ADFinlayson

Well that certainly isn't a competition that I want to be competing in, let alone winning. So this time, I sanded it back with 220 on the orbital, then scuff sanded 320 by hand (220 is as high as my orbital pads go) Then I sanded the first coat of poly in with 400 grit wet paper and wiped off the excess after a few mins. Touch wood this looks a lot more consistent that previous efforts. If this time is successful, I don't know how much of a sheen I'm going to get because I'm nearly out of poly

Yep, I got the orbital out and sanded it back to bare wood again tonight. This one just doesn't want to be finished but I'm hoping for third time lucky.

Damn that's pretty already. rosewood and limba look like they'll make a fantastic combo. What are you using for the fretboard?

Awesome bit of inlay that, fair play. if you decide to do any finer details on the bird, hint of feathers, eyes etc. You can scratch it into the mop with a sharp tool (I found the point of a marking knife worked best) and either rub dye into it, or dust and glue.

Gradually building up the layers again. This time instead of applying, letting a coat dry then wet sanding between coats, I’m putting a coat on, letting it dry, then sanding the following coat in with wet and dry and wiping off excess. Not sure why I didn’t do that in the first place because it worked for both the v and the single cut. This is after sanding in 1200. I’ve got p2000 up to p5000 so I will keep adding coats until I get to my finest paper before buffing, though looking at it as is, satin does definitely work with ziricote

I wouldn't worry too much about removing a fretboard or unsetting a neck if you're not using hideglue. I've successfully unset a neck that was glued with gorilla glue using my girlfriends hair dryer and some water - Any wood glue whether it's titebond1, gorrilla, hide glue will come away with steam and patience. I however think there is a lot more opportunity to get the mix wrong, the temp wrong or spend too long clamping up with hide glue (coming from someone that hasn't used hideglue that is), so for the first few builds, I'd have thought titebond would be the best option, not to mention cheaper option as a bottle of titebond is a lot cheaper than hide glue + kettle + thermometer. You will also get many builds out 1 bottle of titebond.

I’m not against a Matt/satin finish, but the limba looks great gloss and I don’t like the idea of matt too and gloss back. Just need to get this right

I prefer a set neck - a dollop of glue is less work and cheaper on parts than screws , threaded inserts etc. I would recommend getting as much of the fretwork as you can done before you set the neck because it's much easier when there is no body in the way, especially with a Les Paul style build, those top frets are a PITA to get to. That being siad, I've done it after a few times, it's good practice for doing a refret.

... pain and suffering

Having a nightmare, what I thought was a done deal was a long way from it. I had some ghost lines that were bugging me, so I was level sanding to get rid of them which was just showing up more that I clearly missed. Then I ended up with a large patch that had significantly less finish than the rest. So I ended up sanding the whole top back with 320 to start again. I clearly didn’t do a good enough job of level sanding the first coat of poly. So we are starting again

This is how it cupped, which makes me think it wasn't dry to begin with. I also think it was bookmatched only just prior to being sent as apposed to bookmatched and stored a while.

Yeah the trouble is it's twisted and cupped, and the concave face is the bookmatch face so I need to be careful about taking material off. It's also not much thicker than I like to use for carving tops so I want to avoid taking material off at all if I can. I think I'm just going to leave it stickered under pressure for a few more weeks and see what happens. Worst case scenario, I imagine it will end up being a more shallow carve with binding. Not a good start to my first dance with quilt!

I got some lovely Bosnian quilted maple a little while ago but one of the sets started to twist and cup as soon as I took it out of the box, in fact it went ping when I cut the tape holding it together for shipping so either the wood wasn't dry or it was the change of climate, though my meter read it as 11-12%. In the past, I've had success with applying heat to a cupped board to straighten it out but these are a bit thicker. So After a bit of research I came to the conclusion that cupping happens because the concave side has dried more quickly than the convex side and one way to fix it is to apply some water to the concave side then clamp flat. So that is what I did... First off, I clamped the boards flat together (so that I could see they were actually flat) gradually applying pressure over an hour or so until they were completely flat. Then today (couple of weeks later) I loosened the claps and the boards remained flat but I only had the clamps off for a few minutes. Then I cut up some spare pine door stop to use as stickers and put it back in claps (lightly clamped this time). So questions... 1. Anyone else done this? Does it work, or will the boards just spring back to how they were with clamps off after a while? 2. Should I leave it like this until I'm ready to use the top or should I take the clamps off after a while then store them and see if they move again? I know stick these to a mahogany body will probably hold it and carving it will likely get rid of a lot of the tension but this top is for a semi with an f-hole so really need to carve prior to sticking to the body which would leave a bit of time for movement. Cheers Ash

