Xanthus

Well now that you propose that "faded" fret board, Matt, I really want to see it done! I agree, not on this guitar, but in general, I think it would be a cool idea. In what way could a guitar be "themed" for fading? The first thing that jumps to mind is lots of bursting.

Oh wow, yeah. I didn't know that the crest got that much "air!" I like it a lot, looks pretty radical. Not rad, radical. "Rad" expired some time ago Quite nice

Solution: Buy a Pod All your multi-effects units in one. kidding, kidding. I know nothing about wiring/chains/ground loops or anything of the sort, but I used a daisy chain for my effects board before I switched to an XT Live. By a star network, do you mean something like this? http://www.music123.com/Pedal-Pad-Power-Pad-II-i148579.music Sorry if I'm asking a question when the thread's already been "solved." Just curious.

Wow, love that hardware! This is shaping up to be simply beautiful!

Oh wow, with that maple, that burst, that longhorn... That tele makes me want to pour BBQ sauce all over it. In a good way, of course. In the wetsand picture, does anyone notice the switch slot? It looks kinda... funky. Looks great in the first picture, though, so something in me says it's the nature of the picture that's playing tricks on me eyeballs.

Maple? Home Depot? You guys are some lucky SoB's.

I might go down all the way to the wood, if only to be entirely certain of the results. I think that spraying such a light color over such a dark color would take a LOT of paint/coats/time to do, not to mention the thickness of the paint on the body. I'm no Ed Roman, but I'd say the thinner the final product, the better off you'll be.

Yeah, it was only for final smoothing and getting dust specks out. Thanks again, and I'll follow your steps. They seem a lot sounder than my own, hahaha

Ah, ok, I'll keep that in mind for my next project. I was wondering about the buffing because the last time I sanded the black down, it turned a dark, nasty gray color. By buffing it, the black would return to its original sheen, right? I wouldn't want to clear over a gray. And yes, I'm using all auto paint. I got a quart of PPG black, and I'm using the HOK candy and Kustom Shop clear. Wouldn't 600 be a bit rough? I was planning on using 1000-1500, because I thought the point of it was to get rid of the scratches Then again, I'm not the expert here Thanks for all your advice, I really appreciate it.

"If I were doing this finish with red bevels I would paint the bevels silver and then candy letting both go over the bevel by an inch or so on each side so there is no hard edge. Then I would clear the bevels with 3 coats of intercoat clear. I would then paint the whole guitar black and then carefully snad the bevels with 800 wet to reveal the bevels. This way there is no had edge to worry about and no difficult masking of the bevels." Hahaha, talk about difficult masking of bevels, PaintIt! I wish I had thought of that process beforehand, because masking the bevels took about 1,000 hours to do. More or less. But I'm definitely keeping that process in mind. Would it matter if the clear that I shot over the candy was just regular clear, or would it be better to be intercoat? It's not really a use to me now, I just sprayed the black on it last night, and the bevels were all taped up, but I'm anticipating my next project to be a Jackson V with a similar paint scheme. I was planning to wetsand the black to get it REALLY flat and smooth, then buff it back out again before doing the red, and then shooting the whole thing with clear. Is this a generally accepted practice, or will I **** up the black coat again?

FRETBOARD!!! I love that body too. A+, everything looks sharp and SUPER clean, keep it up!

Looks pretty good, what're its specs?

A cool idea I picked up from the WOMD guitar was to use tiny banjo frets, so you can get more room for your fingers. If I wasn't so hesitant about fretting my own neck (Or rather, not the fretting itself, but the playability), I'd try that idea from the 12th fret upwards or whatnot. It seems like a solid idea no matter what scale length.

http://www.samplesmith.com/articles/Genera...n_Northwood.jpg is that it? The GK-2A? I know that MIDI pickups can make yo' guitah go all funky funky (see: Muse), but honestly, Maiden's Em C G and D chords don't really call for funky MIDI effects. I saw them when they came 'round to Boston this year. But god, I can barely listen to their new CD straight through on the CD, let alone in concert. Well, I'm just hoping they come around again; I love so much old metal it makes me kick myself for not having like... remembered the 80's, being just a wee lad and all. More on topic, however: You must have had really good seats (or keen eyes), because I didn't see any black bars on the guitars, and I was 15th row floor. What I DID notice, however, is how Bruce sounds like he's about to die when he reaches for that high B nowadays. Maybe they have a RoboBruce sing in the studio, because he doesn't sound nearly as strained...

