ADFinlayson

Sanding sealer isn't meant to fill the grain. You need grain filler for that - I only use sealer to stop colour running on a stained top. If you've already sealed the stain in, you can go over that with a grain filler. I like to use a coloured grain filler that accents the grain and I find a open weave dish cloth works well to apply and wipe it off because it picks up all the excess and leaves the surface smooth. Once that's try you should be able to lacquer straight over the top.

I got a coat of primer on all the walls and the ceiling this morning, just needs a coat or 2 of emulsion over the top, nice and bright. That dodgy dangly wire is the power, my dad left me with a temporary connection so I could get up and running while he's away on holiday and it's gonig through a 20mm hole in the back wall to the socket outside, he wants to put it through some conduit so it's sealed off properly (although it is fairly well sealed at the fan anyway) then there is going to be a switch just outside the booth. I've read about downside of negative pressure booths being that they're great until you open the door and all the dust gets sucked it, so I was thinking I might put a switch inside on the back wall, so that I can wait for the room to clear, switch off extraction, step outside and switch it back on again. I got a IP66 rated switch to do it (the most sealed I could buy and more sealed than my lights on spec) but the explosion risk is of creating a spark and a switch creates a spark (it's only the act of switching lights on or off that might spark), so I was also considering just having the switch just outside and having a little hatch on the back I could open to flick it off and walk out, but to be honest there is not that much pressure, I really don't think any of this stuff is necessary, when thinking back to where I used to spray. Anyway, I couldn't resist having a go this afternoon so I sprayed 6 coats of rattle can cellulose sealer on this tester. It wasn't sanded particularly well but I'm very impressed with how little orange peel there is from a rattle can considering how much I used to get spraying it in my old garage. I sprayed, stepped out and shut the door, no sign of fumes anywhere else in the garage even when I sniffed at the filter in the door. Sprayed a load more and nipped out the front and couldn't really smell anything either, but more importantly, I haven't exploded myself yet. Looking forward to trying it out with the spray gun

I ordered a new mask this morning actually. The mask I've got is alright - it's the GVS P3 full face mask, but as a glasses wearer it's a PITA and I don't currently have any contact lenses so I've ordered a Moldex series 7000 from Spraygunsdirect which I can wear glasses over the top of. I'm thinking I might shell out for some proper prescription goggles because I've been wearing my glasses as eye protection which isn't good enough, really. The mask I really want is the 3M versaflo positive fed mask and turbine but that's around £1000 all in. Maybe I'll see how I get on this year and how much spraying I do. It's a lot of money but if I'm spraying a lot and I can wear glasses and not have to shave the beard off. I was also looking at the Trend Airshield pro, which I thought was bang on the money at £230 but it's only p2.

Yeah I was just rereading the UK HSE guidelines and it seems they actually prefer a negative pressure booth. The refer to a positive pressure booth as a spray room and less sophisticated. https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/hsg276.pdf They also state that a positive pressure/air fed mask should be worn, well those cost a lot of money. I know you can't put a price on your safety but A LOT of money.

I park it round the front of the house now anyway because I went out to it the other day and it was covered in tree sap we're surrounded by a tone of tall Ash trees. The vent and the parking situation was always a consideration though.

