JackyB

Okay, I finished most of the prep work on the body. I worked my way down to 240 grit sand paper. Then I moistened the wood to raise the grain, then I sanded it again. The bare wood is soooo smooth right now I'd almost be tempted to leave it unfinished . I filled the large crack above the bridge with wood filler and sanded it down. It's completely flush now, although it looks a little strange because of the way the wood is cracked. I think the poly should cover it up just fine. I couldn't find any grain filler at neither Lowe's nor Home Depot. I think what I'll try doing is wiping on a thin layer of poly (I bought a new can of Deft Satin clear coat) with a rag, letting it dry, then sanding it down with 240 grit. I think that should fill the grain just fine. Any comments on this? I'm going to do a little more sanding tomorrow before I wipe on the first coat of poly. I didn't do much today or yesterday. I bevelled down the edge between the sides and the back to help clean up some of those nasty dings you can see here: http://www.imagehigh.com/view.php?image_id=951 I also used a chemical stripper to clean up the back plate/badge that holds the neck screws in place and polished it up with a metal polishing compound. It shines like a mirror. And of course I did a lot of sanding, working up to 240 grit sand paper. The wood looked absolutely stunning while it was wet. Hopefully the clear coat will bring out some of that same beauty.

I got a couple supplies today: I didn't have a scrap piece of mahogany laying around, so I tested the little bit where the pick guard will be in case something went wrong. The more I look at that test area, the more I think you're right about the satin finish. I'm not sure if I got the right thing. I'm guessing there's a difference between wood filler and grain filler. I was really hoping for that glassy, smooth finished look, but the grain is still very visible. Will more sanding and coats help cure that, or will I need to fix something with my grain-filling technique? I just applied the wood filler and pasted it on with a putty knife with plenty of pressure. I gave it a little more than an hour to dry, then sanded it down. Any input? I'm kind of stuck here, I don't want to move on until I can get the finish right.

Yeah, I'll look into it. I'll measure the diameter of the hole when I get home. I think it will look a bit plain without one. How do they usually go on? After staining but before clear coat? Thanks for the encouragement . I'm really determined to do this right. I'll get some grain filler because the mahogany is very porous. I'm going to get this sucker to be as flat and reflective as a mirror, no matter how many wet sandings it takes.

Day 3 (to be continued later this evening...) Decided to get started on finishing the sanding job. Got staretd on the front. Getting there. Decided there's no point in preserving the decorative stick that goes around the sound hole. Got most of it. From the start of this project until now I've gone through an entire packet of 60 grit sandpaper (5 whole sheets.) Got as much done as I can with the bridge still on. The more I think about it, the more I think I should just leave the bridge on. That crack on the face really worries me since it stops at the bridge. I sanded the bridge down the best I could by hand, and worked around it with a small square of sand paper. I'll probably just mask the bridge when I have to start putting a finish on the body. I finished the front early, so I decided to get a start on the sides. I thought this would be the most time consuming part of the sanding job... But it moved along surprisingly fast. Here's the finished product. Later tonight I'll go back and start sanding with finer sand paper and maybe start working on the neck some more. I'm still undecided about how to finish it. I don't know if I want to stain it or just leave it natural and clear coat it.

Day 2 Here it is almost completely disassembled with all my tools I used. The plate on the back was plastered to the wood so I had to use a 1/2" chisel and hammer to pry it off. Minimal damage to the wood. Everything else was pretty easy. I still don't know how to get the bridge off. There seems to be 2 pins holding it in (see above pics) as well as being glued down. If you know how to get this off please help me. Getting ready to start sanding. I started with 60 grit sandpaper with an automatic sander (not belt sander.) It's too cold and rainy to go outside and use a chemical stipper. Plus this is a lot easier and cleaner, just a little more time consuming. Another plus side of this method is it takes the stain out as well. I wish I took some "in-progress" pics, but here's the end results of sanding the back. Looks SO much nicer. My initial plan was to stain it again, but I think I might just clear coat it. The mahogany is so beautiful. Another angle. You can see the light reflection. Note there are still a couple dark spots where the stain still remains. I'll go back and go over the whole back with a finer grit sandpaper and hit some of the dirty spots. It's a bit too late to be running the sander. Don't want to piss my neighbors off. Yet another angle. The bare wood is like night/day compared the the shitty, damaged poly finish. Why I went and screwed this guitar up as much as I did is beyond even me. Absolutely beautiful wood. I'm still not sure if this was a good idea, but there was a good amount poly that dripped onto the fretboard. I decided I wanted to sand down all the finish on the fretboard and I'll go back and re-finish it. I only got to about the 12th fret tonight before my hands got too tired (I hand-sanded all of this. No sanding block or anything, just sand paper and my hands. I went back after this picture was tooken and cleaned up quite a bit around the frets. This is all extremely time consuming. I'm not sure if I'll be able to sand all the poly down while keeping the stock Fender Newporter logo. I don't know where/how I can order any of these, if you know of a place I can buy them, please tell me.

