Bizman62

I've only used 2k twice for my guitars and haven't used any sanding sealer. After a decade they still are perfectly flat even at the ends. The need for filling may depend on the wood, though. Mine were maple and alder, both of which have quite tiny pores. And I did a proper sanding after the first coat so the 2k acted as a sanding sealer. The burl is porous but based on the pictures you spread the epoxy quite liberally so there should not be too large gaps. Again, I'd test with a scrap piece.

@curtisa showed the explanation:

That looks stunning! Like travelling in a space ship through the Milky Way. I was going to say that yours looks purplier than the role model but then it occurred to me that the photos are taken under different conditions with different cameras. A google search revealed that on some photos the Majora Purple guitars look just like your scrap piece. Did you have any of that turquoise on the test piece? If so, it hides itself well! If not, you may encounter surprises. Another thing to test is the finish over the dye. The clearcoat will enhance the figuration somewhat similar to your last wash when wet. But it may also add some yellow/orange to the mix. Boiled linseed oil or shellac are also commonly used to highlight the patterns but they have an even more of an amber hue which may give a surprising end result. Even a clear lacquer may not be totally clear, it can be 'cold' or 'warm' which can do tricks. Or it may have a hue that vanishes. Some years ago I rebuilt our floors, new pale pine, and the lacquer looked purple in the bucket! When spread on the floor it looked just wet, emphasizing the figuration some. Years of daylight have darkened the pine but there's still no evidence of any purple hue, even the palest sections are natural golden similar to untreated light exposed wood.

Heating the sauna is always a good "Plan B".

The final stages take forever! The nut was way too high so I filed the slots and did the 3rd fret pressing procedure to check the action. So of course the grooves unexpectedly became too deep and started grabbing. Guess which version of the files worked better! You guessed it, the €20 Temu set has the looks but the feeler gauge was both faster and smoother. Reshaping the nut was next on the list. Started with a file but in all honesty the sanding block with some 80 grit worked much faster. For the record the nut popped out during the slot filing process and knocked a chip off where there was the tiny drop of super glue. Despite having been sold as bone the chip that broke off didn't look 'organic' so I suppose it's bone dust and epoxy. Still much better than a hollow piece of plastic! And finally I spot leveled the ends of a couple frets. They were too easy to find, playing chromatically two adjacent frets produced the same note. Not a major issue, they were on the dusty side and only affected one string. Used the grooved cheap crowning file and finished with the nail buffing sponge. The action is now low without buzzing although the fret rocker clicks here and there, again in spots that only affect one string. Flying by the seat of my pants can cause unpredictable issues: Originally I was going to use a hardtail but then a fellow told that he has some trapezes from guitars he had modified which led me to make the scrapwood bridge. The height is right for a good angle but the string angle is too much on the shallow side for my liking. Most likely because of that the sound is metallic like a tin can and lacks the low end. Removing the neck and re-routing the neck pocket to an angle and adding height to the bridge would be the ultimate fix but I'd rather try something else. When discussing the matter with Veijo he first suggested screwing the trapeze down against the body but that would make changing strings a bit clumsy. Then he suggested reseating the end plate, even carving the top a bit. That might work, worth giving it a try next Saturday.

For a moment I thought you really shouldn’t go that route but, I realized you must mean Illustrator and not the AI that gets a lot of press these days Whew, thanks for that clarification!

That may turn out to be a happy accident. That said, also bear in mind that although the epoxy filler will not blend with any dye, optical rules still apply. Not only for the filler, also for the wood itself. Wood is basically brown, from light beige to almost black. And how do you get brown? It's red and yellow with some blue. You rarely see plain blue in nature, so red and green might be easier to figure - summer leaves and autumn leaves. Now when you add dye to that natural mix, the lighter grain may surprise you by adding yellow to the mix, dulling the purple. But it depends, there may be enough red to keep the result more majestic. Similarly the blue epoxy can enhance the royal feel. I found this little online tool very handy for guessing what the end result might be with different proportions: https://trycolors.com/mixer. Start by mixing the purple you're going to use, then add some yellow or green for the "wood effect". You can increase the proportions by clicking the colour dots and reduce them by clicking the minus sign below them. Using scrap pieces is even better, hopefully you've used the filler on them as well.