Built myself a spray booth in the garage this week and thought I'd share what I've done and learnt so far! When my dad and I replaced the garage door with the stud wall several weeks ago, I got myself an explosion proof axial fan and we built it into the wall. I was planning on a negative pressure booth - Means the pressure in the booth is lower than the surrounding room, so it's sucking air out of the booth at a higher rate than air can enter the booth which has it's pros and cons: Pros of a neg pressure booth being that it's safer IMO , because it won't push fumes out into the room if there are any bad seals etc so it's not a risk to me when I'm doing other work in the shop, paint is less likely to end up in light fittings, switches etc (which could be very bad) because air is being sucked towards the extraction. The cons are that it's sucking air and potentially dust into the booth before it's sucked out through the extraction which means there is the potential for dust landing on the work. I'm not too worried about this because I used to spray my guitars in my old garden next to a dusty building site and got pretty good results by the time it was sanded and buffed. With a positive pressure booth, the fan would be on an internal wall pushing air in at a greater rate than it is being forced outside so dust etc from outside can't get in therefore a better quality finish in theory. But the potential for fumes to work their way into the rest of the shop and electrical stuff if seals are not perfect. Stud wall with the fan in situ Grill on the outside Wall insulated and plasterboarded around the fan Drew the layout on the floor and started on the studwork, used 2x2 that my good old dad cut down for me on the table saw from 4x2 (all I could get from the yard) he also mitred a 4x2 for me so I had 45º to make the door frame studs. it's 2.1m from the back and 1.8m from the left wall giving me 3.78 sqm minus the 45º door way but I'm not splitting hairs. The height is 2.4m so there is an overall volume of around 9 cubic metres which is important to know this as it indicates how efficient the fan will be at clearing the booth - This fan is specced to moved 30 cubic metres of air per minute, so in theory, my booth is < 1/3 of that volume so all the air in the booth should be displaced in < 20 seconds... in theory, and without filters as filters will slow down air flow. once all the stud work was done, I began cladding the walls, I got some twin wall polycarbonate which is normally used for conservatory/green house roofing etc. rationale being that a clear wall would let a lot of ambient light in from the rest of the workshop and reduce the amount of light I need to put in the booth. For the rest of it For the rest of the walls I used left over offcuts of plasterboard and ply that I had from the rest of the conversion project, I wanted to leave at least one wall partially plasterboarded in the event that I might need to add an inlet fan if I couldn't get good airflow, from what I had designed Made a timber frame door and carcass for the exhaust chamber. I had to change my plans here, I was going to have a filter on all 5 faces with the hope it would provide better extraction by pull fumes form all directions, but there wasn't enough suction so I ended up boxing off the sides and just having the front open. Used some mesh grill screwed on to the frame, then filter, then screwed some baton around the edges to hold it in place, much better suction now, if I let a piece of paper just in front of it, it sticks to the exhaust Had to do a bit of trial and error with the inlet (which I incorporated into the door), at first I had half the door as inlet but there wasn't really any negative pressure - while it cleared the booth, it felt like it took too long, so I reduced the size of it with an extra noggin and some more ply . Now I can noticeably feel air being pulled through the inlet. Got the filters in there to prevent workshop dust making it's way in. It looks kinda dark in this photo but it's actually suprisingly well lit and light from outside the booth made a big difference, those two LEDs in the ceiling are in exactly the right spot (happy accident). Regarding the lights, they're not "explosion proof", they're IP65 which means they're fully dust proof and water resistant according to the spec they are fine unless full submerged so to be on the safe side, I have siliconed around the edge of them were they meat the plaster board and also around the edge of the glass that meets the plastic housing, hopefully that will make them explosion proof... I went round and sealed every join I could find until I ran out of silicon so need to do more of that, but the act of sealing has made a noticeable difference too. Check out my "smoke test" below. I gave the back wall a coat of primer this arvo. Hoping that white walls will brighten it all up further. Still got a little way on my current build before I'm ready to properly try it out. Looking forward to hopefully not exploding myself.

Emulsion only works as a primer on plaster IMO, you need a proper wood primer and you get what you pay for with lacquers. I have been using Morrels (UK) lacquer from Wood Finishes Direct which I highly recommend. It's a bit of an outlay but I've had 6 guitars out of it and I've still got half the tin left. If you've got your HVLP setup then it works out way cheaper in the long run but they do also do rattle cans. https://www.wood-finishes-direct.com/product/morrells-250-pre-cat-lacquer Morrels are a good company, I emailed them when I first got the lacquer, after some advice, and someone that actually knew what they were talking about called me the next day.

Nothing wrong with resurrecting an old thread, prevents duplication and shows someone has gone to the trouble of searching the forum before asking the same old question. I've never used silicone in the truss rod channel, my rationale was that it would deaden vibration in the neck. Don't generally have the worlds tightest truss rod channels but haven't yet had a problem with rattle. I can turn the truss rod enough so that it's creating enough force on the channel to stop it moving around before it actually changes the shape of the neck. I had one channel that was particularly loose on my second or third build (I routed a 1/4' cavity but had a 6mm rod) so I just cut out a thin strip of veneer and stuff it in there was the rod before glueing up the fretboard.

