thirdstone

Just a thought if I'm not too late, If you stain with an oil base stain or on with denatured alcohol there may be a chance of the oil disolving the stain and pulling it out. Do a test and check the rag. Alternately apply the oil first with a soft brush using light strokes, let that dry then apply a second coat softly with a rag. That works for me.

K

I got some P90 wilkinson design pup's . They were realy cheep and they are realy crap. Squeel like crazy. Whats the saying , buy cheep buy twice...doah

Thirdstone,

I fear you will have problems with the acetone soaking of binding - when binding is soaked in acetone it will swell up, and it takes a *very* long time to return to it's natural size. If you scrape or sand flush before this, you will find that the binding shrinks past the edges of the wood, so you end up with binding which is narrower than the binding channel. This swelling can occour if you use an acetone based adhesive, so I'd imagine it will be even more of an issue if you're actually immersing the entire binding strip.

I proberbly won't use acetone again but as I have I wonder how long is "a very long time?"

I used this method as it was recomended to me by a quality luthier and a rather large guitar company in Australia "Maton" do it this way.

Taking a while as I got sick of sanding so I needed a break.

I thought I would have a go a tiger eye finish. Its been well documented on this forum as to how to do it so I'll be brief.

Stain dark and then rub back so the flat grain goes back to original but the end grain stays dark as it absorbed the most stain. The trick is not to rub back too much.

Pretty easy. The contrast will increas when the oil goes on.

Finally got around to finishing the frankenstein project. I need to paint the neck and headstock black as it looks out of place. Maybe a little lightning around a fender logo. I also need to find some black knobs to finish it off.

Painting a fender logo on a squire wouldn' t be very popular around here though...

edit: forgot to mention though....awesome airbrushing skills.

Wouldn't bother me !! since its been mentioned I was thinking , lose the squire logo and fit a fender one with out a serial number. To keep everyone happy keep the squire stamped neckplate.

I've got two maple necks oiled and two mahogany necks oiled. The mahogany necks require 4 times as much maintenance as far as reoiling them goes. Moisture and oil/drirt from your hands makes the grain rise and feel a bit course. easy fixed with a rub down with 800/1000 grit wet and dry. and a reoil every 6 months with medium to heavy use is required. If the guitar is to be gigged every week then I would advise not to oil a mahogany neck. No problem gigging an oiled maple neck....K

great art work , I don't mind the headstock as it is...Congrats

One of the things I wanted to try was using acetone to glue the binding. I can tell you it works well but is very messy.What I did on advice from some pros was to soak my binding strip in a container filled with acetone for 1 minute . Then what you do , and here is where it gets very messy , is to remove the strip and just fit around the routed channel all the time taping it on tight.

Some observation; 1 min might have been too long , it desolves quite quickly , 50 seconds might have been better.

The binding gets that gooey that it fills the chanel very well filling in all the grain in butts up to making it look very tight.

You have to be very careful that you don't gouge the soft binding or else a gouge will be there when its dryed. If that happens it is relativly easy to fix by wetting the strip and smoothing it over with your finger.

It drys quite quickly so after an hour or more you can sand it flat.

Kev

Both those finishes look great to me. What's on your first build? I love it.

Denis

Hi Denis

The first build is just basic maple stain over the blackwood with an oil finish ,oraganoil I think.

Kev

When I made my first guitar I glued a maple cap on to a basswood body. When it dried I noted that the cap had distorted under the clamps and had lifted at the edges. The only way to save the basswood was to remove the cap. That was pretty easy as the clamping was so crap that the cap was not on too tight. When the cap was removed a couple of spots where the glue had taken caused some bad tear outs. I took the basswood to my local wood shop and they cleaned it up so it was smooth. The downside was that the basswood was now 3mm thinner. I thought at the time "no problem its only 3mm it won't make any differance. I put a new cap on , the same thickness as the first one and completed the guitar.

3mm make a big differance to the feel of the body and to this day 15 years later it annoys me. People pick it up, people that know about guitars and the first thing they always say is "this feels thin", yeah about 3mm . Mate a cock up is a cock up ,you could have done a finish worthy of a PRS private stock and it would still look wrong . You did a good job on the finish and the general work is good but the mistake stands out like dogsballs. Instead of owning a guitar that would hold its own up against USA made production guitars lined up in Manny's you have joined the very large membership of people who own homemade looking guitars. Welcome to the club My Friend .

Awesome, can't wait to see it when it's finished! How you going to finish it? A nice stain or burst would look sweet IMO.

I realy want to keep the finish process simple so I want to stay away from spraying lacquor so an oil finish would be prefrable. I can still stain but a burst is more difficult as the transition looks different when wiped on and its not as dramatic. Still I'll see what I can do, thats half the reason for this project , to try stuff.

First lap Steel

Wipe on burst

I could try and spray on the stain but it wont build up like a lacquor I would have to create the transition with varying shades of tone in the stain...

Me

Westhemann thats pretty much the pickup/ trem setup I have in mind except I was thinking the P90 EMG for the neck.

have you thought of any of the EMG extra toys like the booster ?

Kev

Thanks guys for your input. The project would be for a young guy who is not technical when it comes to construction.

I fully understand that most of the music comes from the hands and attitude of the player but I was interested in the technical side, for instance active pickups are electricaly quieter and would be better suited to a high gain setup that would also have other processing going on.