Your build quality is as tidy as your workbench area! And using the hammered look Rust-oleum on masonite and plywood was clever as it "hides surface imperfections". Getting those materials flawless would require a ton of fillers and primers which might crack due to moisture changing the proportions of the masonite. I've sometimes toyed with the idea of building a Dano style guitar, they have a certain vibe. Almost ghetto,,,

Speaking about midges, Google seems to want to translate the most relevant article, in this case Wikipedia: The first 'midge' was translated to a word that Google can't find and I've never heard. 'Fly' in the same first sentence was translated to a shape that is used in conjunction with another noun, roughly 'fly related' like in flypaper. Nematoceran was translated as 'shuttle-sausageous', again a word Google doesn't know elsewhere. 'Midges' in the second sentence wasn't translated at all, it read 'midges'. Finally, in the third sentence 'midges' was translated - drrrrrrum rrrrrrollll - 'midgets'!

Isn't it funny how you don't see a single insect until you've spread the lacquer? The solvents seemingly evaporate fumes that resemble some feromones or food. Mayflies are fun, apart from feet they also have three long tail projections. Some butterflies, possibly of the Pyraloidea superfamily, also seem to like the smell of thinners. Add a pair of brownish wings to the finish... My father once painted a swing for us kids, beautiful light blue with Mayflies and moths.

Hi and welcome! That sounds just like what I was experiencing with my first P90 build: Lots of hum that didn't go away when touching the strings. The fix was easy after I found the flaw: The jack wires were mixed, hot went to the sleeve and ground to the tip. As you're using solderless controls it might also be that the pickup wires are the wrong way around. By the pictures it looks like the plugs can be put in both ways.

Well... actually not so much but even that little seems to be too much for the Chinese Ebay vendors! For what I've learned there's just one essential thing: The 12th fret has to be right in the middle of the scale length. No matter how many frets you have or what the scale length is, that rule can't be omitted. When building from scratch it may be easier, with prerouted/-drilled parts from here and there you'll never know.

One reason for that is that the dust wanders deep into the wool instead of building a hard lump on the surface. Nylon abrasive felt works similarly and you can even use it wet without fear for rust colouring the surface. 2500 grit definitely requires a couple of pastes for a gloss. Or finer grits and a swirl remover compound.

That looks pretty but I understand what you mean. A top made of that could make you seasick... But it doesn't look bad either, there's plenty going on along the length. Looks almost like there's dozens of humps and bumps! I like it very much.

How high was the highest grade? When sanding the 2K poly of my Strat I used "papers" intended for sanding paint, got them from a car paint vendor. Up to 2000 grit wet paper works quite well, from there I used 3M foam disks 3000 and 6000 grit, also wet. At places I had to go back one or two grits to remove sanding marks that popped up from an otherwise smooth surface. Even the 6000 left a milky shade to the clearcoat. After that I used a swirl remover compound. I skimped so I only bought the finest of the three of that series which I had to pay by having to use more elbow grease.

Not to mention that the "very cheap off-brand" can be made out of some soft pot-metal with loose subpar threadings. The "real" parts may not fit directly. I've used some very cheap bridges and noticed that the bushings and studs don't quite match (a round of copper tape may stop the wobbling) as don't the socket set screws. The latter I've been able to fix by buying "real" M3 socket set screws from the local bolt store and re-tapping the holes. That's an easy and inexpensive fix. Regarding that it might be that the original threaded holes are a tad too wide and/or the bolts/screws a bit thinner than what you'd get from your local hardware store. Just warning you that upgrading top shelf parts may tear the cheap base. I'd use the cheap one for testing if the entire guitar pleases me and if it does, upgrade the entire Floyd to a better one when budget allows.

