demonx

Thats my backup plan - but I'm, being lazy.

I'm doing a repair on a guitar that will need pickup rings wider than normal ie: I need 93mm wide approx, wheres a normal ring would be 89mm wide approx The pickups are standard size, it's just that I've had to "over route" the cavity as part of the repair. Anyone know of anything? Metal or plastic. Color = Black

It'll be happening because you're spraying too thick (as it seems you've already worked out) Humidity etcetc as already discussed will be contributing to it and the fact you sprayed too thick just means that there's all these "wrong" things thrown into one basket, so something is bound to go wrong. Empty your line filters every time you spray. The air valve on your compressor too. Open it till no water comes out.

Welcome to the forum!

With all that said though - if it's being sprayed through a gun, the venturi would also partially mix this as it's being forced through the cap etc. Sure not mixing will create some major issues, mosty likely failure, but it might not cause this. Its definitely one place to start fixing your process though.

As I said before - when I mix anything with hardner, I mix left 20 times, right twenty times, left right etc - if you dont alternate, all you are doing is creating a whirl that spins and doesnt mix - I learned this when I worked in a media room at a laboratory years ago mixing chemicals. When I worked in the lab, we didn't count turns, I had to mix for 5 minutes to a timer. At home, I count to 200. A lot of the time 100 turns is not enough. You can tell this when you're mixing colored stuff into clear, but when its all clear, you can't see, so you just have to know! You also have to know the product you're pouring out of the tin has been stirred also.

That type of mahogany looks amazing with only a clear - just putting it out there. I've got a guitar in the works at the moment with mahogany that looked like it could have come from the same plank as yours - yet after clear its very, very pretty.

Bareknuckle Nailbomb calibrated set.

The trem AFTER setup:

SEARLS - Ceylon Blue Quilt top SS6 21 Frets, 25.5" scale, 16" radius, 12 degree headstock angle Body: Maple, Mahogany, Alder with a quilted Maple top Neck: Mahogany, Rosewood, Ebony, Queensland Maple Fingerboard and Binding: Curly Maple Inlay: Paua Shell Hardware: - Grover Tuners - Floyd Rose Special tremolo - Schaller strap locks - Dunlop 6150 Fretwire - DR Strings Electronics: - Bareknuckle Nailbomb Calibrated set - Switchcraft output jack - CTS pots - 0.022uf CAP - N.O.S. Paper dipped in Oil Ex Russian Military! Paint: - Upol clear - PPG candy dies mixed to achieve a Ceylon Blue - PPG Deltron Black on the rear The concept for this build was to try make the guitar out of a pile of scraps, offcuts and unusable materials. The body is made from Offcuts (the bits to the side) of 3 other guitars - Maple, Mahogany and Alder. The quilt top was one of three sets I bought years ago and never used this one as in rough it looked like it wasn't good enough to use (turned out pretty good though!) The neck is all scrap pieces - the Rosewood and Ebony stripes are 2 fingerboards cut from necks that I messed up and cut the boards off for re-use. The mahogany strips either side are offcuts from another neck and as is the Qld maple stripe down the center. The headstock is offcut from the Quilt top. The Curly maple binding is two pieces I had that didn't match up with any others I had, so I couldnt use them on customers guitar. After paint they ended out they same color! Who'd have thought. The Curly fingerboard was one I purchased but it had a mark in the grain I deemed "B" grade, so I never used it until now. I tried hiding the most of this under the first dot inlay. The inlays are Paua shell dots I've had laying around and never used. The build thread: http://projectguitar...showtopic=46518

A few assembled pics I'm still yet to set it up - I feels pretty awesome as it is, but it needs the bridge height and a minor truss rod tweak to make it even better.

Assembly and Elecronics: Making Copper Earth plates:

What you say shrunk, do you mean shrunk or sunk? As in, is there still full coverage or has it pulled back from the edges, or has is sunk into the timber? What are you spraying over? Raw timber? Clear coated timber? Primer/basecoat?

