Andyjr1515

Fine up to this bit. And here lies the challenge. If you think about it - you are effectively sanding it down to create the slurry. And stains really don't soak much beyond 0.2mm except on end grain. So the slurry method will simply sand off the stain again. BUT - there is a way I've found to be able to do it. I'm a bit tight on time right at this moment but a bit later this eve I'll go through how you can get pretty close to what you are trying to do. And it helps if the grain fill is small rather than large (which is why I asked the question) I'll post the rest a bit later

No difference. The only issue with 'proper' stains is if you are intending to mix them with the finish. And then yes it makes a difference (water based stains will only mix with water based finishes). However, once they are dry, there is no difference - the spirit or water is just a way of getting the stain into solution and capable of soaking into the wood. The colours themselves start off generally as powder and are generally non-reactive to subsequent finishes.

Clearly you haven't heard MrsAndyjr1515's opinion on such matters.... Anyway, second and major test - will it hold the neck relief under full string tension... So it will sit under tension for a full day/night cycle of house temperature change and I'll check the relief again this time tomorrow. The hex nut is on its way and when that arrives I'll have another look at the trussrod thread. I've noticed that when it has been standing a while and then you tighten or loosen the nut, you feel the rod twisting before the nut 'cracks' the joint and moves. In that I have three stacked and free moving washers between the rod and the anchor point, it can only be the thread itself that is binding. With the new nut, I'll use a teeny bit of PTFE grease and see if we can get it moving a little easier. This is with the narrower nut in the middle. I think (although MrsAndyjr1515 would tut and shake her head) this is what we should do, rather than offset to one side or the other. It also evens the bends of the strings over the nut which is no bad thing

Hi again @Stub Mandrel Normal stuff - this is just the thought process and method I would personally go through and methods and pitfalls that I've come across along the way. So OK - there are a number of aspects here that tend to interact with each other. Quite what the best combination of methods and materials is going to be does really depend on the actual piece of timber and what you are wanting to do with it. First a couple of questions: 1. If you wipe the burl part with a damp cloth (assuming it is freshly sanded and has had no coating of any kind) then the maple (lovely piece, by the way) will darken. The question is whether this is dark enough without a stain? 2. How completely do you want to fill the holes? The reason for question is the first interdependence: Filling vs staining Basically, many of the common methods of filling will reject both water based and spirit based stains. So, depending, you can end up with the areas where the stain soaks into the surrounding wood at one colour, and the fills remaining the colour of the filler. For the less 'holey' outside area where you are thinking of sunbursting, I have a couple of suggestions but, for the more holey area in the middle, it is a bigger challenge if you really do want to stain that too. Rather than going into the detail of all the permutations and combinations of methods, I'll come back to this when I know the answer to the two questions. But in the meantime, and ignoring the complication with stains, my preferred methods of achieving a satin finish: Method 1 Tru-oil Slurry and Buff - used to both fill and produce a wonderfully organic silky smooth finish I actually personally use this method for all of my non-stained preparation, whether I intend to stay satin or even gloss coat (but I only use polyurethane varnish which I know does not react with the Tru-oil. - Basically, wearing disposable gloves, I get a bottle of Tru-oil (a small bottle is plenty) and I wet and dry sand, with the grain, using the Tru-oil as the 'wet'. It quickly turns into a slurry of oil and sandings which can be used to fill both the grain, splits and even large holes. Personally, I start with quite a coarse paper (I use 120grit emery cloth to start) and then move to finer grits through the process. - First go I create the sludge, then use an old credit card to scrape it into the holes. - I let it dry overnight, then repeat. I repeat this until the holes are filled. - Then I move to finer grits - I usually go to 300 grit sandpaper, then to 400 grit wet-n-dry (a multi pack from Halfords is ideal), sanding with the grain but this time wiping off the sludge across the grain and, again, let it dry - Then to 800 to 1000 and sometimes to 2000, but with these, after wet sanding with the oil ( by now you won't need a lot of oil) and wipe immediately dry with a non-lint cloth (again, Halfords do some great non-lint polishing cloths) - The final one or two coats, after wet sanding with the oil, now not only wipe off the oil but then vigorously buff. You should be left with something that is satin, still feels like wood but is silky, silky smooth. It is also the way I do all my necks because I love the organic and silky smooth feel (and why I would never, ever, buy a Gibson Les Paul again because I can't stand sticky necks!) This is some bubinga on my fretless bass done the above way - 6 years later, it still looks like this: This camphor burl - a very figured wood - was also done this way and then varnished on top: Method 2 - Osmo Polyx Satin (tinted or clear) Osmo Polyx is a trade product that has relatively recently come onto the consumer market in smaller tins. A teeny tin would happily do a couple of guitars. Once you have filled everything and got the wood to to final dry-sanded finish, you apply it with a cloth, thin coat, leave to dry overnight. You then give it a second coat, leave it to fully harden (generally a week) and then it is usually done! It is a VERY easy product to use and produces a great finish. They do a range also of tinted versions - the stain will be much lighter than a spirit stain straight onto wood - including a decent amber. This is fleabag's rebody in Polyx Satin: Both Tru-oil and Osmo Polyx are pretty unreactive and so you can prepare an unstained body as above and then give is a couple of wipes with the Polyx - or you can actually slurry the Polyx itself. However, I don't know how well slurried Polyx fills cracks and holes. Might be fine, and worth experimenting although, personally, if I want a slightly tougher finish I would still use the Tru-oil slurry method first, simply because I know it works. So the complication is just if you need to fill AND stain a sunburst (otherwise, Tru-oil slurry and buff + tinted Polyx or just tinted Polyx would both work) Hope this helps

