Bizman62

16 hours ago, mistermikev said:

tablesaw caught fire... what the devil? 

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...

13 hours ago, mistermikev said:

you might try warming your can prior

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!

15 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

nice neighbors.  if it were me... I'd put a package out there with dogshit in it and I'd rub the outside of it with urine.  leave a note telling them you have hep c too... you know... send a message. 

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.

7 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Looks like my only choice is to get the orbital sander out and start again

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?

19 minutes ago, ScottR said:

up there with "did you re-boot it, is it plugged in"?

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.

The "decorations" -binding or shaping? - really tie the headstock to the body! Very nice!

What I tried to say in my previous post was more about the shape. One image tells you more than broken English ever can. Here I duplicated the upper horn, resized (hence the difference in the stripe size) and rotated it to fit:

Use a relatively stiff sanding block in order to only hit the tops of the bobbles.

Yep, Banggood is the place I've bought many things from. The truss rods I've got have all been working, also the ones I've sold to fellow builders. Currently it seems there's a 20% discount for 2 or more: https://www.banggood.com/Two-Way-dual-action-45-Steel-Truss-Rod-420mm-p-933049.html?rmmds=search&cur_warehouse=CN

The bass size one I got from Aliexpress also seems to work: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10-pcs-570mm-Double-Course-Way-Bass-Guitar-Truss-Rod-Inner-Diameter-9mm-Steel-A3/32774484651.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.a03d4c4dUaPimR

As curtisa said, testing is mandatory. I've been mostly lucky, but in one tuner set one of the tuners had the hole in the gear off-center so it was very tough to turn at a certain point.

One thing not worth buying is the "nut slot round file keyring set": They're not files, they're nozzle cleaning rods.

I once bought a 2 x 4 cm aluminium beam cut into 28 cm pieces and leveled them by rubbing against a piece of sandpaper on the table of the huge jointer plane. The length was based on the longer side of regular wet'n'dry sheets. Masking tape and super glue for secure yet easy to remove attaching of the desired grit slice of sandpaper. A longer and heavier beam might be better but as I just tried a worn out 400 it seemed to do the job just fine. Rather slow than sorry...

For the fret ends I've used the dirty and fast method: File the ends flush with the fretboard, file the angle and round them by taking a piece of 400 grit wet'n'dry rolled to a flat threefold wrapped around my finger and running it in various angles up and down along the fretboard. It rounds the fret ends and also gives the fretboard a nice played-in touch. The same roll method can also be used to round the more or less triangular frets after having used a dressing file. It's more about polishing than reshaping so it doesn't ruin the levelling. For polishing I've used 3M Trizact pads up to 6000 grit or a nail polishing sponge with various grits. I've got those from China for $ 5.99/10 pcs - a nice gift for the fellow builders on the course! 

It's been half a year but nonetheless this looks just like one of the cases Jerry Rosa repairs on his YouTube videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29Dkc6-RMU8TCrloPN0Cbw

2 hours ago, Prostheta said:

using tobacco brown as a substitute when popping figure. Once you get colour over it, the quality of differentiation is a mile better than black

That's logical. Most woods have darker brownish growth rings so enhancing that colour produces a more natural effect. Lately I've seen that logic getting more publicity and popularity, yet the black still lives hard in tutorials.

Note that you can use any colour for popping figure, even light ones like yellow or pink, and after sanding apply another colour. Also, if you start with a spirit based dye and continue with a water based one, the colours don't blend. Lots of options there for an open mind!

Written by one who likes natural wood...

I've been using Chinese ones costing ~10 € for 3 including mail. And they look identical to those sold for 10 € a piece at a local builder web shop so the quality is decent. Of course it doesn't hurt checking the action before gluing the fretboard. They're only 420 mm long but that seems to be enough for 24.75 scale necks. As Mr Finlayson said, part of the neck isn't moving. There's no need to stress the neck joint!

There's aluminium tape with conductive adhesive as well. On the other hand, not every copper tape has conductive adhesive. Anyhow, let's wait for the correct answer!

59 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

is that tin foil shielding?  if so how do you get it to stick?  just curious.

I'd vote for aluminium tape used sold in hardware stores for fixing and sealing metal pipes, alufoil insulation and other building related things. It's much cheaper than copper tape.

It was a lovely warm day here so since I didn't have any work left in the early afternoon I beat the carpets and hoovered... And since it still was warm and sunny on our porch, I took the guitar and a sanding block out. No images but you know how to sand by hand so use your imagination!

I also found a sketch I once drew for other purposes, here's how I cut the neck blank and measured the neck break angle:

Lovely! And superb indeed!