ihocky2

John: You are pretty much correct. The thing I love about nitro is how it melts into previous layers and how a century later you can easily repair it with drop fills that melt right in. With poly you have to sand a little to give the new coats a little tooth. And if you sand in too deep you'll get witness lines. But while you are spraying fesh coats poly kind of melts into itself. If you follow the manufacturers instructions the coats are still slightly tacky and adhere to each other in one continous film. But you are usually only spraying 3 coats before letting it cure. Then you have to sand a little and spray again. So you have to hope that you don't sand into the first coats and get witness lines. Plus at least the 2 part poly's have the benefit of being extremely abbrasion resistant. So they are catching on fast.

The Warbird I built originally had a blood wood fret board. Not too bad to saw through. I didn't think it was that bad to sand into the radius and smelled wonderdful. Like another post said, it smells like chocolate. After several months it did start to turn more of a brown color though. A lot faster than purple heart turns brown. It was also very brittle and loved to chip out. That is why I ended up having to replace it with a rosewood board. My first fret job sucked. I pulled the frets and even with heating the board chipped out terribly. I could not find another piece of blood wood that I like as much as the first so I went with rosewood because I was under a dedline. BUt I have tosay that other than the chipping it wasn;t that bad to work with.

Looks great. As another member who had only ever known 2d cad, you won't believe what yo can do once you learn 3d on a modeling program. I learned Inventor a year ago and will be getting trained on NX5 in a few months. It make designing guitars so much more fun and easier.

Well since we are drinking tequilla here, you might be able to get some Jimmy Buffet insprired ideas as well. I was just talking to my wife about doing a surf rock guitar based on the Charvel Surfcaster and the first thing out of here mouth was that it needed some kind of tropical graphics. Might as well continue on with the theme since the pick gaurd already looks good. Maybe work it to look like one of the old 50's surf buggies with the wood side panels.

It takes more time and control but you can also find dremel bits in the right diameter or grind them down to the right diameter. Then you need the precision router base. Dan Erlwine talks about this in his fretting book.

If the bottle or can isn't marked you can check the makers website. Hopefully you'll find something on it. But that is hit or miss. If you really know you chemicals you can read the MSDS sheet for them and identify the components. But I am no chemist so that never helped me. If you can't find info on the manufacturers website try posting on here what the brand and product line are. There is a good bet it has been used here before and someone might know what it is.

Once again, I am not trying to shoot down your dreams, but don't put all of your eggs in one basket either. My personal plan is to get comfortable enough with the quality of my building to be able to sell guitars to make it a self sustaining hobby. But I'll still need a day job. I currently work as a drafter/machine programmer. When I was 14ish I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the worst way and also a NHL player. When I was 17 I was looking at the Coast Gaurd to get into helicopter pilotting and search and rescue to be a diver. At 19 I found myself in community college studying mechanical engineering technology. At 19 I started refereeing ice hockey for extra money and because I love the game. Eight years later I just completed my first season working as a referee for the NCAA and worked 3 National Championship Tournaments, one of them being college. If all goes well at two camps I have to attend I will be working in the ECHL as a semi-pro referee. Even 8 years ago I would never have dreamed I would be where I am at now, and I am extatic about it. The moral is that you never know what life has in store for you. The best advice I can give is be as diverse and explorative as possible. Never pass up any opportunity to try something new and always ask questions. You are never too old to learn more. You never know where you will land. You might not find yourself owning a major chain music store in 20 years, but you very well may find yourself as editor in chief for Guitar World or some other cool job.

There are plenty on here who will atest to being able to remove epoxied fretboards with heat. It is no worse than wood glue to remove. A planer or jointer are just way too risky to trust.

Did I read your post right? You are using a HVLP gun at 2.5 CFM. Every one I have seen is usually around 12 CFM or much higher. Even the conventional guns usually want 6 CFM. Please point me to the gun you are using because I would love to get a HVLP without getting a turbine compressor or a monster compressor.

GC and MF are not run by guys who have a passion for working on/ building custom guitars. Two totally different worlds. You will find out it's VERY hard to find enough hours in the day to be good at both. Great point. And remember, as a budding business and probably being the only employee to start with, it is going to have very demanding hours. When you start out, even one employee is at least and extra $15,000 you have to pay and you'll have a very minor customer base to support that while still trying to make enough money to live of off. I am not trying to sound negative here by any means. It's great that you have a dream and a passion, I am just trying to warn you of some of the pitfalls of owning your own business. My aunt and uncle have there own business. They work very long hours, 6 days a week, and every holiday except Christmas and July 4. So it will be tough to find time to still build guitars. Starting off, you might be able to set up a work bench that you can build at while waiting for customers. But as you gain more clients and have more repairs, you'll have less time to build.

