new project w/pix suggestions please

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Originally posted by RacerX:
Oh yeah, what neck will you be using?

Any idea what happened to the original neck?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here's the neck that will be going on the guitar,along with the bridge,..nice guitar it's almost a shame to part it out:

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Ok I got the veneer last week,and had some time over the holiday weekend to do some more work on the guitar ...

First I took some poster board and made a cutout of the body :



The veneer....since I only have the one piece and I love the pattern I decided to just use one solid piece on the guitar :



I then took the poster board with the cutout in it and sliced around the border so I have a template to place around the veneer and find a perfect top for the body.This takes out the guesswork and ensures what I see is what the top of the guitar will be :




The piece I finally decided on,the lighting in the pic makes it look sort of dull,if you look at the piece of veneer above it you see more of what it looks like in the light :




Now onto the "real" work [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Here's the body with the repair to the volume control cavity done,all the other holes filled and the neck pickup cavity blocked.
I only used wood putty on the surface areas,the deeper ones (the selector switch and tone control hole)I used mainly sawdust and wood glue,let that dry hard then wood putty on the surface.Since it's having a top put on I'm mostly worried about the filler shrinking,but hopefully the glue/sawdust mix will keep that from happening in the long run :





I taped the trem post holes and hit the top with 60 grit Fre-Cut on a orbital sander,starting with sanding down the excess from the filled pickup cavity and volume control until they were level with the paint.I refilled some spots that didn't get covered very well then continued on with 60 grit :




I stopped with the electric sander at that point and switched to block sanding the rest of the paint off the front and roughing up the paint on the back and sides:

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please



The front so far:



And this is were I've left it for now,I block sanded the rest of the paint with 60 grit,then 100,and 180....3M sells all 3 in one package,the fre-cut paper doesn't clog that much and does the job pretty darn good,all it took was 1 pack to do the whole guitar.

It still needs alot more sanding before I glue the top on ....anyone have experience doing this? If so,any suggestions on how smooth the top surface of the body should be before gluing? I'm thinking just a little bit rough for grip like maybe a 320 grit would be smooth enough?
Or hell any other ideas at all? [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[Deneb]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

I would clean it up, just as you are doing with the sand papers, and then go over it with a 320, and then a few finer lairs.

Clean off the wood completey.

Get your maple cap, and clamp it in several places after you have put wood glue to hold it down. Use something to prevent the clamps from marring your new top.

If you need any Allparts, email me, I'll take care of your needs.

The work so far is looking really good, and to be honest, I am amazed to see you have the patience to sand off the finish. I tried to sand off the finish of this old Gibson, jesus I was there FOREVER and a day.

I have seen some solvents that melt the old finish off, and then you just light sand, but you have it taken care of.

Your top for the most part needs to be flat, however since you are capping it, it does not have to be machined steel flat.

Please post more pics as this goes on, I am really into project guitars.

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

This isn't a cap he's putting on, it's a veneer. You can't clamp it. I am in the middle of an identical project at the moment. It's a Fusion Special that had really messed up pick-up routes, and an equally screwed up recessed trem route. I'm using Australian Lacewood veneer. What you need is contact cement and a rubber roller. Spread the contact cement on both surfaces and allow it to dry completely. Be especially careful when laying the veneer down. It's a good idea to use a couple of dowels as spacers so you can lay the veneer down gradually and evenly. When it's completely down, use the roller, and roll it until your arm falls off. [/QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Right,it is a veneer...I didn't think about the contact cement way...I think I'll test that on scrap wood this weekend...I was going to use woodglue and the sandbag method,which came out really good on scrap BUT only if I spread the glue on the piece and not on the veneer.When I tried applying glue to both the veneer curled up so bad that once dry I had bumps in the veneer.Just gluing the wood and not the veneer it came out perfectly flat ....maybe I had too much glue on the others?
Also,with contact cement ...can you get the veneer off (heat?) once it's on in case I screw something up?
Great suggestions guys,please keep them coming! [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[VitaminG]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

