Members t_e_l_e Posted August 7, 2015 Members Share Posted August 7, 2015 hmm before it comes to the finishing, i have a question how it actually works the binding is already there, but when you spray paint on the guitar, you don't spray the binding (its most likely taped), right? after a coat of paint and drying, it will need some sanding (yes very fine grain sand paper but still) but will you or will you not sand the binding too? lets say if you would put a very thick finish on the guitar, there could be a difference of a millimeter between the finish and the binding, how to make this "gap" "pretty" again? do you keep the tape on while sanding? which could be pretty annoying at the "corners", removing the tape between the coats is also a big hassle... again, i think i have knot in my head, and cannot think of my self how this whole finishing process does work correctly, thats why i'm asking such stupid questions Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted August 7, 2015 Members Share Posted August 7, 2015 Oh man - I knew you'd make my dream come true one day. Where do I transfer the money? Still looking amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 7, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 7, 2015 hmm before it comes to the finishing, i have a question how it actually works.... All will be reveled in due time. I'll try to show and discuss each step as we do them. Waiting for some lacquer to arrive - I can't buy it in my town and it has to be shipped ground - maybe today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 8, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 8, 2015 While we are waiting on UPS to bring the lacquer, there is one more thing to do. Establish the center line very carefully (based on the edges of the fretboard) and mark the scale. Mark the compensated location of the bridge studs and the tailpiece. Check it, double check it and then check it again (remember, there is a little bit of weirdness in this guitar) Take it to the drill press and drill the holes using a brad point bit (which is flat on the end except for the little centering point). A brad point bid won't wander or chip out wood like a normal twist bit and makes a square bottomed hole. The piece of blue tape is just to mark the depth Drill a hole from the pickup cavity to the stud hole for the string ground wire (which is hiding under the tape) [ Now we're ready to finish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gardo Posted August 8, 2015 Members Share Posted August 8, 2015 The dril sounds like a great idea l. Is it like this ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 8, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 8, 2015 Like this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gardo Posted August 8, 2015 Members Share Posted August 8, 2015 A nice sharp point to locate the hole. Thanks for the info That would probably do a grreat job drilling sheet metal too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted August 9, 2015 Members Share Posted August 9, 2015 ^gardo, drilling sheet metal depends, usually these drills a made specially for wood and are not as hard as the metal drills. using such on metal will most likely easily damage the drill for drilling (sheet) metal its best to punch mark the place where the hole should be and using the right rpm and too fast is never good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 10, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 10, 2015 What t_e_l_e says - these are wood bits. OK, the cats kind of out of the bag on finishing so lets see how it was done. First, here is what the owner said he wanted back when we first started talking about this thing "the finish has to be cherry red, but in a see-through way so the wood grain is visible if the grain could be enhanced so it is darker and shine stronger through, it would be perfect i don't like burst finishes, no sun-burst or any other burst finish, so the color should be uniform" That's pretty easy, I happen to have a great book on guitar finishing by Dan Erlewine and one of the "recipes" they give is a 1960's Gibson cherry red ES335 finish. I had to chuckle when Dan says "...most of you will never have a chance to put this finish on new ES-335 ... because laminated guitars are just too tough to build" Hee hee, I get to do it! We are going to use nitrocellulose lacquer. Nitro has so much going for it, but it has a couple of drawbacks - it is very toxic and should be applied in a paint booth or outside. It is explosive - again, don't shoot it in your basement or you'll blow the house up. Its also a pain to clean up. I've been using a water born lacquer on many builds but nitro is the right choice for this guitar. Here are the ingredients - lacquer and thinner, red and amber dye, masking tape including some that is 1/4 wide for the bindings, and my two little guns. I used to use the syphon gun but have switched to the HPLV gravity feed gun, I think I can control it better I've got an 8 gallon air compressor that I bought for 50 bucks at a yard sale. First step is to mask the fretboard, headstock, pickup cavities and side of the binding (I'll scrape the thin edge), as well as the controls and stuff some paper towels in the f-holes. Next, the neck is mahogany which is a much darker color than the maple, I'm going to lightly stain it with red dye Mahogany is also a porous wood, I'll fill the pores with a thin epoxy mixture (there are lots of different pore filling methods, this is one I like) That will get sanded back flush with the surface of the wood leaving the pores filled and slightly colored. Next, mix up some red dye in alcohol and wipe it all over the guitar. The wood absorbs the stain, but at different rates - the flame being slightly end grain absorbs more. Sand this back to the wood surface removes most of the color but leaves some in the flame Now a staining with amber dye in alcohol but don't sand this back. That leaves a little amber between the flames (some was absorbed into the too) - the amber will give the red color some warmth and helps the flames stand out. However it will also bleed into the lacquer so I spray a thin "wash coat" of clear lacquer to seal it mmmm, not a very red guitar is it? To be continued Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted August 10, 2015 Members Share Posted August 10, 2015 wow, just wow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DaleH Posted August 10, 2015 Members Share Posted August 10, 2015 Awesome read. Thank you. Your time and efforts are greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 11, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 11, 2015 Mixed some of the same dye into the lacquer and cut about 3:1 with thinner. Shot three coats and sent pictures to the owner His reaction "too bubble gum" I was afraid of that Sanded back to 400 and shot two more coats He thought this was better, so did I. So did many of you when I asked your opinion. I'll decide tomorrow whether to do any more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gardo Posted August 11, 2015 Members Share Posted August 11, 2015 I'll be following. eager to see what's next.Thanks for the update Freeman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 14, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 14, 2015 A couple of you have asked how I deal with the binding. Phil, in particular asked if it was a real PITA. Yes, it is, but so are lots of the other parts of building a guitar - fretwork and setting the neck and lots of things require patience and care, so doe the binding. I'm able to mask the binding on the sides using 1/4 inch masking tape that I get at an auto paint store. The thin top and back edge I don't worry about, it easily scrapes. I score along the edge of the masking tape with an Xacto knife - in theory that helps keeping the paint from pulling loose with the tape. In a perfect world the tape would pull cleaning away leaving a nice sharp edge - unfortunately my shop is not a perfect world. I've kept a small bottle of the red paint to drop fill places like this - it will burn into base finish pretty well and hide the flaw. The rest of the binding I simply run a small piece of sandpaper around and then scrape with a utility knife blade If you look at the neck binding you can see that it got some color on it, that will scrape off. Same thing with the neck - scape the binding clean of any stain or finish I try to do the minimum sanding at this point but a little is necessary. The sides have an edge where the tape was on the binding, I try to break that with some mild sanding and clean up a couple of little flaws. Then its time for some clear - 2 or 3 coats a day with a little mild sanding in between. Here are the first two Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted August 14, 2015 Members Share Posted August 14, 2015 Wow! That's excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members knotty Posted August 14, 2015 Members Share Posted August 14, 2015 The skill of some people never ceases to amaze me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Glenn F Posted August 14, 2015 Members Share Posted August 14, 2015 If I asked nicely, would you make me one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrbrown49 Posted August 14, 2015 Members Share Posted August 14, 2015 Looking great. Never would have guessed there was so much amber underneath. Very cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Freeman Keller Posted August 26, 2015 Author Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 I haven't posted anything in a while because its been about as exciting as watching paint dry. Literally. However, there's been some other stuff going on the past couple of weeks that is pretty exciting - in fact, pretty terrifying. I live in the center of Washington State and have been surrounded by wildfires for the last several weeks. I'm sure you've all heard about them on the news, I had one person in Europe tell me that he had seen the pictures. While it hasn't directly impacted me, it does affect everything that we do - smoke, concerns about friends and their homes and the backcountry that my wife and I love so much. We went into the mountains last week, partially to escape, partially, I guess, to think, and damn near got surrounded by fire - when we tried to get home the highway was closed in one direction and we could see flames burning close to the road as we drove by. I could tell a bunch of stories but this is a guitar forum, not Facebook, so lets talk about guitars. Anyway, when I last posted I had sent several emails to the owner with photos of the red color - I wasn't sure he was totally satisfied with it. I spent a couple of sleepless nights - there were several options. I could just move forward and hope that he liked it. I could refund his deposit and keep it (I liked the color but there was a minor problem with this option). I could remask it and put a couple more coats of red on it, hoping that it would kill some of the brightness that I think he was seeing. I could strip it to bare wood and start over. Or I could call in the experts. You remember my friend Jesse? Jesse is the motorcycle painter, drag racer, and owner of the ES-175 clone with the skulls. Surely you remember Jesse. I called Jesse and asked how he was doing and could I drop by his house. He was working on the race car (said he shut down at 206 mph and dropped a valve - that was the second time and they thought they had identified a problem with the valve train...). Sure I could come by. We put the 335 next to the 175 and took a picture - room light, cell phone camera, not all that great. But at least it told me that the 335 was darker and certainly not "bubble gum" along side the 175. I felt better. Jesse's wife came in and said she really liked it. I felt a lot better. Jesse said that often a paint job looked terrible until it was completely done. I felt a whole lot better. I slept well that night. So, over the next few days, while dodging fire related stuff, I shot a dozen coats of clear. The ideal schedule is to sand to 400, then shoot three coats, repeating four days in a row. Sometimes I got three on, sometimes one, sometimes I didn't get any done. On day I had left the guitar outside in the sun and found it covered in ash. But basically the procedure is sand and shoot some more. After the 12 coat (I think) I sanded one more time That little black mark is grain, it is mirrored around the center - there are several of them. I cleaned my gun very thoroughly and shot one more coat thinned about 1:1. That's called a "flow coat" and the idea is melt it into the previous ones. It looked like this The guitar now gets put a way for two or three weeks, the longer the better. There are a few minor things I can be doing, but mostly its just being patient. I've got some repairs and a couple of little acoustics to work on - see you all In three weeks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pk1fan Posted August 26, 2015 Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 Nice ! Enjoying watching you build the guitar , flame shows up very nicely . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Grant Harding Posted August 26, 2015 Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 Looking great! I'd like to be second in line if the seller backs out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thatsbunk Posted August 26, 2015 Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 Lookin great! Stay away from those fire lines... Looks pretty scary around your parts (hopefully you'll get some rain soon). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members r0bo01 Posted August 26, 2015 Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 another beauty! no bubblegum here... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members eeddings Posted August 26, 2015 Members Share Posted August 26, 2015 I just love this thread. Sending good thoughts your way and hoping the fires stay away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t_e_l_e Posted September 10, 2015 Members Share Posted September 10, 2015 The guitar now gets put a way for two or three weeks' date=' the longer the better. There are a few minor things I can be doing, but mostly its just being patient. I've got some repairs and a couple of little acoustics to work on - see you all In three weeks.[/quote'] are the three weeks already over? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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