So you can't see the "Edit" option behind the three dots in the upper right corner of your posts, or is it greyed out? For me it seems to work even for old posts. Agreed, there's no "delete" button but wiping the entire post can be done. If you can't use that option it might be because you haven't posted much yet. Can't actually remember how that is.

By looking at the pictures that's not an option unless you take the fretboard off. The square thing at the end of the rod is locked in place so it won't rotate or slide, it's the solid anchor. Basically you could unscrew the adjusting nut at the headstock and pull the rod out but you can do that only after having sawed the neck but that doesn't make sense, does it? Very hypothethically, if you could drill a hole from inside the body to that anchor and by some means grab the anchor, you might be able to pull the rod. That would be much more hassle than just carefully sawing around the rod. I wonder if there's thin enough blades available for an oscillating multitool. That might be handy for getting even closer to the rod.

Your local metal warehouse will sell you any length of square aluminium tube, or you may even find a suitable piece at a demolition or construction site - that kind of tube is widely used for supporting board walls in toilets and such. Of course it will need some truing but the tools needed for that should already be in your box.

The craftmanship is indeed superb and the design is both modern and traditional at the same time. Actually "vintage futuristic" might be the closest, something one might see in "the Jetsons" cartoons and comics. The logo emphasizes the theme nicely.

Hi and welcome! I had to double check for gsm buzz but after hearing the sample from your link it definitely is familiar although I've only suffered from it with PC speakers. So, what do PC speakers and a bass guitar with active electronics have in common? The answer is simple: Both have a (pre)amp and a speaker. And since the buzz with PC speakers happens only near the one with the amp and not near the satellite speaker it's the (pre)amp that picks up the signal from the activating phone. Obviously the shielding isn't good enough for such a relatively strong signal at a short distance, but is the problem in your bass or in your phone? Guess your other guitars and basses use passive circuits. Artec is a reputable Korean manufacturer who make stuff for a number of big names so I wouldn't immediately blame poor quality despite the price being low. As for easy fixes, try different pockets. Just some 10 cm can make a big difference so moving the phone from your right front pocket to the left rear may solve the problem.

Exactly my thought, too.

I've never even thought about that, the process feels so natural. Also, especially if I've hammered the frets in, the inconsistency of wood may allow the fret wire to sink deeper into some spot, causing a dip in the fret and obviously all frets will have to be leveled to that lowest point. As you seem to fear, that may cause the frets actually having a different radius than the fretboard, and if the radius of the bridge matches with the fingerboard but not with the frets that might be something you could feel. Was it you or someone else who started a discussion about matching radiuses with fretboards and bridges a while ago? Anyhow, the conclusion was that if they don't quite match some may feel playing on such a guitar a bit uncomfortable and others may not notice any difference. If you think about the amount you're actually taking off the crowns of frets when levelling you could calculate the change in radius. Knowing that the amount is very little, the difference is not like comparing a 9.5" radius to 12", it's about thous. If you've radiused your fingerboard to 12" the radius of unleveled frets would actually be about 12.05" if the frets sit level to the board. But what happens if you use a 12" caul on a press? Will the centers be a bit proud off the board or will the edges compress the wood? There's a ton of variables so changing just one may not make any difference.

That's what I meant, Ebay from China aren't among the most relied part makers regarding accuracy, be it the actual woodworking or their product information. Other than that, what @curtisa says.

That sounds as good a plan as any. That said, often plain black can make the shadowing look dirty. Shades found in the wood itself may look more natural. Or something matching the final colour. A mix of purple and black sanded back might give a good start - a couple of years ago I ran out of my "Cherry Red" but mixing "Crimson Red" with black resulted a similar looking table top. The tables are standing side by side but it's hard to tell that they aren't from the same batch. Deep black cherry, that is. Back to the guitar, after sanding back the "dark purple" I might be tempted to apply some plain purple and sand that back as well. And then maybe pink. Or the other way around. Finally you can add some dye into the clearcoat for depth, that purple might work. And maybe another layer with some black potentially mixed with purple for a slight burst. And finally-finally a clearcoat to seal all that. All this is based on what I've read and seen on videos so take the advice with caution!