I'm the first to admit that I don't have a solitary clue on how to adjust/prepare/make a truss rod. So I wanted to toss this question over to the experts: When you put the strings on a guitar, do you have to tighten the truss rod, or anything? Like, they ship all the necks from the company, so is the rod sitting there all loose and stuff, because there's no force counteracting them? You wouldn't want to tighten the truss rod and then ship it out, because it could warp. I didn't know when I put strings on if I have to tighten the rod to compensate for the string tension, or not. Or do I wait and let the strings settle in, then check the truss rod and see if everything is good? The more I run it over in my head, the more I'm thinking that it's the latter. Thanks in advance!

To do that, I'd need to pull off the frets and refret it, sounds like. I KNOW that I'm not skilled enough to undertake that project, haha. I was thinking of something I could do that was more along the lines of masking the frets off and hitting the board with some high-grade paper, 1500 or 2000. Chances are, I'd have to stain the fretboard black again, when I was done. Anyone have any ideas?

I think the overall sucess of the company is a testament in and of itself. I personally fancy Carvin necks, and bought one for my build. Granted I haven't strung it up and played it yet, but I'm familiar with the brand and know that it's a good quality piece. Warmoth, Stewmac, Allparts, Carvin, and others all have solid reputations, and from what I've seen and read, people are very satisfied with their completed projects. See Warmoth's gallery page, which are for the most part projects built with entirely Warmoth parts. The only downside to ordering from these companies is the price that some offer. I know it's a hard gamble to choose for an inexperienced builder like you and me, haha, between decent quality at a moderate price, or an unknown finished quality at a cheapr price, but with plenty of room for error. I knew I wasn't up to fretting a fingerboard, crowning, leveling, or the like, which is why I ordered from Carvin. Yeah, the neck cost me $240, but I wasn't willing to take the risk It's all up to you, man. Best of luck on whichever road you choose.

I think the design works very well for....... well, for you, basically But that's the only one who matters anyways, eh? I think the headstock fits, but I'm sure whatever you think of instead will make it fit better. The paint job reminds me a lot of Dime's guitars, and that combined with the headstock, well Dean could have built it in no time Because of that fact, I might consider a different paint job. Some sort of maple/stain would look good, methinks. A silver or grey black/sandback stain would look sharp! In any case, good luck!

My fretboard is dyed ebony. If I sand it with some high-grit paper to take the grime off, it'll turn an uneven color, which I don't want. My thought is that if I do it this way, I will have to dye it black again afterwards.

Yeah, that's one thing I'm a bit concerned about is the lip over the edge of the tape, when I unmask the candy. Is there any way to even it out, or will it disappear with the clearcoats? On another note, I know my fotki page shows pictures of the guitar painted black and me (for the most part) really diggin' it. BUT when I got it under some good lighting, there were a few runs. Not high or thick, but they were there all the same. So, I decided to sand them down really lightly, and in the process, give all the black a rundown with some really light paper. Well, I dunno what happened, but I sanded the little runs down, and the area around them, and looked at the guitar again under the light. Well, my sanding turned the black into a dark GRAY. Needless to say, I was pissed. I had done a decent area on the back with 1500, and it turned the black gray. I had some scratch remover solution lying around, so I tried a bit of it on the area I ****ed up on. No luck with that, either. Out of options, I just decided to sand the whole thing down and start over again. Yeah, it's going to take MORE time than ever now, but it'll give me a chance to fix things that came up with the black over that weren't noticeable with just primer on (i.e. tiny scratches, small un-level surfaces). So that's where I stand now, farther away from the finish line than before. But, live and learn. More knowledge to use on the second project.

