J_48_Johnson

After the slot was done, I went back to the test piece and used the groove for the centerline for my screw holes by placing the switch on top of the guitar and putting the blade down in the groove from the front and used the switch screw holes as a template of where to drill the holes. I drilled the first one, put the screw in it before drilling the second one. After drilling the second hole and putting the screw in that end down too, I had to make the wood thinner for it to accept the switch. I used the body of the switch as a template, went to my drill press and used a 1/2" forstner bit to hog out the wood to the right depth and then cleaned it up with a router and a rabbit bit. Once I was sure it was right, I did the same thing on the body. You can kind of see from this picture the little pocket I had to cut inside the control cavity sor the switch to sit in. The maple cap under this pocket is only about 1/8" thick so you want to make sure the pocket you make is just big enough for the switch so the top of the guitar around it won't be too thin and weak.

I used a test piece of wood first to make sure everything was right before moving to work on the body. I drilled a hole at each end of the blade travel and used a copeing saw to cut a line in between them. You can see the two holes with a pencil line in between there here...

No need to appologize the IRS, you're just looking out for my better interests. The measurement is right on though. The body is thin at the waist so it gives the impression that the body is longer than a normal body which it isn't. The guitar you speak of, did you post pictures here? I'd like to see it. Some of the guitars I've seen on the net that people have designed on their own I like, some I don't, but I know how much goes into designing one and then making it. I have never, and would never knock someone for going out on a limb and designing thier own body design. It's up to the person who will be playing it if the design is right or not. If you like, great, if I don'e who cares, because I'm not going to be playing it, you are. People who have never made a guitar or who have made one from a kit, or who have bought a body and parts and finished it have no idea how much time and effort goes into planing one out, and then taking the plunge and start cutting wood into a shape of your own design. Even with the first one I made, it looks like a Strat... sort of, and it looks like an Ibanez S470... sort of. I made three templates of the body before I came up with one that I thought was "right". A little of this one, a little of that one, and it all had to work, in my eyes since I was making it for me. I've had people say why did you put the maple on it, the mahogany is so beautiful? Or, why did you use these pick-ups, the _________'s sound much better? I've had people throwing thier two cents in on just about every part of the guitar, tuners, neck, nut, strings, pups, bridge, jackplate, headstock art, all to which is fine. If they wanted thier guitar to have any of the things they said they would change, I say more power to ya dude! When you get that guitar built, let me know and I'll come over and critique it for you too. In the mean time, I'll be playing the one I built, which sounds and plays great.

biliousfrog, thanks for the info., I'll tuck that info. away for future reference. tim_ado, jmrentis, thank you, I feel better. I came on here not to be judged but to show what I'm working on. Constructive critisism is one thing, to be lambasted for working outside the LP, SG, Strat., Tele. box is another. If this design isn't for someone, fine. I know it's different, hell, I'm the one who designed it! I made it that way. I know it's different! ElysianGuitars let me know what he thinks by saying that the bridge pickup is too close to the bridge and it will sound tinny and bright. That's fair. It's his opinion. Not knowing the person and not knowing how knowlegeable he is, I'll take it with a grain of salt, but, he may be right. It is close to the bridge, however, I never posted what pickup I'm using or what pots. or what cap is going into the guitar. Since his name is ElysianGuitars, I'll put more weight into what he says, thinking he more than likely is a builder, and has seen or made a guitar with the pup that close and it was tinny and bright. jmrentis, I knew exactly what you meant on your post about the stain. I just snapped a picture of the in process staing process to show you the color of stain I mixed up. Looking back, I may have left the horn f hole out and stayed with the two in the bottom. I can't plug the hole and I'm not going to ditch the body, I'll work with it, take what I did right and wrong with the entire process of design and making it, and add them into the next one.

