Armaan

5 minutes ago, Prostheta said:

How did you produce your signatures? Those are super cool.

Thanks! I drew it on paper with a sketch pen. Used on online application to convert the jpeg image to autocad. The conversion software worked but is not foolproof - so I had to work on the autocad drawing for a bit to make it workable.

Made the width of the line approx. 0.5mm, as it was the minimum thickness needed for laser cutting. Got a local laser cutting vendor to make a pocket in a piece of walnut and cut the brass to size. 

As the design is very intricate, it did not sit in the pocket perfectly after the laser cutting (you can see it raised in the picture). I used a carving knife and thin file to fix the pocket and now the brass fits nicely. 

Just applied a coat of Danish and poly mix and will epoxy the brass in tomorrow. Will send a picture across once it’s done. 

1 hour ago, ScottR said:

Beautiful job. Not just nice for your first guitar, just straight up well done period!

SR

Thanks very much! Cheers!

4 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

No need to! Just take a soft brush (clothes or shoe brush) and polish the pores.

Too late ...

Update:

1. When waxing the top of the body, the wax filled up some pores in the wood. These are visible as the walnut is dark and the wax is white. Don’t like how it looks, so I’m planning to sand the top down and refinish it. 

2. Trying out a different truss rod cover with my signature. Here’s the work-in-progress:

This is turning out really nice! Looking forward to seeing it finished

What finish are you planning to put on this? Looks great as it is.

This is really nice! Quite unique. Great job

@Gogzs Pretty sure my wife will beat the #%*^ out of me if I talk of building another guitar. It’s not entirely unfair though, considering I spent the last month building it on one half of our dining table  ...  

So no ideas for a second build is my official position at this time ... you guys will be the first to know if this changes ...

6 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Looks great Armaan, hell of a first build. 

Thanks! It certainly has flaws, but I think it’s the best I could manage with the tools and experience I had. 

Thanks @Muzz ! I made it to play more of hard rock and heavier genres ... looks like it’s conveying the right message

That’s why I chose walnut and black electronics and used sharper lines for the body instead of rounded shapes. 

@Bizman62 True! Although I am certainly more impatient than most, to be honest

Will spend the next few weeks testing it out and setting it up. Hopefully no major changes needed. Let’s see!

Here’s what it looks like now. 99% of the work done. Just some finishing, fret work and action set up to do. 

8 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Now that's some neat wiring! It's hard to believe that you have never before built a guitar or soldered anything!

Thanks! And the good news is I didn’t burn my fingers soldering this time ...

Rewired the electricals entirely today. The wires were way too long! Made a much simpler wiring set up with only the necessary wire length. It’s much cleaner now, though the resoldering got a bit messy. 

Did my first amp test today and it played beautifully. Surprisingly great sustain and very full sound. Very pleased. Will get it intonated and set up tomorrow.  
 

@curtisa Cool, will do. Do you think slurry sanding with sandpaper and a little Danish would be good? 

Any sense in using wax or a polishing compound in this process?

Shooting in the dark here

2 minutes ago, Gogzs said:

Ehhh, not really. "Lemon oil" for fretboard conditioning doesn't actually contain lemon oil, it's just mineral oils with lemon smell. So you can't really build up a finish with it. It's just to keep the piece of wood moisturized. It would have achieved what you wanted to achieve with the coat of danish oil, turn darker and look/feel fresh  

Yep, that’s what @Bizman62 said earlier as well. Maybe I’ll just try sanding it with steel wool and a little Danish, after trying to scrape off a little bit of the CA glue discolouration. 

@curtisa Yes, from what I read online, a finish is not necessary and lemon oil can be used to keep it hydrated. This wood was particularly dry and I wanted to darken it a bit and give it a bit of sheen. Hence the Danish oil. I can use the lemon oil going forward. 

The blemishes in green were there before I applied the Danish oil. I though they may be less visible with some darkening by the Danish oil, but it hasn’t been the case. 

For the CA glue, I had scraped off the runs with a blade but what you see (in red) appears to be on account of CA glue having saturated in the wood. Don’t want to go much deeper, but I can try once more and see.

I was hoping the slurry sanding will even out the surface and reduce the problem. Would slurry sanding with lemon oil make any sense?

Fretboard blemishes: I have two issues to solve:

(i) There are blemishes on the fretboard which appeared after sanding. They look like sawdust and glue patch-ups, though i haven’t done any on the top. I’ve read online that others have faced this issue with ebony, and some think it may be natural mineral deposits in the wood. 

(ii) when filling the fret sides with CA glue and sawdust, the CA glue seems to have run down along the frets. I thought I had sanded it down, but they became visible once I applied a coat of Danish. 

I am planning to slurry sand the fretboard with 0000 steel wood and Danish. Will that help? Any other suggestions?

I’ve attached a couple of images below to demonstrate. Green circles are blemishes as per (i) and red circles are CA glue discolouration as per (ii). This is after fine sanding upto 1500 grit and applying two coats of Danish oil  

Wax polish: I got some buffing pads for the carnauba wax polish that I’m planning to apply, There are three kinds of pads:

- 1 foam pad with an uneven surface

- 1 foam pad with a flat surface 

- 1 wool pad

I thought I would apply wax using the flat foam pad first and then go over it with the wool pad. Does that sound right?

I will be using an adaptor to attach the pads to a drill for this. 

This looks outstanding. Flawless really. I wish I had this build quality. 

23 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

When you iron your clothes, don't answer the phone no matter how much it rings! You sound like the guy who accidentally burned his ear...

Thankfully I’m a lot better at ironing clothes, than handling a soldering iron ... 

10 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

Your wiring looks quite neat, by the way! The solder joints look solid and clean, not bad for a first-timer.

So a part of this was pre-wired and came with the pots. I’ve had to solder the pickup wires, connection to the jack and the ground wires.

Btw, burnt my other hand a few minutes ago soldering the bridge wire. Fun times ...

Electricals: First time soldering today. Burnt my fingers with the soldering iron, so that was not fun ...

I followed the wiring diagrams that came with the Seymour Duncan’s and theoretically the wiring should work. I’m one cable short (the bridge ground wire) and will do a test tomorrow once that’s put in. In hindsight, I should’ve made the wiring harness outside the guitar and tested it first, but I’ve already installed the pickups and the jack and soldered it all together. 

Also placed some metal washers between the pots and the body, so that they don’t sit so tall on the front of the guitar. Could that cause noise and require additional grounding?
 

8 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Just so you know, crackling is made by applying another coat (often of another colour or finish) before the base layer has thoroughly dried. It's possible that wax would act similarly on semi-dry poly. If only the wax cracles, that can easily be buffed. But if the wax draws crack lines on the poly, you'd be sorry you didn't wait!

Ah, did not know about crackling. Will wait then. As a test, I applied wax yesterday to a bookmark I made using an offcut from my neck - it has the same number of danish and poly coats on it. It hasn’t cracked overnight, but I’ll wait and watch to be safe. 

How long should I wait after the last coat of poly before I polish with wax?

The poly should air cure within 24 hours, but I understand that it may take longer to fully chemically cure. I’ve seen people online recommending 7 days to 30 days between the poly and wax. Is that overkill? I would think it should be fine to wax after the surface hardens fully.

I’m planning to wait 72 hours.