Don't play around with hardner amounts. Mix product and hardner exact to tech sheet specs. You van mess around with reducer amounts, however I advise starting with what the tech sheet suggests. If it's not curing: are you using correct brand/type hardner and reducer? You know you cant mix general purpose or enamel hardeners/reducers with 2k? Hardner ratio can do this. Old hardner could do this. They do have a shelf life. What is the temperature where you are spraying in and what temperature hardner have you bought? They must be matched. If it's not mixed correctly it could possibly do this. I recommend around 200 stirs, twenty left then twenty right, twenty left until you get two hundred. What about air - are you getting moisture in your airlines? When spraying water based paints then it's not so much an issue (but still not good) but with 2k you need to make sure your tank is dumped of water before spraying and that te water/oil traps (I use two) are empty. That is something to start with.

If you have a look at any of my build threads, I don't use that style of scarf joint. I use a variation on the modern style scarf as opposed to the older traditional style The first few pics in this thread will help show: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=45901&view=&hl=&fromsearch=1

Just made this little jigga today. Works quite nicely. First pass I tried holding it by hand and the neck blank vibrated around a bit in the jig, Second attempt I clamped it with a quick grip. This clamp moved slightly. Third attempt I used a more reliable clamp and the slide worked a treat. Much better than the jig I've been using in the past.

Measure your pickups, there's no point routing deeper than the pickup height. Yes. Neck pockets are usually routed.

If you re-read my posts, I emphasized the word AUTO - meaning I was referring to the Automotive 2k and not the inferior brush on style products. When you compare the cheap stuff and the quality stuff in person - it is obvious. In photo's not so much. I've used products where the clear is in the $100+ a tin price range and products where the clear is in the $400+ a tin price range, there is no comparison. They might photo similar, but when you eye them in person, when you use them yourself, the quality speaks for itself. They look different. They spray different. They sand different. They polish different. I guess it comes down to - if you want it to look like its home made, use cheap stuff, if you want it to look professional, learn to use the professional stuff.

I did a bit of googling trying to find the video I mentioned, this is the guys official website: http://www.paintucation.com/ The video's he's advertising here are not the ones I've seen - I watched the old 80's/90's ones - but it looks like he's remade/updated the same videos so they're probably better.

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.

I know of none. As far as I know, 2k paint is basically reserved for professional use. Every time I buy a tin it comes with a warning "For professional use only" However, I have watched DVDs on painting cars using 2k, you could look in that direction. There's an old VHS one that is floating around the net - i think its called "How to paint your car" and it's basically a guy doing a dodgy panel shop style and respray, (as opposed to a full strip and spray from scratch) on a white C4 Corvette - but you would learn a lot from it if you're new to the 2k game.

I myself don't like paying big bucks for luthier tools, but I can't just go down to Bunnings (Aussie version of home depot) and buy a pair of fret tang expanders, fret tang nippers or a 16" radius sanding beam. The tool market for luthiers is no-where near as large as that of a person buying a hammer, chisel set or any other standardized woodworking tools, so their prices are going to reflect this. If you or I were to go into the luthier tool making business, the cost of research, development, designing, prototyping, sourcing solids and then wages, overheads, profit and finally producing, machining and marketing these items would be incredibly high, so much so we'd probably want $500 for each fret caul and $1000 for a pair of fret tang nippers just to cover costs. A few years ago I had a bulk batch of plexiglass templates laser cut for myself and I had a heap of people jump on the bandwagon saying "get us some cut at the same time". I had the CAD work done free by someone I knew - who taught me the basics enough that I could finish and edit what he didn't get done. So the cost was only for the plexiglass and the lasercutting. I worked it out that to get even I'd have to charge each template at around $50.00 (my cost, no profit) and then when I presented this price to the people wanting templates their reaction was "no thanks" - but what the **** were they expecting? Sure you can buy similar templates from ebay for $20- but these were one off templates, not bulk made and they come at a cost to me. What I'm getting at - Stewmac get these items to us at a pretty good price considering they are so specialist. I don't like to fork out my hard earned dollars on expensive items, but this is real life. Supply and demand.

I make a habit of wearing dust masks during all sanding. Hand sanding, belt sanding, all sanding. If I don't I can feel it in my chest later on and it's not a good feeling. A simple dust mask might look stupid - but who's going to see you in your own shed? I have one other guy that works in my shed semi - regular and I also suggest he wear one too.

First point of advice re: wanting to learn paint - Get your head checked! hahahah Seriously though, welcome to the site!

Exactly. I work for an internation multi billion dollar company so I get to see how some of these things work - a lot of the decisions they make ignore all common sense and don't follow any pattern for intelligent thought - simply because it is the cheapest most cost effective short term option. I believe Gibson went this path.