Bizman62

I had to google for that one as well... Apparently it isn't an upside down thing. Although one might think so by reading the current company names here, that one doesn't mean a thing in Finnish. I've seen TIS-517 which can be read both ways and means 800-8135

Gotta love your natural wood!

I've heard about using silicone hose for the pots: When it fits tight over the shaft, the outer diameter matches the threaded part and guides the pot right up and the nut can be slid over the hose. That wouldn't work for jacks, though. Maybe a hose fitting inside the jack would allow better handling in guiding the jack through the hole? And possibly the hose being slid over the hook end of the tip connector to prevent catching?

Sei, that's a lovely bass there. Wish I could show you my workbench, guitar related that is... There's an armchair behind me, loaded with a huge bag full of offcuts, sandpaper and hardware plus some tools, and the current project in a gig bag.

Is that an orbital 90 deg disk sander?

Ooh, that makes me want to add pickguards to my builds! Such a beautiful contrast and simple yet dynamic shape.

1.125" is quite thick... I would combine the ideas of ADFinlayson and curtisa and saw quarter inch slithers off each for drop or flat tops leaving thick enough bookmatched slabs for a carved top with sumptuous curves.

Love the headstock, you succeeded way better in combining the Gibson moustache to a PRS headstock than I did! There's one thing I've noticed in several guitars regardless of the builder. Is it a "thing" or just tradition? I'm talking about carving the body for easy access and leaving the neck rectangular. Does the symmetric shape eliminate warping or something like that? Is there a reason why builders don't carve the neck round up to the body?

Hey, don't worry about that! You'll be wearing D- and G-strings over that spot.

Wow, shiny! And red, and flamed! Looks like a ***** magnet! Is that a rough spot or a reflection between the neck pickup and the switch? *****= drool. Honi soit qui mal y pense.

Last course for the spring. I managed to get the headstock shaped and the frets leveled. When it's sunny and I have some time to spare, I'll sand it and start the oiling process. Here's how the headstock came out:

Well, apparently the dust vacuum hose was loose. There was some dust inside the saw and a younger and less experienced me was splitting a very hard piece of maple with the blade too high. The friction made the sawdust glow and... When smoke arose, someone got the fire extinguisher and emptied it into the saw. After cleaning no other harm done, "just" some flames in the sawdust. Two lessons learned in one go! End of digression.

I bought a mask from Banggood. On the positive side there's granular activated carbon in the filter which was a nice surprise for $6.50 or so. On the negative the exhaust vent is facing ahead just like on the one shown in the picture. The moist of the exhaust breath condensates and spreads drops all over the place. And since it's Chinese, it doesn't quite fit my European chin. The workshop they keep our courses in has a professional dust collecting system as well as a painting wall with suction. When the big table saw caught fire I learned that there's fire extinguishing sprinklers in the pipes so the dust collector won't burst into flames.

Oooh! The (not so) Secret Agent!

This subject didn't leave me overnight, so here's some thoughts. Notice that I'm by no means a Master of the dark Art of Finishing or anything like that, this is just logical thinking based on elementary public school physics... Great wisdom there. Any liquid becomes runnier when it's warm and obviously a runny fluid levels faster than stiff. Warming a rattle can servers another purpose as well: The gas within expands and causes higher pressure at the nozzle, thus lowering the viscosity of the lacquer and slamming each minuscule droplet flat on the surface with a higher velocity. Speaking about viscosity, the product used for finishing should be runny enough to fill any pores and gaps for good grip and level finish, yet it should be stiff enough not to run off the surface to be finished. Further, especially with instruments, the layers should be thin enough not to ruin the sound. Thus the instructions for a glass smooth resin finish done by pouring don't apply here. It's either spraying or wiping, and sanding in between and after that we have to do to achieve the results we want. Thinners are used for controlling the viscosity. Air is in a significant role in the drying process as is the evaporating surface versus thickness of the layer. When sprayed, the surface area of the lacquer is at the largest in its mist form right before hitting the surface. Thus, the farther away you spray, the drier the mist is on the guitar, in warm/dry conditions even more so. That may be one reason for the bobbles, another being the slow spraying speed and high viscosity caused by a cold rattle can. Yet another thing to consider: As we know raindrops need a dust particle to form. Just how much microscopic sanding dust do you have in the air of your workshop? Imagine every mist droplet of finish coming through the nozzle having a dust core! Bobbles... Short (hopefully) summary: warm finish runs easier through the nozzle and levels better on the surface high pressure lowers the viscosity of the finish as well a thick layer of stiff finish causes orange peel since the bubbles bursting on the surface don't level - add thinner or heat the lacquer for lower viscosity a longer spraying distance causes the finish partially harden during its flight through the air - bobbles a longer spraying distance also allows more dust to attach to the sprayed mist - more bobbles high temperature and dry air while spraying make the finish cure faster, partially even when it's still in the air as mist microscopic dust attached to minuscule lacquer mist droplets can cause issues So the recipe for a good sprayed finish is to use warmed lacquer sprayed at the right distance considering the temperature and humidity of the surrounding atmosphere. I may be terribly wrong here and there as my logic may fail. Please correct where necessary!