Hi Sorry- only just spotted this @Stub Mandrel - crazy busy weekend! I'll try and answer some of the points not covered yet later today

Well, providing it passes the 'with strings on too' test, then yes - I can still narrow the neck as planned with the fretboard still on. Different method, but actually quite a bit easier The inability to sand away the large dot recesses re-raises whether we now still go all from the bass side. It would be no problem to narrow both the bass and treble and keep the top dots in line with the strings...

One of the things that Jack, Silvia and I talked about in the pub was the large retro-installed side dots, which are to be removed, and whether taking all of the width off the bass side only might take enough off to take out the drill holes too. Unfortunately I think the answer is almost certainly 'no' - the black epoxy is fairly easy to get out, but the drill holes are pretty deep: The good news, though is that they have been drilled with a brad-point drill so it should be relatively easy to clean them up - maybe even slightly bigger to take out the original small dot too. If I can find a plug cutter the right size, the plan would be to cut some maple plugs. It won't be even close to invisible but, with the luminlays also in the same positions, it shouldn't be quite as much 'in yer face' as the present black ones. The other thing we talked about is me swopping the truss rod nut to an allen key one - so a Fender Standard American truss rod nut from Allparts is on its way...should fit So next step before actually reshaping the neck, is to string it back up and make sure that it holds the set relief under full string tension. And that's what I'll do tomorrow

It is And the even better news is that it has held the back bow all night. So it is almost certain that the neck is fully functional, and that means no fretboard removal and a significantly lower risk of the fretboard or neck becoming u/s. I have some filing work to do to enlarge the inside diameter of enough washers to give the full present and future adjustment but I can now start thinking about the narrowing of the neck and start on that pretty soon. Might also be time to start ordering some timber for the fretless neck

Well....I won't know for certain until the morning but - I think we have a working trussrod. It's presently sitting on my bench with a distinct back bow and - as it was tightened to get there - it felt 'right'. I will judge it properly in the morning because there may be a wood movement under the extra pressure over time - but I think there's a better than evens chance I'll let you know first thing tomorrow.

Well I hope the washers arrive today (drumming fingers impatiently)! "48hr" delivery has never been the same ever since Brexit/Covid/Climate Crisis/Mafeking/Hastings/Genesis...

