In the last couple weeks we've had some weather that was decent enough to spray lacquer, so I masked off the fingerboard and bridge location, wore my respirator and sprayed the guitar in my shed. I sprayed 3 coats the first day, then sanded the whole guitar with 220 because I got a couple runs. Second day I sprayed 5 coats throughout the day, left the guitar sit for a couple days (it was raining outside) and then yesterday sprayed an addition 3 coats. The finish is looking pretty good. I think I might spray another couple coats this weekend.
Well this project has ben on hold for a long time, but I'm back at it FINALLY! During our current home renos, the guitar sat on a blanket in the basement. Turns out spray can shellac isn't a very hard finish because the blanket stuck to it and imprinted the finish! I had to figure out what to do about a new finish. Then I stumbled across a solution at a local hardware store.... Watco sray lacquer in an aerosol can.... turns out its nitrocellulose lacquer! A couple hours of sanding removed the shellac, I bought a respirator, and now I'm waiting for a couple nice warm days so I can spray outside.
The other problem that developed while the guitar was sitting, was that the fingerboard extension bowed a bit, so I had to refit the neck a bit. I am changing my approach to assembly and finishing this time though - I am attaching the neck to the body prior to finishing. This type of neck joint uses a screw and is also glued. The fingerboard extension is also glued to the top of the guitar. Below is a picture of the neck glued and clamped to the body. Can't wait to spray the finish! It sure has been a LONG time since my last update, thanks to work, a couple other projects, and some frustration in my finishing process. My original idea was to do a French polish finish. In this process you basically use a balled up rag and using a mixture of shellac and alcohol you slowly polish the guitar until you build up a nice finish. From what I've heard its quite the art, one that I wasn't successful with. One thing I did learn, is that shellac in a can from Home Depot isn't the same type of shellac that you need for this process, so I wasted many hours trying to get a nice finish. I kept putting on finish, but then I got lots of drips, streaks, etc... I sanded the finish smooth several times, but every time I would try to polish I just couldn't get it to work. Turns out the shellac in the can that I got has other additives which were probably creating most of my problems. Before applying additional finish to the top, I did sand the bridge location to bare wood and made up a mask so that I'll have bare wood to glue the bridge to. I just wasn't happy with the finish I was getting. At the same time I already did have a good base coat of shellac on the guitar. Home Depot also has the same type of shellac in a spray can, so I decided to try spraying the guitar in the spare storage room in our apartment. I put down some garbage bags, and sanded the guitar and neck as smooth as I could with 600 grit sandpaper. The first spray coat of shellac went on well and the finish looks much better then what I was getting by applying finish by hand. I should have done this from the start! The finish does have a little bit of orange peel, but I think this method of finishing will give me a finish good enough for my first guitar. Further down the road if I get good at this, I want to be able to spray laquer!
I followed the same sanding method for the neck as I did with the body. I also used the same pore filler. After applying a good thick coat of filler, I scraped off the excess filler and then sanded the neck smooth. All of the pores in the neck filled nicely. I sealed the neck with a thin coat of brushed on shellac. This made the grain stand out nicely. In this picture, you can see a little bit of flames in the neck that stand out nicely under the finish. It sure is exciting to see the guitar taking shape like this! Next I will be applying more finish to both the body and neck! Over the past few days I've finished quite a lot. The body is now complete and ready for finish! I sanded the top with the following grits of sandpaper: 100, then 150, then 220. I tried to fill the 2 marks I put in the top long time ago with sawdust and glue. The marks are still visible, but they look a bit better. After all the sanding, I "raised the grain". I did this by wiping the top with a damp paper towel. The dampness will make any small sanding scratches swell, then once dry I sanded again with 220 grit to end up with a nice smooth finish. Then I sealed the top by brushing on a thin coat of shellac. With the top completed, I went through the same sanding process on the sides and back. (100, 150, 220, raised grain, 220). Mahogany is a porous wood, so in order to get a smooth finish these pores have to be filled. I purchased some Timbermate filler from Stewart MacDonald. I got rosewood coloured filler, which is a bit darker then the mahogany, which will make the grain show more when its finished. I mixed the filler with water as per the directions and brushed it on both with the grain and across the grain. I let it set for a while and scraped off the excess with an old gift card. Then I sanded the back and sides with 220 grit sandpaper. When I applied the filler to the sides, I did manage to get a little on the edge of the top. Since I sealed the top with shellac, all I had to do was wipe the filler off the top with a damp paper towel. This stuff sure is easy to work with and clean up! If you look closely in this pic, you can see the filler in the pores of the mahogany. Once all my sanding was done, I sealed the sides and back with shellac. The pic below shows the back with a single brushed on coat of shellac. The figure in the wood shows up nicely, and you can actually see a couple of flames in the back. Just imagine how it will look with a thicker, shiny coat of shellac?! Its been a while so I thought I'd update on some of my progress. I've completed an inlay on the headstock in white mother of pearl. First I came up with a simple little script logo on my computer, printed it out and cut out a paper template. I tried it out in this pic to see if it would look good. Personally, I liked it! I covered the mother of pearl with masking tape, then taped my paper template to it. The idea of the masking tape was to minimize any chips or breaking of the pearl when I started cutting it out. Have I mentioned before that I don't have the proper tools? I don't have a jeweler's saw or any special bits for cutting out pearl. I used the smallest drill bit I had for my Dremel to drill holes all around the logo to roughly cut out the logo. Once I had the inlay roughly cut out, I used needle files to shape it best I could. It came out ok, but not