mikev, you're a mean person!

Lost in translation, it seems... Orange peel has tiny gaps in it just like an orange. Apparently it's because little bubbles burst on the wet surface and the clearcoat is so stiff that it can resist gravity and not auto-level. Yours looked like filled with tiny mountains, or covered with transparent grain. That can happen when the clearcoat mist partially hardens before hitting the surface. If you've ever driven a car in supercool rain you know what I mean. Both have to be sanded down so no difference there unless "knocking the tops off" is considered else than "sanding level with the lowest spots". If that made any more sense?

Orange peel looks like, umm..., orange peel. It's basically flat with tiny dimples all around. Yours looked like it had tiny pimples all around.

A luthier I once knew had his workshop in the cellar of a music store. Concrete walls from the fifties "in original condition" meaning all the accumulated dust in every pore imaginable! Plus the plumbing and other tubes and pipes hanging from the ceiling... He had wet bed sheet hanging around the painting area to catch any airborne dust.

Is it just me, but I can't see any images, only code.

For what I've learned the end result often is better after a total restart. You don't have to take worry about any weak spots created at an earlier stage so you'll be able to work faster and more accurately. Whichever way you choose the time consumed will remain the same. At this point the main thing to ask yourself is whether you'd like to master the finishing process from the start to the finish or learn a trick or two in fixing flaws. For a builder the former is an essential skill, for a repairman the latter can come in handy.

Mistermikev, don't be too harsh to yourself as you were partially right! Isn't aluminium tape just a long but narrow piece of alum foil with glue? I was equally wrong in suspecting it's the regular hardware store tape, found the conductive glue version only after you mentioned it. Does that mean that if we combined our knowledge, we'd be on par with gpcustomguitars?

how coincidental! That's what I ask for living...

They're scary! I've used the massive industrial planer in the communal workshop and I can confirm what the others have said plus some. It will eat figured wood, next time I'll try wetting it down! Thanks for that tip. It also leaves some grooves or rather crests or ridges here and there but as you say they're easy to sand. What's worse, at least the machine I've used tends to nudge when it starts planing, often chewing quite a deep transverse groove at the front end of the piece. No problem if there's some extra length. For thinner pieces I've used masking tape and super glue on a piece of laminated chipboard which we have plenty as leftovers by the communal carpenters. MDF works just as fine. A trick to prevent the jump at the start is to have a sacrificial piece in front of the actual piece to be planed. Now that I think about it, next time I may attach even the thicker body pieces to a board with an extra piece for the planer to be chewed!

About buzz: My first P90 equipped guitar had a very nice sound and a horrendous buzz. I studied this and that and learned that buzz is a feature for P90's. Yet I found it distracting even in the low volumes of the Blackstar Fly clean channel so I took yet another look at the wiring. I rebuilt the three way switch wiring to another design to no awail. Finally, after having triple checked everything I noticed that the jack wires were swapped, the ground being on the tip and the hot in the body! Fixed that, end of buzz.