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Walnut, semi-hollow, Les Paul type thingy


honza992

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On 05/11/2019 at 21:25, Pea Turgh said:

Oh lordy!  That’s some bloody lovely work right there!  What bass bash will this be attending in 2020?!

I've been meaning to go to a BB for ages, but what with one thing and another just never made it.  We leave for Italy in March though, so it'll have to be before then.  Anyone one know, is there one???

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Mostly pics today.

The neck is pretty much finished.  It ended up with an interesting scarf joint - I'm not sure I've seen one like it before!

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Other than that, it's mostly just little jobs before finishing.  There was bit of a chip in the binding so I repaired it using epoxy and black furniture powder.  It seemed to work pretty well.  I may use it to grain fill....time to do a few more experiments. 

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Finally I did the pickup routs.  Me being me I decided to rout the neck heel at the same time.  So I double sided taped the neck in, cut the side off the template, and whizzed away, praying the tape didn't fail!


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A test fit and the pickup ring was right up against the end of the neck.  Perfect!
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Thanks everyone, I really appreciate the compliments. 😁😍

They're definitely premature though.  I've learned not to count my guitar making chickens till they are well and truly hatched.  The process of finishing, in my experience, is fraught with danger!  The plan for the body is an epoxy grainfill followed by a hand applied polyurethane varnish, probably to a low gloss finish.  The neck will be wipe on poly again, satin. 

i've tried all sorts of grain fill methods and not enjoyed any of them.  So I'm returning to epoxy, which I thnink is the best of a bad bunch.  I'm using West Systems and tinted it with Mixol dark brown and a bit of black to make it darker still.  Ive done two coats on the back and it is smoooooth.....one more on the front and I'm done.  This time it's gone pretty well.  The thing that's really made the difference is using a razor blade to spread a tiny amount of epoxy.  For the  entire back of the body I probably used about two pea-sized drops, maybe less.  The razor blade is really effective at spreading the epoxy around without pulling it out of the pores.  I rounded off the edges of the blade slighly so there was no chance of them digging in, and slightly dulled the blade using 400 paper on a very flat surface.  It worked really really well.  These are the type blades I used:

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Here's a photo of mid fill, I love the way you can see the difference between grain that hasn't been filled, and the grain with the brown epoxy.  It does a great job of highlighting....

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On 18/11/2019 at 21:59, SpondonBassed said:

I like the box of blades.  Have you a link for those please?

I couldn't find any locally.  I have a blade holder similar to yours only it is retractable.  The tool shop that sold it to me can't get blades even on order...!

Happy shaving!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Single-Edge-Razor-Blades-100-Pack-Of-Blades-FREE-SCRAPER/291805443229?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2648

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  • 3 months later...

I was hoping this one was going to be finished before our move to Italy.  Unfortunately I got side tracked with a hundred other things.  The neck is basically finished, and finished, and looks nice!

IMG-20200226-093508.jpg

I've also glued in the neck.  I used West System Epoxy because it doesn't need a perfect joint.  As my first set neck guitar I was happy enough with the joint, but better safe than sorry.  Some builders (Bruce Johnson for example) always use epoxy and if it's good enough for him, it's certainly good enough for me.  Here it is clamped...

IMG-20200225-105526.jpg

It seemed to glue really well.  Feels competely solid and the alignment and elevation at the bridge is spot on.  All in all I'm pleased.  I started off doing a wipe on poly (Ronseal Hardglaze) for the body and the neck.  The neck turned out nicely, the body less so.  I think keeping the finish very thin like I did on the neck makes it a really nice finish, almost like oil.  For the body though, the more layers I put on the less I liked it - it became more and more artificial feeling.  So...(as I always seem to end up doing)....I sanded back to bare wood and my plan is to French Polish with shellac.  However that will have to wait till we get to Italy because I have a flat and a workshop to pack up, and two weeks to do it in.  TIme to get off my lazy derrière......

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