Lots of coats over the last few days. Managed to get a coat on before work, one straight after then one just before cocoa. Also managed to get the cavities painted between coats and I've done some wet sanding between coats at 600, 1200 and 2000. I'm now applying poly with 50/50 mix of mineral spirits. Hoping to be getting to my lat couple of coats as I'm dangerously low on poly. One this is for sure though, finishing a natural top is A LOT less stressful than a stained top

Congrats dude, it’s a very nice guitar. If you’ve finished blond, we could do battle again in June. En Garde!

Anything that is straight, that you can stick sand paper to will work as a sanding beam. I used a spirit level as a sanding beam on my first build. I also used it to bevel fret ends.

I like that lead tone, reminds me of Greg Howe's sound

What about glueing some veneer sheets together, to make a strong multiply. I've bought maple veneer sheets and bog oak veneer sheets off ebay quite cheaply - I use them for all kinds of jobs like contrast strips on necks, adding strength to thin wood control covers and even little slithers to shim a nut. Reading your post made made me think black/white/black/white veneers glued together which would make it 1.5-2mm thick and be strong enough. Black would contrast nicely with mahogany. You can get much nicer veneer sheets, I've seen ebony veneers on ebay but they're obviously more money.

That is looking bad ass, good joint along the top too. Is that walnut offcut big big enough to make a headstock veneer? If it was me, I'd be tweaking the headstock shape to make sure I can use it, too nicer bit not to use.

that looks like the Iwasaki file, I've got one of those and since purchasing, the saw rasp hasn't been used. These files are just awesome. Build is looking great - especially good job on that neck heel considering it's already attached. I've run out of likes, otherwise I'd give you a big fat like!

Screw the new camera, you need better router bits bud.

Looking at a now fully cured first coat on the top (24 hours later), fortunately it has dried slightly lighter than in previous photos. I don't want it to be any darker than this if I can help it.

The distance between the centre of each post is the main thing you need to be concerned about, If the screw holes don't match up you could always glue dowels into them and redrill them to fit your new tuners as they will be covered by a plate anyway. My understanding is that most metric 12 string guitars tend to be 25mm from the centre of one post to the centre of the next. I guess if the guitar uses imperial measurements, then the distance would be 1" between post to post. If you look at the Warwick website, they have lots of Framus vintage parts listed https://shop.warwick.de/modul=shop_new&site=shop_overview&&ctree=D0405358001321517424A43801|D0039726001456126555A9

So the V is finished and you know I'm not one to be sitting on my hands, especially as the Mrs took the little one out for brunch on Sunday so I had a few hours. I recarved the neck - it was 21 and 16/32th mm D carve, now it's 20mm. Then I got it stripped down and I sanded out all the marks It gained from me gigging it over the last few months. Going for another poly finish on the body and headstock and Danish oil on the neck. After doing my testers I decided not to bother with sanding sealer, I know this will require more finish due to the pours on Ziricote, but the sealer resulted in a darker finish which I'm not after. An issue I'm faced with is the lack of availability of the finish I'm using (Minwax wipe-on poly), I've just about got enough to finish this guitar, but availability is so limited at the moment that Amazon.co.uk are charging £90 a tin, meaning it's just not an option. I'm thinking about trying their polycrylic for the next build but not sure of the pros and cons, other than that I won't be able to use the oil based sealer I've got in abundance. Anyway, I'll be applying many thinned down coats of poly over the next week then finishing the neck. The Limba went kaboom under finish

Catch me up, what has happened here? Is this the result of you routing the palmwood flush with the fretboard?