No they are not. There are definite differences betweens brands. Plus there is acrylic lacquer and nitrocellulose lacquer. Nitro lacquer is what Gibson uses and Fender used to use. Acrylic lacquer tends to take longer to fully cure and cures softer. Most nitro lacquers yellow over time but there are some that will not because of UV inhibitors that are added. Both of them take at least 30 days to cure to the point of being able to polish.

All of the questions can be answered with the search function. Those questions are probably asked once every few weeks or more.

Do a search and you'll find a ton of info on this. Melvyn Hiscock says it best, the best way to make a small fortune building guitars is to start with a big fortune. It is not saying that you can not make money building guitars, there are a few guys here who do. But you have to make a name for yourself, you have to offer something that no one else does, and you have to do it at a competitive price. The big companies buy lumber at huge discounts. They buy parts at huge discounts and have the availability of CNC machines that you have to compete with. And face it, if your brand is sitting between Fender and Gibson, 99% of the time people are going to buy a Fender or Gibson. Most of the guys on here who build for a living build only customs that are made to order. Making a production line of guitars costs a lot money just in overhead and then you have to pray they sell. If you can find a way into the market you are better making made to order customs. There are plenty of non-big name guitars out there, it is just that when some one wants a new guitar there are a few names that always come to mind first and there are always a few names that the magazines push.

And even with the 2k auto poly's you still need to sand down polish. The poly I have used I found to sand easier that nitro lacquer, but it only saves me maybe 2 hours worth of work when it comes to sanding. And I can get the poly and the nitro to both lay down pretty flat with minimal to no orange peel. The last two guitars I did I only sanded with 2000 grit. But you still need to flatten off the surface to get that dipped in glass look. A quality finished clear coat in the auto industry will never fly on a guitar, it just isn't flat enough.

I am not positive, but I am pretty sure that when it comes to endorsed guitarists, they do what the endorer says and that is it. I know that Criss Oliva of Savatage played an ESP that had the headstock reshaped and a Charvel logo put on when he signed with them. My understanding is he was pretty much told either his guitars said Charvel or they wouldn't sign him. Is it false advertising, yes. The reason ESP would let something like that slide is because ESP would do the same thing to someone with a Jackson guitar. So Fender wouldn't care when JEL played a Fender with Charvel logo, because they would do the same thing right back to Charvel.

Any details on the build? It sounds like it was a refinish on a BC Rich. I love the way the finish came out. What did you use to finish it with. From that one pic it looks great. If there are specific flaws you are trying to find out how to fix, you'll need to get a more close up picture of them. nice work either way.

The fretboard looks just fine to me. I just wasn't sure if you angled the entire bridge plate to compensate for the intonation is if anything shifted. Any way, it is still a great looking piece.

I love the design. Nice work. One question, is it me or does either the bridge plate or the pickup look crooked.

Not really felling the headstock either, but I am liking the rest so far. I think the problem with the headstock is that the RG and JEM bodies are rather slender and the horns are fairly thin. But most of the points on the headstock are thicker. I think a slight bit of reshaping to slender it up and make the curves a little more graceful and it would fit the body very well.

I am not sure what all of the chemical properties of Goo Gone are, but some of the oily products just stick around. Especially any silicone based products. Silicone is a nightmare to remove, but you would have seen fish eyes when you sprayed so I doubt it is silicone. But some of the oils just bead off water and mild soap. I always wipe down with at least naptha, if not a good wax a grease remover. And make sure you keep turning your rag to get a fresh side so you are not just spreading the already picked up oil around more.

I have done 2 guitars and many projects with Deft and never had a problem. I have never used it over Krylon, so I don't know if there are any incompatability issues or not.

That looks fantastic. I can't wait to see this one finished.

What type of clear coat did you use? Did you scuff sand between any of the coats? That sounds similar to what some of the cheap hardware store poly's will do if they don't adhere properly.

What brand of lacquer are you using and what type and brand of paint did you use?

400 grit is way heavy to start with. For your level sanding never start with less than 600 grit and that is pretty darned heavy. If you spray and get it to lay down nice and level try starting with 1500 or go straight to 2000 grit. Once you learn where to set your gun and how to get a smooth finish, final sanding takes no time even with 2000 grit. You also want to make sure that you are not spraying too far apart. You want the layers to mix into each other. Minwax poly does not melt into the previous layer, so if the layer is 100% dry, when you polish you will get witness lines as you sand or polish through the layers.