Yup - great job

It's the thought that counts, Mick I think the Yamaha will be metric and I'm pretty sure this is imperial. The washers should be with me in the morning. If they don't work, then it will be a fretboard removal in any case. Many thanks for the thought, though

Excellent

Well, it's starting to look like a guitar at last. I finished off the binding with some maple and ebony offcut. Bent on the side-bending iron and then using the iron-on veneer method as with a number of my previous builds: And then onto the pickup chambers. As many of you know, I hate routers, but for this job they are jolly useful. Nevertheless, I minimise the amount done with the router and only use it when it is fully captive. The wide range Mojo pickups have narrow fixing tabs and so may well be solid fixed. There may be a covering ring of thin ebony, or maybe not...whatever Jack prefers. Again, I've gone over my slightly unconventional method before but, in brief: I mark out the external lines and drill the corner radii: I hog out with a Forstner: This next bit is where I drift away from the conventional - the use of routing templates...but I hate routing templates even more than the pesky router itself. So I chisel up to the external line down to around 5mm from the top: And now, with the top-bearing router bit totally captive, use that to tidy the sides up to the chiselled line and rout down to the final depth: And, with just a bit of chisel tidying to do, we have a couple of chambers: Next job is fretboard taper, fretting and binding

Washers on order. The only place to get Fender originals at the moment seems to be USA (£4 for item, £130 shipping, 200%VAT & Customs, delivery estimate 'sometime in 2021 unless difficulties encountered') but, looking at the size of the hole and the rod, I reckon 3BA brass washers will fit. Ordered, £3 including postage, should be with me Wednesday

So with the neck off, I could have a look at what might be going on. This is always a bit of a bad sign - if the neck is pretty straight when the string tension is on it... tension that is trying to turn it into an archer's bow...then once the strings are off, then normally the neck would spring into a back-bow, with the truss rod still pulling in one direction but the strings no longer pulling in the other. If, on the other hand, you still have a forward bow: , then the truss rod is not doing at all what it is designed to do. There are usually a number of possibilities. This is a single action truss rod (there are other possibilities with 2-way rods). Some of the more common possibilities are: 1 - it hasn't been tightened enough/at all 2 - the rod is broken or thread stripped 3 - the rod anchor point or nut collar are crushed or cracked 4 - the rod has reached the limit of its adjustment...usually that the nut is bottomed on the truss rod thread 5 - the rod IS operating, but the inherent bow in the neck is huge and the fully adjusted rod still isn't enough to create a back-bow or even straighten it before it reaches the limit of its adjustment (in this case, the nut bottoming on the thread) And, to an extent, you can confirm or eliminate some of these without having to do anything drastic like taking the fretboard off. First is to try to loosen the truss rod nut... With a single-action rod of this design (please note - do NOT try this with a two-way or a modern double-bar one-way rod where the nut is welded to the rod), the nut should unscrew and be removeable. So that's what I did and it told me a number of things. Nut off - note the relief gap: So this has eliminated possibility 5. If that had been the case, the relief gap would have increased markedly as the truss rod was loosened. But I noted other things: - The nut was fully bottomed on the rod. It took considerable effort to 'crack the joint'. But it did then unscrew. The thread, though, was tight - and I could feel the torsion on the rod as I unscrewed it. This eliminates possibility 2 and confirms possibility 4 - But even when fully tight, the rod isn't applying any back bend to the neck. This starts pointing to possibility 3. But there is an easy way of checking before any drastic action is involved. Fender do some thick small OD washers to give a bit more movement to rods that have 'bottomed out'. It's worth trying that before taking the more drastic action of trying take the fretboard off. The washers are completely non-standard size - it will be as quick for me to get some posted rather than trying to file some larger ones down. But it might...just might...remove the need to attempt to get the fretboard off. So that's the next step

The progress on this will be a bit stop and start, but I've made some decent progress this morning. First job was to work out the string centres for a 45mm nut. And here was a bit of a mystery. Most times, nuts are either equidistant centre line to centre line (where the gap between strings reduces slightly as the strings get thicker) or are equidistant gap to gap between the strings (so the centre lines are adjusted to account for the string thickness). This was neither. The centre lines actually got smaller towards the bass side and so the gaps got even tighter towards the bass side: It's definitely the original nut because the neck finish actually went over the edges at the sides. Curious! Anyway, @Happy Jack and I have agreed that equidistant gap would be the best option And when I marked it out, I realised that the B E and D were going to be in exactly the same position as before! So the whole 3mm width reduction can be achieved simply by reducing the gap of the 2 treble strings to the same distance. And that means that, at 45mm, the strings aren't going to be too tight for Jack's playing I will still have to test it out myself, of course And so the nut had to come out. First - and essential to avoid chipping the finish, a careful score of the varnish build up at the base and sides of the nut: Then a tap from the side with a mallet and suitable drift: One of the bone blanks I have in my bits box fitted perfectly: And with the calculations of string centre positions done, out comes the jewellers saw...think HMS Victory during Trafalgar in the surgeon's quarters... Then out with the Hosco nut files: The above is the planned position of the nut - Jack's thought was to take all of the width off this side and maybe lose some of the epoxy dots in the process. The nut slots will be cut to playing height after all the shenanigans, but this gives an idea of how much the top dots will be out of line given the change...answer, 'not a lot': And it plays just fine - no cramped up feeling at all So next, it's off with the neck!