The scale length should be right on. I measured it several times and came up with the same placement each time. The low E is set back 3/16" from the high E and the tailpiece is straight. The bridge was meansured to the saddles sitting in the middle of thier adjustment so I have more play for intonation. I think it is an optical illusion because the body around the waist is thin making the dimension from neck pocket to bridge look out of whack. The finish will be the same as the last one jmentis, and yes, I did have problems with blushing but now I have the solution; blush eraser. I have the nitro. lacquer but I forgot somehow to get sanding sealer. It should be here today or tomorrow so I can begin shooting it. "ANyhow, I'm diggin the color on that last pic j48, the first pic with the stain on I was like wow, too much, then I realized what it was and saw the next pic. It looks good and will really help in bringing the colors together. Nice stuff. Keep the pics coming." lol, yeah that first one you're talking about looks bad huh? In process work sometimes does until it's done. Seems to me that a lot of people here don't really care for the body design, the bridge placement, pick up placement, color selection, f-hole layout or f-holes all together and that's okay. We are all used to seeing the regular body designs of an SG, LP, Strat, or Tele to name a few. This is different, and unlike some, I get it. When I set out on this little trip, I wanted a design that wasn't the norm. I was thinking outside of the box so to speak and this is what I came up with. If any of the nay sayers have designed, not built, but designed a guitar from scratch, not a one off or a knock off of a standard body shape or design, built it, and it was perfect in all aspects of the design phase, I would like to see it. If you have the pictures and it is that good, cast the first rock. There are reasons that the "standards" became standards. Gibson and Fender hit on something when they came up with the designs of those fine guitars 50, 60, or 70 years ago. They just look right. Some of the others along the way, flying vee, explorer, and others are not the norm. Some work for me, some don't. We all know that there are only so many designs you can have with one horn or two, single cut, or double, rounded, sloped, or beveled bottom end. Think outside the box a little bit. Maybe in 50, 60, or 70 years from now some crazy looking design will be the norm while the Strat or LP design will be, and should be, a classic design.

Here it is after letting the stain sit on it a bit to darken it up just enough.

I put down the second color for the body this morning. I wanted to get a bit of red in it to blend the pickguard color into the body so it would go with the neck as well.

This is the lower left f hole. I can't get the lighting right, but trust me when I say this, what you are looking at is half black paint and half control cavity cover from the back side of the body.

Here's a close up of the upper left f hole. There on the right side of the hole I have a little burn mark from the router I need to sand away, but it will be taken care of.

Here's a close up of the horn f hole. You can see a bit better what I'm talking about with the maple running right into the mahogany and the hand painted line to the maple cap. In person, you really can't tell that the maple cap doesn't overhang the mahogany underneath like the other two, and that's the look I was going for.

Since I'm still working out the stain colors, and it's time consuming, I thought I would go ahead and work on the f holes a little bit more. The upper left and the bottom were easy to do since the maple cap hangs over the mahogany chamber underneath all the way around the f hole opening in the maple cap. The one on the horn wasn't so easy. On that one, to get the f hole opening the size and the shape I wanted, I had to cut into the mahogany edge I left around the body for glue. This left a straight line down from the maple and into the mahogany along the top edge and at the end of the horn. Part way down on the horn end, the mahogany glue edge follows the bodyline towards the neck, while the f hole goes away from that glue edge. It left a section where the maple rolled away from the mahogany underneath that didn't look right. There was nothing wrong with the construction of the body, it just didn't look appealing to the eye. To fix it, I filled it in with wood filler and used a sharp chisel to cut away lot of the filler I put in, (I overfilled it for shrinkage), and then sanded it to where it looks right. It took a lot of time and effort, but I think it needed done, and it looks much better now than it did before I started that part of the process. All three f hole openings were painted. In the lower left one, what you see is about half black paint along the sides of the hole and half cavity cover from the other side of the body. In the upper left one, it's all paint but I'm not sure why there is that little spot of light color in the hole. After I took this picture I went back to the body to see what was up. Nada. There's nothing there. It's like I got some dust on my film before I took this picture. Seems kind of hard to do with a digital camera though. In the upper right f hole, what you see is a hand painted line on the mahogany right up to the glue joint of where I put the maple cap down. Towards each corner you can see a light line in the maple around the black f hole. That was from me sanding the hole before paint was applied. Those are fixed.

After I tore everything back down, I was ready for the first coat of stain. I am going to try to lay a darker shade over this lighter color so it blends in with the pickguard and the neck. I tried different stains, some were too dark, others too light. Some were too deep of a brown like mud, some were too light. I've been working on stain colors for a while now, and I couldn't find one that looks right, so I started messing around with two different stain colors. I layed down a dark one, did a sand back and put down a lighter color. I tried a bunch of different colors for the darker first layer and I tried a bunch of lighter colors for the lighter top color after the sand back. All of them still looked muddy, or covered up the chatoyance of the quilt, or left little splotches in the grain. All of them were a no go. After that, I tried it in reverse by laying down the lighter color first, and then adding the darker color on top. As odd as it sounds, it looked better. The chatoyance of the grain is still very nice, with no splotches or dingy muddy tone to the color. I'm still working on the top coat color so I don't have any pictures to show you of the final color, becasue I haven't mixed it up yet. That is still a work in progress.

I really had a hard time deciding where to put the control knobs and switch on the body. This is what I ended up doing... Since there wasn't a lot of room on the maple between the bottom f hole and the edge of the pickguard, I decided to lay it out so the volume knob was on the pickguard while the other two controls were on the maple cap. I tried several layouts but this looked the best and it's functional. I even thought about putting them on the edge at the bottom or above the jack, but all in all, I'm happy where they are. For some reason it looks like the volume which is on the pickguard is farther away from the tone knob than the three way switch. It isn't. Dead center of the three way switch and the volume knob are spot on the same distance from the center of the tone knob. Go figure. This is a picture of the first full mock-up with everything in place.

After I cut out the control cavity I drilled the jack hole. This picture is deceiving. It looks like the jack is off center from top to bottom. It isn't. The picture looks like it is because of the 1/2" roundover on the maple cap. You can't see the edge or corner of the cap so it looks like it's way off. I used a "Dowel It Jig" to drill the 1/2" hole. I'm not sure if anyone has used or owns a Dowel It Jig, but it works like a wood vise. There is a stationary middle section with 1/4" - 1/2" holes in it. The entire middle section floats on guide pins and an adjustment screw with left hand threads on one side and right hand threads on the other. When you tighten it, the two sides, (like the jaws on a vise), move in to grasp the piece of wood you are going to drill into while keeping the middle section right in the middle of your piece of wood. Once tightened down, you can drill a hole onto the center of your workpiece without chips and it is perpendicular to the front/rear of the wood. I used one many years ago in woodshop in high school. I found one at a local hardware store and picked it up. It's a neat little setup for just this kind of thing. Onto the jack... I wanted something that was clean looking as to not clutter up the edge of the guitar. I could not for the life of me find one that was gold to match the rest of the hardware. I ended up using the chrome or silver one you see here. You can also see the endgrain of the mahogany boards I used for the body. There are six mahogany boards total to make up the sound chamber section of the mahogany to go along with the bookend quilted maple cap. I'm planning on painting the mahogany edge black and doing a burst/fade into the center of the back to the natual mahogany. You can't see that there are three boards on the rear face of the body by looking at the back of the body since the grain is so darned tight and strait. I wanted to show it off a bit, but I still need to paint the edge to hide the glue joints you can see there.

I cut out the control cavity and routed a groove for the cover to sit in so it's flush with the back of the guitar. The cut away at the neck plate was done because of the overall thickness of the body. Since it's hollow, I wanted to make the cavities as big as possible and as deep as possible. Will make a difference in the overall sound? I have no idea! The body was too thick for the neck plate screws I had. I could either run out and try to find long gold screws with the right head style, (doubtful), or I could cut away the rear of the body to make a pocket for the plate so it's closer to the fretboard. As you can see I went for option #2. I shaped and cut a template for the pocket and had at it. Once I had it routed out, I slid the template back about 3/8" and used the V-groove bit. I doubt that is what the real name of the bit is, but you can see what it does by the picture. Since I just slid the same template back, it made a very neat taper on the backside around the neck plate.

After cleaning up the f holes and figuring out which pickguard shape to use, I cut it out of the material I had. After that, I free handed the pick up routes and this is what I came up with.

If you go back and re-read my posts I sanded with; dry 400 600 wet 800 1000 1200 1500 2000 After the sanding is done, I used; medium polishing compound fine polishing pompound swirl remover When I polished, I did the front and rear with a buffer, (about five minutes each side per compound) and then the sides and edges with a nitrile gloved hand, there again about five minutes for the sides and edges. This is going to take a while longer than five minutes! Five hours would be closer with all of the sanding and polishing.

How long? Boy, I can't really tell you that. I just did it. I guess, about five minutes, maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but about five minutes. After that, I rubbed the edges for about the same amount of time with a nitrile gloved hand. After that, wipe all off it off, buff with a clean cloth, and start on the next compound. As far as any signs, no, I didn't see any signs, I just did it until I felt it was enough. Let me tell you this though, I did by hand, under the neck plate with a dab of the compound on my finger and just kind of rubbed it in for a few minutes to see what it would look like in a place that wouldn't show. After a couple minutes, it looked pretty good!

Fist of all, I think you could polish one by hand, but it would take a long time compared to doing one with a powered buffer. How to tell... well, I just did it as long as I thought I needed to do, and then did it a little more. At this point along the way, you're not taking anything off of the finish as you are when sanding wet or dry. You may be taking off a bit, but nothing to speak of. I would say if you think you're done, and you wipe it all off, and it doesn't look good enough, slather some more on and do it again. Always, ALWAYS use a clean soft cloth when wiping it off. You don't want to scratch the surface you just worked so hard trying to get. I used terry cloth towels and started by taking all of the heavy spots of compound off first, and then going back and wiping the film off of the rest. After that, with a clean towel, I kind of buffed the whole thing before moving to a finer compound and redoing the steps above... always with a clean towel.

Yeah there is. You can use a stationary buffer morot with a long arbor so you don't ding the body into the motor, but the sponge buffing pads are much cheaper. There are other ways to do it too, look at the Stewart MacDonald website to find out more. For the edges of my guitar where I couldn't get the foam pads, I use my gloved hand and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. You can't tell where the foam buffing pads left off and I started with my gloved hand. I rubbed it on a lot though. Here's a picture of the side where I didn't hit with the buffer but by hand... [img]http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_48_Johnson/Side.jpg[/img]

First day: You spray once, wait twenty minutes, spray again, wait twenty minutes, and then spray for the third time. Let it dry/cure/gas off for twenty four hours. One coat is done. Day two: Spray once, wait twenty minutes, spray again, wait twenty minutes, and then spray for the third time. Let it dry/cure/gas off for twenty four hours. The second coat is done. I did 48 coats, (I think), but I lost track. It's a bunch. When you sand, you take quite a bit off, especially with the rougher grits like 400 and 600. Once you get up into the 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000 grits, not much seems to be happening but I guess that's what you need to do. Others may disagree on how much sanding, where to start or where to end, and that's fine. All I can say is that they are not the one's who own and play the guitar I made, I am. I wanted to make sure I put enough on so I could sand it seven times, use polishing compound twice, medium and fine, and then finish up with swirl remover. All in all you will see and work on every square inch of your guitar ten times. A note on that... I think it would be better to have too much on, (it's very thin), than not enough, and find this out some where along the way. I've read quite a few posts where people have had sand-throughs. This is the best way to stay away from finishing, waiting a month before you start sanding, having the sand through problem, having to sand all the way down and starting over. I've read a lot of posts on this very subject. I've yet to find someone who can say, for sure, that a thick nitro lacquer finish, meaning the thickness of two playing cards changes the sound from a guitar that has a thin finish, say the thickness of two pieces of note book paper. If someone else is reading this that can show me data that says differently, I'd like to see it. I've read posts of people saying "Oh yeah, it sounds WAY different and thin is much better". Or something like that. Show me data. If I made ten recordings of the guitar with a thin finish on it, and then layered more coats on the build it up, and then made ten recordings of it, blindfolded that person and played the recordings of the guitar with each one ten times in different orders, I would bet the person who said that they could hear a difference couldn't hear a difference at all. They want to hear a difference, so they do hear a difference.

1. whats the difference between dry sanding and wet sanding I dry sanded with 400 and then 600 and I did one going up/down and then the other going left/right. This leaves little scratches in the finish you can see. You use the scratches to check your work. When all of the up/down scratches are gone and all you see are left/right scratches, you're done. I did this to make the wet sanding with finer grit more effective. I used naptha as my wetting agent because I didn't want any water to get to bare wood that may be there and it doesn't hurt the finish or the wood. Wet sanding makes a slurry of your medium, mine was naptha, and the finish you are taking off. I still did the left/right & up/down so I could check progress. The wet sanding in like insurance for you. The wetting medium doesn't let the finish build up on your paper and scratch the finish. You sand a little and then wipe with a soft cloth to check your work, rewet your paper, sand a little, wipe, rewet, sand a little, wipe, wewet. You do this until all of the let's say left/right scratches are gone and all you have are up/down scratches. It's time to move up the the next grit. 2. when sanding the clear coat, how much presure should i use Very little, if any. I used a Pink Pearl pencil eraser to do mine. I cut the paper so it fit and held the paper to the sanding block, (Pink Pearl), and held the paper to the sides of the block with my thumb and middle finger while resting my index finger on top of the block. No pressure was put onto the block with my index finger, just the weight of it resting on the block was enough. When you start wet sanding, you'll see what I mean when I say this, but the paper digs in. That's a good thing. I think it's the wetting material in use with the sand paper. It kind of pulls your paper into the finish and creates a vacuum of sorts as you sand. That way your paper is in full contact with the blaock and the finish at all times. 3. what TYPE (not brand) of polish should i use after sanding until 1500 / 2000 grit DO NOT USE A SILICONE BASED POLISH. Other than that, I can't tell you because I don't know. I used the stuff Stew. Mac offers and it worked quite well. At first I thought there was no way it would work. It felt just like toothpaste when rubbed between my fingers and I couldn't tell the difference between the two I used which were medium and fine. As far as what kind to use, search around on the webpage(s) and see what other people recommend. I can say this; if you get the tubs of it like I did from Stew Mac, there's enough to do a bunch of guitars. I did my first one with it and you can't even tell I used any from either tub. 4. when spraying metallic colours, is it advisable to sand every coat (i read somewhere that sanding metallics affects the reflective properties) I'm not sure so I'm not going to comment other than this; Unless you have a drip, hair or fuzz or something in the finish, I would say no. I have read, (never done it), that the metallic finishes won't look right when you sand in between. I have also read that you want to put down "wet coats" when doing metallics so they can flow out. Never doing one myself, I'm not going to offer anything else than that because I wouldn't want to steer you in the wrong direction. After you start wet sanding, the things I've said will make more sense and you'll see what I mean on a couple of my points. I was kind of afraid something bad would happen like it was some kind of black art or something, but it's an easy and effective way to sand your finish. Hopes this helps! B-rad

Measure from the edge of the nut at the neck side.

A couple before and after pictures... http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_...wo/P1000878.jpg http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_.../P1000922-1.jpg http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_...wo/P1000879.jpg http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_...wo/P1000985.jpg

It's going to be front routed so I need to put a pickguard on it. I know, I know, I'm covering up a lot of the grain, but it needs to have a guard on it to hide all of my unsightly wiring. It may work, (my wiring), but it's ugly! Should I work with a red tinged stain to go with the pickguard or should I stay with the brown to go with the neck? http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o176/J_...wo/P1000979.jpg