someone around here was vacuum-bagging guitars when they put a veneer on. Apply the veneer as zeegler instructed, and then put the guitar in one of those vacuum storage bags and suck the air out of it. The vacuum bag closes down on the guitar and acts like a clamp. IIRC, that's how it's done, not having done it myself [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[zeegler]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Originally posted by VitaminG:
someone around here was vacuum-bagging guitars when they put a veneer on. Apply the veneer as zeegler instructed, and then put the guitar in one of those vacuum storage bags and suck the air out of it. The vacuum bag closes down on the guitar and acts like a clamp. IIRC, that's how it's done, not having done it myself [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you have access to a proper industrial one of these, that would be ideal. My friend's father used to run a custom cabinetry shop, and they had one. You could force veneer to conform to a surface with compound curves without splitting by using the vacuum system. I've never tried using one of the storage bags. Would it be strong enough?

[Deneb]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Sorry, I should read more. A veneer, I know nothing about, but a cap, I would clamp, but then again, I've never done it, I am only guessing, and I would probably end up witht he wood seperation knife. To be honest, it seems like you know what you are doing, the only thing I would have done differently would have been the pickup refilling along with the other repair you did.

I would have taken the paint off first, but that would really have no effect either way.

[Ace]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Fender uses vacuum tables in their factory. They suck a whole sheet of plastic, big enough to cover several guitars, down flat to a table.

[zeegler]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Originally posted by Deneb:
Get your maple cap, and clamp it in several places after you have put wood glue to hold it down. Use something to prevent the clamps from marring your new top.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This isn't a cap he's putting on, it's a veneer. You can't clamp it. I am in the middle of an identical project at the moment. It's a Fusion Special that had really messed up pick-up routes, and an equally screwed up recessed trem route. I'm using Australian Lacewood veneer. What you need is contact cement and a rubber roller. Spread the contact cement on both surfaces and allow it to dry completely. Be especially careful when laying the veneer down. It's a good idea to use a couple of dowels as spacers so you can lay the veneer down gradually and evenly. When it's completely down, use the roller, and roll it until your arm falls off.

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Originally posted by Deneb:


I would have taken the paint off first, but that would really have no effect either way.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That was my original plan,but I'm trying my hardest to think of anything that can go wrong BEFORE it does [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] . The reasoning behind leaving the paint on during the repairs was that since I needed to make the repairs taller than the top of the guitar so I could sand down instead of filling it up, I could then sand them down until I hit paint and then level sand the whole guitar at once.I don't want to have any dips in the wood from sanding too much in one spot and it worked really nice since I don't have any so far.

It is ALOT of work to sand the finish off,but I tell you the fre-cut sandpaper is damn close to being a sanders wet-dream! [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] Takes very little effort to remove alot of wood,very cool stuff indeed.

What's a good brand of contact cement for doing this type of work?

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

I had more time this weekend to do the veneer part of the guitar,which is a ton of work!I only had one piece of the veneer,but I liked the pattern so much I decided to go ahead and use it.It doesn't have the bookmatched look but I'm liking it alot. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

Zeegler suggested I use contact cement so that's what I did,I just used a wooden block to press it down however and it's nice and flat.

Here's the guitar right after all the pressing :



Then of course after that is cutting of the excess veneer,which takes forever to do with a hobby knife :




I put 2 small slices where the bridge and pickup cavities are right when I glued the veneer on.That lets all the air trapped in (the pickup cavity anyway)to escape and in turn helps the veneer stick better to the sides of the cavities without bubbling up.
Cutting out the cavities :



Lastly,where I'm at right now....all the major cutting and some shape-sanding is about done :

[Evol]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

Finally...




So still lots of sanding left and of course staining and painting the fade soon after....then a month or so for all the laquer to dry [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[VitaminG]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

man, that's looking good! Keep us posted!!

[weapdeth]

Re: new project w/pix suggestions please

[img]images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

its hard to believe thats the same guitar, what did that guy use to route out the volume cavity a spoon??

anyways good job at fixin her up! now paint her up nice and perty and make sure to post more pics [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]