Yup - been one of those weeks 48 to 45

Good news is that I found the bone pieces for the new nut - a triumph for the 'I know it's a mess but I know where everything is' approach. That and a decent dose of luck So I should be able to have a play of the bass with the 35mm string spacing in the morning. After that, the neck comes off!

A new thread just started on this, if anyone is interested, here:

Hi Some of you might have seen @Happy Jack 's thread relating to his lovely Mike Lull P5. And very lovely it is! The result of the discussions on that thread is that (and many thanks to the folks who put my name forward) I spent a pleasant and interesting hour earlier in the week with Jack and @Silvia Bluejay at a pub somewhere in Oxfordshire. It's going to be an interesting project - one that I will slot into the lull periods (sorry - couldn't resist) of the ebony guitar build that I snuck into the Build Diaries. There are two necks that I will be working on: The present fretted neck - The truss rod is maxed out and the neck seems to have a permanent set that the rod can only just control...for now. This probably means taking the fretboard off (it's a glued on fretboard), planing the top of the neck, probably replacing the trussrod and probably refretting if the board removal has disturbed them or if they need removing to get the board off in the first place. - While we're at it, Jack would ideally like 2-3mm off the width of the neck, presently 38mm. - There are also some retro-fit epoxy dots that want removing and replacing with Luminlay dots - Also, Jack's preference is silky smooth wood rather than the present lacquer on the playing surface (we'll make sure the headstock and logo aren't affected We talked about the risks of fretboard removal but Jack's view is that, if it isn't unusable at the moment, it won't be long before it becomes so. Then Jack came up with a corker of an idea. As we don't know how deep those epoxy dots are, but if they are, say 2mm - 3mm deep...could we take the whole 3mm off the bass side and that would solve the challenge of filling the holes? One of those times when is goes quiet in the snug...and, after a few moments of quiet contemplation...yes...it's worth a try! We talked about the fact that the top dots won't line up - but actually, they don't anyway. So that's the plan. A new and easily interchangeable fretless neck So I will also be building a new neck - again narrower than the present P by up to 3mm. Probably maple neck, unlined ebony fretboard, luminlay side dots at the fret positions. So first step is to record the present action height and investigate the neck truss-rod movement (you never know....) and the side dot depth: But, before I take the neck off, I am going to cut a new nut at Jack's preferred position and string spacing and...well...just try it! This will also allow me to see where the fretboard edge will need to be and also how much those top dots are going to be out of line and also play it at the string spacing and make sure it isn't going to be too crowded for comfort: So, if I have a piece of bone in my bits box, that's what I will be doing tomorrow That and having a dig around in one of those epoxy black side dots

You are right. With the trussrod cover there, it's hardly noticeable. It continues to be a lovely job.

It's looking good from here

It is said that some of the Impressionists, such as Cezanne and Van Gough, deliberately skewed the perspective in their 'fruit on a table' paintings to create the illusion that the fruit or crockery is just about to fall off the table and thus engage the viewer who instinctively mentally reaches forward to catch it: Then again, it might be just that they couldn't line things up accurately.... But enough culture! Back to guitar building It is with shock and apologies that I have to confess that two of the points on those diamonds are indeed lined up! Clearly, my illusionary techniques need some brushing up. But fear not. Next time I do any diamond holes, I will do absolutely everything within my abilities to ensure that none of those points line up.

Actually, I'm not even sure they're the same size as each other. If you are right (probably) it won't be as much that one of the points is out of line as much as it would be a minor miracle that any of the points are in line For sake of completeness, I'll check in the morning and let you know if there are any of them in line, the little tinkers!