The trem topic; I was wanting an alternative to the floyd rose standard model which I have some experiance with and I think there could be an improvement, something other than a knife edge pivot. I have seen the rollar bearing pivot Floyd on some high end Ibanez guitars that also look good.

Wood does matter for tone and I see that most guys go for the LP or SG model but I still wonder if thats the best. I notice that westtheman has a maple / bulbinga guitar the he mentions "screams " better than his mahogany guitars. This is what I was thinking , that you need bright sounding wood to compensate for the mid range mud that increases as the gain is wound up. The maple cap on a LP is exactly for that reason.

The MusicMan vanhalen guitar is basswood with a maplecap which is also made to go with high gain settings.

To counter all that is that the LP is truly proven in the high gain world and it would be hard to argue against.

A 26" scale length ; I was just throwing that out there as a compromise between a standard fender scale and a baritone scale that was trendy a few years ago.

Neck wood ; there is no doubt in my mind that maple necks have a better attack or snap (no pun intended) than mahogany necks and also would be better suited to a locking trem design ue to the increased wood strength. For once it seems that ebony would be better suited than rosewood for the fretboard.

Body shape is another topic that has a bit of voodoo with it as to its effect on the tone but as long as the neck is well supported I won't go any further.

To Chamber or not , I would think that unchambered would be better , again better punch.

Anyway thanks for the input guys

At the end of the day I agree most of the tone comes from the player/ amp setup.

Kev

Ok guys I need idea's from the heavy riffing / Metal guys. I am contemplating building a guitar for such use but as this is not my thing I need to know what is desirable .

This is what I think

Body , solid light weight resonant possibly with maple cap. Or evan Metal over a wood block.

Thin profile carbon fibre reinforced neck , maple

fretboard , rosewood

Pup's EMG active's with boost cct or evan some sort of disassembled stomp box ala Matt from Muse.

trem , some sort of locking trem , Kahler??

scale length 26"

Tuning , 6 string drop D

what do you think ??

I was without a project so I thought I would build a Lap Steel. I have already made one so this one will get sold somehow at a small profit, nowhere near the labour cost . Its a bit of fun and I might learn something.

Body is queensland maple , quilt cap is victorian ash and the neck is bulbinga.

body

neck sloted for 23 Inch scale

Altogether now.

gluing cap on

Gluing binding on with acetone

Geting there

Kev

Hi mate nice work,I am building my second one at the moment , purely for pleasure as there are so easy to build compaired to a guitar. is there a preferance in the lapsteel world between your style and the guitar shape style?? Same for number of PUP's , not many two pup jobs out there. I don't play them either so I am a bit ignorant as to what people want in them..Kev

My first lapsteel

Mr Wammi i am contemplating making a flat top electric, proberbly bolt on neck with only about a 2degree neck angle. I would prefer not to do the full strat type route and stick with a LP type of mount (less neck angle though ) Which type of kahler should I be looking at. kev

Side stepping the looks issue , has anyone actualy used one of these?? does the trem have a notched feel when the trem is wobbled back and forth through the neutral point??

For maximum improvement for minimum effort just sand back the neck and apply the tung oil. K

Thats interesting, I sanded down to 1000grit before the sealer went on . I can't remember what I sanded the sealer down to, but it would have been at least 400 but more than likely 600-800 grit.

For this instance I still suspect the first theory.

Kev

I'd guess at poor adhesion to the unlying surface. This means it's much easier for the finish to chip, since it doesn't have to break it's connection to the surface, just to the area of finish next to it. Thnis could be caused by an incompatability between the sealer/grain filler and the final finish, or between stain and top coat. The only real way to avoid this is to use tried and tested finishes, whether this means doing your own test panels and waiting a year to see how they stand up to time, or sticking with finishes which are already widely used and understood.

Yeah I think you are right. I had a terrible time with this spray job and I had to resort to using a sealer that was untried with the lacquor. Thanks

I have a clear acrylic lacquor finish on a guitar that is about a year old and the problem is that any light/medium knock on the side causes the finish to chip rather too easily. Its too late now to fix it but does anyone know what went wrong so I can get a tougher finish next time?

kev

hay Stu I thought you must have had experience in spraying. Just a point when finishing with lacquer, alot of people pile it on so thick that it looks like a plastic coating. This is easy to do and lessens the chance of a sand through. The real challange is to spray a really thin coat, sure it dosn't protect the guitar as well in the long run but it lets the guitar resonate better. Check out the recent change of heart by fender with their Eric Johnson strat also PRS has developed a new "thin coat" procedure.

By the way what is precat nitro? The last Nitro I used was durobond 851 Guitar Lacquer .

Other lacquer I have used is the stuff sold in the car shops ,Auto Pro i think its called.

Kev

Hi Mate fantastic work and thanks for enlightning me to the method of carving the top,I might try that next time. From your exeriance in the building industry is there an alternative to using nitro or other such finishes. I have been trying to avoid the spray booth as it adds too much work for the hobbiest guitar builder.

To be quite honest I don't realy like the wet look , I much prefer the oiled look but I have yet to find a good replacement for lacquor.

Kev

Okay for anyone looking at old threads I have to admit that the Aluminium nut didn't work. It would have on a non trem guitar but for this it just gave tuning problems along ith the odd ping noise. I cut a slot in the ali nut and added a grapthtec nut alog with some grapthtec string retainers and that fix everything. The tone was also improved along with , surprisingly , the look. I'll get a pic when my camera get new batterys..