Subject: Fender Newporter acoustic guitar Project 1 (failed) Take a quick glance at my original thread: (Link). Cliffs notes: I bought a cheap guitar and attempted to make it better. It was a complete and utter failure. All I succeded in was making a mess even messier. Considered giving it up, but I decided the other day I wanted to do it right. None of the pictures in that thread work anymore, but I took some new starting pictures, so you'll have a good idea of how bad it really was. All images are thumbnails, click on them for a larger view. Day 1 Here's an overview of the front of the guitar. Nothing looks too bad from here. I appologize for the poor lighting, this was in my basement shop. Overview of the back. You can start to see just how awful the finish is Another shot of my shitty brushing job with the poly. You can also see how I didn't evenly sand the whole thing. Some of it is sanded to the bare wood, most of it has the factory stain, and there are a few parts where you can see I started to put on a darker stain, but I changed my mind before it dried. Another shot of the back finish. I used a paintbrush for this. Here's the plate that the neck screws into. I obviously didn't remove the badge when I refinished. It's coated with poly. A better shot of the crack on the top that runs down from the head of the top to the bridge. I'll have to sand it down and fill it. Closeup of the bridge. You can start to see the uneven finish and piss-poor job. Also note the large crack on towards the head of the guitar. Here's the neck. There's lots of poly run-off from the back that dripped towards the fretboard. It shows some of the poly that dripped onto the neck. Wrecklessness. Also notice how I attempted to sand off the poly Here's a great pic of the headstock and how ****ed up the finish is. There's bubbles and **** in it and everything. The edge where the bottom and sides meet. Lots of damage. Most of this is repairable I think.

There's two pins holding it down, plus I'm sure it's glued down as well. The pins go all the way through the body, I can feel them from the inside. (Click on it for a larger view) I'd like to keep it intact. Is there any easy way to get it off? I tried running a razor under it and using a hammer/chisel to pry it out but it won't budge. Any ideas?

I had a strat body made of graphite epoxy (very similar to carbon fiber) that I had my dad machine for me when he worked for Kaiser Space Products. My plan was to just clear coat it so the graphite could still be seen. I sold the body to my friend for $50, which I regret doing to this very day.

Yeah, that was one of my concerns. I think I'll go ahead and do it, and if it deadens the sound too much I can always cut a circle out of the plexiglass and construct a cloth cover over the speaker. I'd like the speaker to be visible, though. I'll have to see hwo the plexiglass effects it once I get it constructed.

LGM- Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn't even considered it a possibility. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but here's what I see: From the bridge to the tail, the face of the guitar almost looks figured. I'm not sure if the wood was warped due to moisture, or if the bridge somehow pulled the top off of the bracing from the tension of the strings or something... At the point where the bridge is glued to the top, the top is almost raised 2mm from "level." I guess that explains the crazy-high action. At any rate, my dad bought this guitar in the early 70's for $30. It's served me well and has taken a lot of abuse, but I think it's time to retire her . It sucks I have all of these music-relate expenses all of a sudden. My Les Paul has needed repairs, I need a new acoustic, and I'm in dire need of a more powerful amp. Thanks for the help guys.

I don't think you read the entire thread, pretty much everything you said has already been covered . I will be removing the box that the pocket amp comes in and mounting it in a similar fashion to the wiring schematic that I posted above. I'll be wiring the output from the amp to a 3-way toggle switch. The toggle switch will branch out to either the speaker, headphone jack, or output jack. That way it's a little more versatile if you know what I mean. Also I decided I'm going to place the speaker under a layer of plexiglass. I haven't decided if I'll put it under a clear pickguard, or if I'll just route a hole through the body towards the tail and mount the speaker in there. And I'll be basing all of this off of a Torres Engineering Tele kit. There's a quick summary of pretty much everything in this thread.

If my dad didn't get laid off a year ago I would have definately entered. I had a blank ready for routing and a list of all the parts I needed to order. But the worst happened and we had to move into a 1Bedroom/1Bathroom apartment and put our entire wood shop and all of our tools in storage. It was such a cool idea, it's a shame to see the whole contest go to waste.

Okay, Pignose finally mailed me the wiring schematics and it all works out pretty much like I thought it would. The only difference is that the Dano pocket amp will have a built in volume/distortion dials, so wiring those up will be a matter of extending the wires to a set of potentiometers. Otherwise the wiring schematic will be nearly identical. The PGG100 has everything that I had planned on implementing into my guitar (headphone jack, output jack, speaker, etc.) When I get started on my project it will all just be a matter of putting it all together and making everything integral and aesthetically pleasing. I'm more excited than ever to start on this project.

Last night I drew out a rough sketch of how everything will come together and I think this project is very do-able and should be fairly easy to manage the electronics. Basically.. [Pickup output] v [Amp] <- [volume & distortion pot] v [Three-way toggle] -> [1/4" output jack] v v [Speaker] [Headphone jack] And yeah I've played on a Pignose PG100 before and I really didn't like it. The body is made out of plywood and the construction isn't all that great. IMO I can make a much better guitar that won't cost quite as much. I haven't made a solid estimate yet, but this project shouldn't cost any more than $160 not including the shipping for some of the materials and some of the tools I'll have to buy to get it done.

Wow, that quilt top looks absolutely amazing. You did a great job finishing it. I like what you did with the neck, too. Great job man, keep up the good work!