Some modest progress on this one, got the body thicknessed and chambered and both pieces glued together. I used the table router to "blind route" the chamber, not enjoyable, not doing that again. Also got the new front wall boarded out and used a load of sheet offcuts to tie the two walls in and filled the 10" deep gap in the floor that had been left by the old garage door. had a slight water ingress issue at the bottom of the door with all the driving rain we had yesterday which is annoying and something I am going to have to live with until the weather is good enough to get it all sealed and painted properly - Correction, it's not water ingress, the water is hitting the outside of the door frame and the door frame is acting like a sponge because it's not painted yet. Fortunately I've used plenty of DPC before the floor and plasterboard. Looking forward to getting on with the spray booth but I need to get rid of all these waste sheet materials first. Very little waste as I bought it as and when I needed it but it's all little pointless strips that I can't do much with other than chuck it on the chiminea

I put Vanson locking tuners on a budget build a few months ago, they seem to be really good for the price. https://ebay.us/yl5fb2

Nice one Carl, well deserved

That's looks rather tasty, especially the back. Love that red If you've got runs in lacquer, take the top off them with a razor blade and get it as close to the surrounding areas as you can before you do any sanding, then spray another couple of coats. I've found if you just sand runs, it's very easy to sand through in the surrounding area.

I expect this will be down to change in humidity, get yourself a cheap hygrometer (mine cost about £10) and check the humidity in the room it's stored. Wood will swell in a humid environment like a damp garage as it takes on water and shrinks in your house that will be dry due to central heating. I've routed neck pockets in the garage in winter before, had a perfect fitting neck, taken it in the house and within a few hours the pocket is as loose as a well used wench. A pocket that is too tight can starve the joint of glue as it's pushed out during fitting, so if it was humid at the time, the tiny amount of glue would not be enough to hold it together. Where as if it's very dry at the time a tight neck pocket is fitted, introducing humidity can cause the joint to shrink and the area around the neck tenon to split.

Just caught up on this one, really nice build, love the fretboard Nicely done.

You aren't the first to mess up with a router and you won't be the last. Save looks good though. If you really hate it then you've got an excuse to try a burst

those solderless kits with the pickup wires on a clip, have you made sure you haven't clipped them in the wrong way round? that could well give you single coil when you're expecting humbucker as it would essentially be flipping what the switch does on the push pull pot, and if you've just got one pickup clipped in the wrong way, you might get out of phase on the middle pickup selection, which would also be quieter.

I'm not offended by that, perhaps spray another coat to darken it up a bit, might make the extra piece less obvious, either way I like it.

that burst looks lovely

Thanks Georg, I've made some minor progress on it, not as much as I'd like. I've carved out the back, cut f-hole and done all the holes for electronics. The bottom of that blade switch is a bit close for comfort, I certainly won't be using a random orbital in that department I'm planning to go for custom24 wiring: 1. Neck hum 2. Neck and bridge outer coils 3. Neck hum + bridge hum 4. Neck single + bridge hum 5. Bridge hum With the addition of a mini toggle so positions 1 and 5 can be switched to single coil too. If I can pull that off without it looking like a dogs dinner, I thought I might try tuned coil splitting so the mini toggle goes to a resistor to retain a bit of the bass in single coil mode. If I use a DPDT toggle switch, I should in theory be able to have different resistor values for each pickup. Anyhoo, next I need to sand and seal the sides of the f-hole and get on with chambering the body blank to I can glue it all up This is coming to you from my new workshop,.. which is dry but not yet organised I do have wood storage that isn't a pile on my office floor now though

Either you've carved the inside of that beautifully or you need to take that straight edge back to where you got it from

@Woltz These are great, do you have a full size pdf of the Vela? a friend of mine has just asked me to make him one

That scarfing jig is fantastic

A way I did it in the passed a few times was to slot first and drill 2mm holes in first first fret slot and one up the other end, and use a couple of cocktail sticks as locator pins. that isn't without risk of drill too deep and you have to avoid the truss rod, but it's a good working method if you're using a pre slotted board or just cutting/radiusing prior to glue up. There are a tone of different ways.

I'm in Oxfordshire, I would say Half way is midlands, stoke on trent ish.