Thanks a lot guys, you've both saved me a lot of eventual frustration! The bevels will be masked, Maiden. Here's the link to my album: www.fotki.com/xanthus I'll be doing the back of the neck and the bevels red. Thanks for the tip about spraying some clear first, Lovekraft. The bevels ARE nice and smooth, though, so I don't think I'll need to do a lot of sanding on them anyways. I hope On another note, how many coats of clear is a good number to put over the guitar? I've got a quart (HOK doesn't sell anything smaller). I was thinking of spraying 3 or 4, sanding, and repeating, basically following LGM's clearing tutorial on this thread: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=1892

Well, the title pretty much says it all. I'm looking forward to being able to polish the frets and clean up the fretboard when I'm done painting my project. It has a little more than the normal playing wear, just sawdust from being attached to a body-in-progress and a bit of tape residue. I found out though, due to an unfortunate sanding accident, that my ebony fretboard has in fact been stained black. Under normal circumstances, I would have just taken some high grit paper to the board and finished it with some Dunlop fretboard oil, but if I sand off the dyed layer (and knowing me, I'll probably do it unevenly), it will change the whole look of the fretboard. Has anyone dealt with cleaning a fretboard that has been dyed? If so, what processes have been used? I guess the simplest answer would be to sand the wood as normal and then dye it black again, but it'd be pretty cool if I could "see my neighbor's house" like in Brian's tutorial, haha. Thanks in advance, all!

I've bought some premixed HOK kandy apple red for the bevels on my Explorer. As I was reading through the website, though, it says that the clear needs to be sprayed over the red before it is dry. I was hoping to give it a bit of a level with some wetdry first, before spraying the clear. My reading gathered that basically the kandy and clear (or, klear) have to be done right after one another, in one sitting. I've never used HOK before, or heard of this needing to be done to the color coats. Would I still be able to hit it with some wet sand first? I mean, in a perfect world, I wouldn't need to, I know, but just thought I'd ask the experts anyways.

http://public.fotki.com/Xanthus/ New pictures are up, for all interested. I prepped and sprayed the primer, sanded it, sprayed, sanded again, and a third time, and then shot the color coats. I immediately regretted not putting on a second coat of grain fill as soon as I saw how the black went on. What didn't show up when the primer was on (i.e. grain and a few tiny scratches) were magnified quite a bit when the black went on. So from 20 feet away, and on the pictures, the guitar looks awesome, but there are some details that I'm not happy with. I made a few mistakes regarding taping as well. I didn't realize that the pinstriping tape I used to cover the bevels was a bit too thick, and had started to unstick itself around the difficult tighter curve next to the fretboard. So I got a bit of spray under there, which I'll have to paint over or sand out, and I'm not sure which one to go with. The primer leaked a bit under the tape as well, and ended up on the fretboard. When I went to sand it out, first with 1500, then went rougher when 1500 wasn't doing anything, I realized that A) the paint wasn't coming off, but the fretboard dye was. Go me. So I left it there and am going to formulate a plan of attack for it before the color coats. I've some black still left over that I'm going to use to touch up the spots that need black, and primer to re-prime the black and smudged areas most likely, and then spray the color. So other than all those stupid mistakes/mishaps, it's coming along swimmingly! With any luck, it'll be ready to play in a little over a week! I know I'm going to post this on the inlay section, but has anyone ever worked with HOK candy colors? They say that they need to be cleared before they are completely dry. What if I need to sand a spot or two out? I was planning on giving them a rub with some wetsand before the clear regardless, but I can't do that unless it's dry! Quite a conundrum. Anyways, enjoy. Constructive criticism rocks, but I have a much more confident and solid game plan now that I've ****ed up some on my first project. Just gotta acquire funds for the second.

I agree, I'd like to see the neck heel as well. I ain't a fan of Strats, but I like the way this one came out If they started making Strats neck-through, I might be enticed enough to pick up one and start playing! I dig the color and the pickguard, they look really good together. Doesn't that volume knob that close to the bridge get annoying? I'd be bumping into it all the time, heh.