Bizman62

What Scott said. Celluloid is plastic which means it's basically the same stuff as a polyurethane finish. Imagine sanding a lacquered surface to 320! If you're going to oil the headstock, apply the oil with wet'n'dry paper or a fine grit plastic abrasive. For lacquer, try sanding the inlay only to some 2000 grit or even higher.

Sir Ash, it's amazing to see how you've progressed in such a short time! Wasn't it just yesterday when you asked for advise about this and that, now you're the source of inspiration for all of us?!

As for burnishing scrapers, how about a knife sharpener? One of those that come with a 15 money kitchen knife set or just a few coins alone? If they work for stainless steel knives they should as well work for scrapers, I suppose. Maybe a little long but an angle grinder can take care of that if needed.

Thank you for your kind words.

I'm not a great LP fan either other than the body proportions. The upper bout is smaller than that of a Gretsh DuoJet although they look quite similar at first glance. Subtle changes here and there can make a big difference.

A French curve is a magnificent tool for designing F holes and such, isn't it? As you can see from the images, the original design drawn on the masking tape evolved a bit during the process. Looking at the drawings for a week made me rip off those tapes and cut a new cardboard template with the current shape..

Found a couple of images in my phone from gluing the wings on. You may notice a resemblance with the partially painted spacer block and the neck, that's because I used the offcut from under the neck there.

Note the extra at both ends of the body. It's easier to carve the heel to match the body wings than add wood to it. The clamp padding is some jute based stiff foamy plastic I salvaged from the trash bin of the town carpenters sharing the same premises!

10 minutes ago, D_W said:

I don't want to invest in a light box with UV lights

How about getting one of those UV sun tanning lamps? Supposedly you might find one of those 60's 300W "alpine sun" lamps next to free in a garage sale.

58 minutes ago, D_W said:

Staying away from power tools in general probably means that I'll build fewer and less spectacular guitars than most on here. 

I'd say that adds value to your instruments. Also, how should one define spectacularity? Fancy curves aren't an issue for hand tools, neither is highly figurative woods. That Tele there is spectacular in its own right! Solid craftmanship and well chosen pieces of quality wood, matching colours... If it plays as well as it looks there's nothing left to ask for.

Those shiny curves! Oh how I wish I could justify building more guitars to reach your skills!

I'd use a natural wax. Carnauba is the hardest of them. It can be found within car waxes as well for easy acquiring, good information here: https://www.autogeek.net/qude101.html

A template might also help, at least in aligning the holes. Even a piece of cardboard with needle holes is easier to put into the right location on either side than trying to draw a line and measure one by one. - Did that make sense at all?

This is my second full build from a couple of years back, a neck-thru LP-ish silhouette - Call her "El Pish", maybe? - with a radiused top built in the premises of our local adult education centre. They run a guitar building course on Saturdays - what a way to forget the events of the previous week at work! - under the tuition of master luthier Veijo Rautia.  He's got a bunch of templates for us to use for drawing the outlines to be cut with the band saw, as well as a pile of blueprints to check the measurements. This one has the common LP outlines and the shape and placing of the electrickery cavities but the headstock was designed using a PRS template borrowed from a fellow builder for a straighter string pull. As you see, the moustache is still there...

The neck is of maple and walnut, the wings of are of roasted alder with a nogal top. The fretboard is of rosewood, 24,75 with a 12" radius. To prove that "tonewood" can be bought in most imaginary places, the alder is from the sauna building department of a nationwide hardware store and the nogal and merbau are from the outlet shop of a parquet factory.

The hardware is from China, a pair of humbucker sized P90's for pickups. The pickup rings have been sanded to make them look more "organic" to match the oiled wood. The oil used was Osmocolor clear several coats slurred with ~1500 grit abrasive mat.

It weighs 3.9 kg.

Well, actually I remembered you telling that you've found a new place to show your work. First I tried to google for Ash Finlayson Guitar Forum but when that failed I searched for Guitar Building Forum and then your name within... So thank you very much, Sir Ashley!

There's still two Saturdays in April for me to get this project finished at least to the level where I can start oiling which I can do at home so hopefully she will get playable for summer.

The primary reason was to add darkness in the f-holes. The lighter coloured alder shining through the f-holes on the darker ovangkol top might have reduced the contrast. It was just later that I remembered having a bottle of shielding paint.

You're partially right about sealing, too. In my thinking the paint may act as a balancing  counterforce to the surface which is going to be oiled. For the very same reason there's brown paper glued on the bottom side of laminated kitchen table boards. One might think that if the laminate really wanted to warp the paper could not hold against it but it does.

Changing history is evil!

Been following the video series on and off, lately more than before. Still like your style!

The inside was first just plain matte black paint from a can. Then I applied some conductive shielding paint over it.

And this is how she looks like at the moment

Hi guys, yet another crimsoneer here...

This one is my current build, #4½. The neck is regular maple with a cherry-walnut-cherry stripe and 0.55 mm veneers of flamed birch for contrast. The base of the body is torrefied Estonian alder, the top flamed ovangkol. And the fingerboard is of merbau. The neck woods are from a flooring/parquet factory outlet, the alder from the sauna department of a local hardware chain. The top is the only wood meant for guitar building.

For the process, there's a bunch of templates for us to use provided by the master luthier of the course along with some made by ourselves. They're mostly for drawing outlines, too thin for routing. We have access to some quite large machines and the hand tools of a woodworking classroom, all less loved...

Enough talking, here's a summary of the Saturdays of this winter and part of last spring: