Muzz

So the body has had 10 coats, I sanded with 400 grit wet and dry on a new cork block, staying away from the very edges. After a while there was only a few little shiny spots that indicate tiny concavities. Rather than rub more surface off just to get those I spot filled them and they disappeared when I sanded with 800.

On the downhill run now, I will polish the body on the weekend.

Doing the finish is one of my favourite parts of guitar building, it's great seeing the grain pop when the two pack goes on and great watching it grind down to a smooth surface.

I agree with your finishing sentiments, watching a board turn into a work of art is like watching creation itself. I do wish I could get Rustin's here in the states.

SR

It is great fun isn't it, I polished the body tonight to 12, 000 and I will buff it out with buffing cream tomorrow. Strange that they don't distribute Rustin's to the states I would imagine there would be a good market for it there. One thing that is good about it is you can mix it up and leave the stuff you don't use in a jar in the fridge until you need to use it again. It lasts like that for weeks, convenience

I got real excited when I read the title, I thought someone else was going to make a Gibson Marauder style guitar, I soon realised yours is not that, but the shape looks awesome anyway.

I have plans to do that sooner or later. I have one NOS Marauder humbucker and two used Marauder singles.

Excellent, the Marauder pickups set in resin look fantastic, can't wait to see it take shape.

I got real excited when I read the title, I thought someone else was going to make a Gibson Marauder style guitar, I soon realised yours is not that, but the shape looks awesome anyway.

So the body has had 10 coats, I sanded with 400 grit wet and dry on a new cork block, staying away from the very edges. After a while there was only a few little shiny spots that indicate tiny concavities. Rather than rub more surface off just to get those I spot filled them and they disappeared when I sanded with 800.

On the downhill run now, I will polish the body on the weekend.

Doing the finish is one of my favourite parts of guitar building, it's great seeing the grain pop when the two pack goes on and great watching it grind down to a smooth surface.

Yep, I can't argue with anything there, the shape, carve and paint job are killer. The constructive criticism is good, is this a prototype that you are developing? Can it get a locking nut?

Got the Rustins finish today and got a few more coats on, I love this stuff, it sets as hard as a rock.

The body is as red as it needs to be now so it's getting clear coats from now on. Just got to order the decal. water slide decals look great on light backgrounds like maple but they look crap on dark backgrounds like deep red. I must do a tally of what this guitar has cost.

Talking of different ways to apply the paint, there is this artist who calls himself Pricasso, and I and I am cranky that he can paint 10 times better with his wiener than I can with a brush.

If you don't do chrome covers, I'd use either cream or white bobbins, whichever would match the knobs best.

Yes the cream would look good with the red, I have black bobbin pickups at the moment, chrome pup rings might look good too. The good thing about hardware is you can always play around with it later.

Yes relatively even colour for this one, the idea was to get as close to the colour of a pod as I could. Only decision left to make is whether to put chrome covers on the pups.

Managed to scrape the bottom of the jar to make it to 4 coats, about 8-10 to go

This new forum upgrade sure makes overindulgence easy.

SR

Lol at the photographer's pose I think you went out on a limb with the originality of the design here and it paid off big time. I get the impression you are going to have a little rest from guitar building but I am looking forward to seeing what happens when the building urge hits you again

I like it, the blue stain looks great

Just my opinion - but I wouldn't put a brush anywhere near a 2k (auto) product. They are designed to be sprayed. Simple as that.

There are industrial 2k products that are brush on - I'm not experienced in the use of these, I have seen them used at work, but the finishes are really quite **** compared to auto 2k. I would not suggest or even bother experimenting with them myself.

Come on demonx, you need to be more adventurous, if a beautiful girl asked you to do something unconventional with her would you say Oh no, it wasn't designed for that

There are more 2 pack finishes than I think you have experience with, and they give excellent finishes brushed or sprayed, Brian May's original Red Special seems to have held up OK. For more 2 pack brushed on finishes see

http://www.simnettguitars.com/home/archives/projects/redwood

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=42221&st=15#entry457827

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=42221&st=195#entry467363

just anti naysaying

I can google to my hearts content, but if someone has a really good tutorial or book to recommend Im all ears...

thanks in advance!

If you are doing clear or one colour candy coat there is nothing to it, mix up your two pack, don't give yourself the hassle of spraying, brush it on using an extra fine artists brush. Apply a thin coat at a time, let dry, repeat. After about 4 coats lightly sand. Keep going until you have enough to polish. If you had stain in the initial coats I would do a few coats of clear before you start wet and dry sanding. Step up through the wet and dry grits until you get to 2000. Then use micro mesh sanding pads up to 12 000. Then apply cut and polish paste and buff with a lambswool pad on a drill or buffer until you can see yourself looking back at you. Too easy

Yep, great progress, the tele bridge good solution to the pickup route

Great design and grain in the wood

^{I sanded the black off, I was tempted for a while to leave intense zebra stripes across it, yeah but nah, 99% came off}

leaving black in the pores

Starting with dilute dye, then increasing the concentration

On Monday I will go to the shop and get some more Rustins Plastic Coating, I got three coats on before I ran out.

yeah but then it will bounce off the beanbag & ding the car...lol

Knowing my luck that could happen,

just realized I put in bolt end holes for pick up frame mounting without deciding whether I am going with frames or not, more voodoo in screwing the pickups straight into the body, I can just plug the holes up with dowels if I decide to go no frames.

The steaming out of small dings works really well, if you look at the pictures of the back of the body above you can see two furrows above the spring cavity that just disappeared, have a look at the picture where it's stained black, the're gone. Wouldn't work on the car though

That's another advantage of highly contrasting wood, easy to repair without it showing, everything's looking good.

Today put a soaked paper towel and the iron to steam out a few little dings and started staining black, dilute stain first mainly for the endgrain sections

then more concentrated for the side grain

then hung up to dry, lost count of how many fallen off the hook dings I have seen on this forum so I put the beanbag safety net under mine

then let it dry completely before sanding back

Fantastic inlay

The Koa top looks great, is that a chip you need to fix in it?

Great to see this back on track again, I see the owl, the fox looks like a cute baby owl to me, lovely colours in the timbers

I had a guitar with the frets pretty straight except just two (19 and 21) were sitting up a fraction high. Here's my invention to bring them back into line. A piece of wood with a strip of 600 grit scratchy side out, flanked by two bits of the same wet and dry paper side out, all taped on. Scrape the middle strip along the high fret, it will grind it down until it becomes level with the frets on either side. The paper side out of course doesn't do anything to the flanking frets. Test by rocking a razor blade on the three frets, when it doesn't rock, the job is done. It works a treat.

Man I just love no nonsense cavities. Well done dude.

Yep, same here, like most people my guitar is only using the bridge pickup about 97% of the time, both pickups on for clean sounds (a rare event) and the neck pickup by itself for the intro of Sweet Child O' Mine. I don't need any other pickup combinations so no more switches needed.

Rasped the arm rest, love the comfort of this feature.

And that's the woodwork finished on this guitar

Now it's on to staining and finishing