perfect. Next time I do an inlay, I'll try to set myself up with the proper tools! I used a small router bit in my Dremel and an exacto knife to cut out the cavity in the headstock in which I would put the inlay. It was really hard to get a good fit. As you can see, the cavity could definitely be cut cleaner. During the process, I cracked my inlay. At this point I was hoping it wouldn't be visible. I placed a small amount of CA glue into the cavity, pressed the inlay into place, then filled any gaps with rosewood sawdust. I brushed away any loose sawdust, then flooded the inlay with thin CA glue. You'll notice a little bit of glue near the right tuner hole.... I was fixing a small tear-out chip I got when drilling the tuner holes. Once the glue was dried, I sanded the headstock. You can see around some of the edges where I had gaps, and if you look closely, you can see the crack in my inlay where the J meets the O. I sanded the headstock with 100 grit, then 150 grit, and 220 grit sandpapers. The inlay looks a little better now then when I took this pic, but you can still detect my errors. Next time I do a headstock inlay, I think I want to do an ebony headstock veneer.... ebony seems to be more forgiving when filling gaps (my fretboard inlays turned out nicer I think). Here's a pic of the whole headstock, including the white bone nut that I filed to fit after completing the inlays. After this step, I filled the gaps in the fret ends with CA glue, and began finish sanding the body and neck. More pics to come soon! The next step was quite exciting... gluing in the truss rod and fingerboard! I laid a small bead of glue in the truss rod channel and pressed the rod into place. Then I spread glue on the neck and put the fingerboard in place. I was hoping my clamping method would give me good results! Once the glue dried, it was time to trim the neck flush with the fingerboard. I trimmed the neck with a chisel, followed by a scraper. I still have to sand the neck to smooth everything off. The neck is all trimmed and ready to have a nut made up and glued in place! I glued on an East Indian Rosewood heel cap, which will match the headstock. I trimmed the heel cap with a chisel. I think it turned out great! Next step is to inlay a logo in the headstock! One of the other things I completed, was the headstock. First I had to glue the headstock veneer to the neck. The edge of the headstock veneer needs to be angled where it meets the nut, so I had to come up with a way to put that angle on the thin veneer. I clamped my level to the neck with some sandpaper two-way taped to it, and sanded the angle on the veneer. It worked great! I then taped some thin pieces of wood together to create a spacer the same width as the nut. Then I applied glue to the headstock and positioned the veneer where I wanted it...... Then I used a ton of clamps.... maybe a little overkill?! Using a box cutter knife, chisel, and scraper, I trimmed the veneer flush with the neck. Next I had to thin the veneer so that my tuners will fit nicely. I used a sanding block with 60 grit paper to do this. It didn't take long to thin it by the 1 - 1.5 mm I need to take off. Next I drilled the tuner holes. I already had drilled pilot holes in the mahogany, so using those as guides I progressively drilled larger and larger holes through the headstock until I arrived at the 11/32" diameter that I need for the Grover tuners I'm installing. The holes turned out evenly spaced and minimal chips around the holes. I got a little bit of tear-out on the bottom left tuner hole, but the tuner will cover this imperfection so no big deal. I'm quite happy with how the headstock came out! I've completed quite a lot since my last update so I'll have lots of stuff to post today. First of all, I had a bit of a mistake to fix..... previously I wrote about setting the neck angle. I did this with the fingerboard unfretted, but I should have set it taking into account the height of the frets! So I took some time to fix the neck angle so that I once again should have a good action. After that, I clamped up the neck and fingerboard and measured out where the bridge will be located. I had to make sure that the bridge was centered to the body and neck, plus make sure that its in the right location so that the guitar will play in tune. I measured out the scale length PLUS an extra 0.150" of compensation as recommended on many of the discussion forums. This extra scale length makes up for the difference in string tension when a note is pushed towards the fretboard, allowing the guitar to play more in tune. The bridge comes with only 2 of the bridge pin holes drilled through, so once I had the bridge location perfect, I drilled 2 tiny pilot holes through the bridge and top of the guitar. This will be my way of locating the bridge accurately after the guitar is sanded and finished. A pic of the 2 locating holes in the top. Then I moved on to sanding. I sanded the entire guitar twice with 100 grit sandpaper. I also used sawdust and glue to fill any major dings, scratches, gaps at the binding, etc. I'm pretty happy with the results even after rough sanding! After rough sanding, I sanded the top with 220 grit to remove any sanding scratches and fine imperfections. My next step on the body will be to raise the grain on the top - I'll wipe the top with a damp cloth causing the wood fibers (and any fine scratches) to swell. Then once it dries again, you sand the surface and SHOULD get a surface with no imperfections in it. At that point I'll seal the top with shellac and sand the back with 220 grit, raise the grain on the back and sand again prior to pore filling. Ok that's enough about the body.... now on to the work I did on the neck! On the face of the headstock I laid out the tuner hole locations using dimensions I got from one of the discussion forums on the web.... thanks to John Hall of Bluescreek Guitars for posting this! I drilled the tuner pilot holes with my Dremel. Once I get the Grover Sta-Tite tuners I ordered from Stewmac, I can drill the holes to the proper size. Also next on my to-do list.... gluing on the Indian rosewood headstock veneer! I fretted my ebony fingerboard with Stewmac medium/higher fretwire. Fretting a fingerboard creates stress in a fingerboard due to the fact that you are basically wedging the frets into slots in the fingerboard. This will cause a fingerboard to warp. To counteract this, I've clamped the fingerboard bending it in the opposite direction. By leaving it like this for a day or so, I hope to release those stresses and flatten out the fingerboard again so thatthe warp will be reversed, at which point I can glue it to the neck. Its so exciting to see my guitar coming together like this! Hope you enjoyed my updates! |
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