at some point. Thinking of drilling a bit larger hole than needed and fill that with thin epoxy hoping that the epoxy will soak in and strenghten the wood fibers beneath. Then also doing a looser pilot hole for the screw.

sounds like a good approach.  if it were me I'd just drill slightly smaller than the threads and put some poxy on the threads after doing a dry install.  could make a wood plug, screw into it... then glue into horn.  just 2 cents.