Grand Angus Project, Part 3: The right tool

Part 3 of this series will cover the prep for painting and the first coat of paint. Before I could start painting I had to come up with a way to protect the area where I was painting from over spray. Ideally I'd have a booth to paint in, well ventilated and sturdy, but I don't have the space, so instead I made the decision early that it would be a temporary structure that could be taken down/put back up when necessary.

I decided to go with a drapery type thing suspended from the ceiling. I got a long piece of PVC and a couple of corner pieces from Bunnings, cut up the long bit and made a U-shape for a frame. I kept a longer fourth piece as a cross beam that would be used to support the guitar. A couple of screws on the of the short pieces act as a guide to stop the cross piece sliding all over the place, and a couple of screws on either end of the cross piece stop it slipping through the middle. Genius, right?! 2 coat hangers suspend the guitar from the cross piece.

A sheet of painter's plastic taped around the edge hangs down to provide protection from over spray, and string is attached to all 4 corners meeting at a keyring directly above the cross piece. It's closer to the front than the back to sit above the guitar, making it nice and level when the guitar is suspended. It sits a little awkward when there's no guitar on there, because the weight is predominantly at the back, but that's no big deal.

So, the painting rig is done. Before I can actually paint, though, I want to get rid of any loose grain. I rubbed the guitar down lightly with water to raise the loose grain, and then lightly sanded the whole thing with fine grit sandpaper; maybe 1200-1600 grit. Nice and smooth!

Now I need some paint! Well, I'm not using paint per se, but lacquer. I was going to paint with regular paint and then coat it with clear lacquer, but ended up deciding on tinted lacquer instead. I ordered a pint of water based spraying lacquer from StewMac.com and 2 bottles of ColorTone liquid stain; 1 cherry red and one red mahogany.

I emptied the whole can of lacquer in to a jar and started adding drops of ColorTone, testing now and again on a piece of scrap wood. The photo to the left shows the first test mix - 6 drops of cherry red, 12 drops of red mahogany. I wanted a darker red, but with a bit of the cherry to brighten it up. I sprayed a test of that mix and it was too weak - almost clear - so I added more ColorTone. The final mix was 25 drops red mahogany, 17 drops cherry red.

With that done, I loaded up the little hobby spray gun I bought a while ago in preparation for this project. Things started off well. Before hanging it up on the rig, I held it myself and painted the edges and back of the headstock, because those bits would be hard to get to once it was hanging up.

My spray gun is tiny, but the paint pot is even smaller. The first pot got through 1 pass of the headstock and most of the neck. Obviously this was going to be a bit of a pain in the arse. What made it a major pain in the arse was when the gun stopped spraying. That happened on the third pot.

I assumed the nozzle that feeds the paint was clogged, so I took it apart and cleaned it. That didn't help. Next I took the whole feeding mechanism apart and cleaned that, but still it wouldn't spray cleanly. Later I found a tiny hole that is presumably used to feed air in to the paint pot, so I cleared that hoping it might make it flow, but it still wouldn't flow cleanly.

In the end, I managed to complete 1 pass; not even a full coat. It was frustrating, although I'm reasonably happy with the consistency of what I did get done. What's also annoying is that 1 pass used almost my entire can of propellant, so even if the gun starts working again I'll likely only get half another pass before needing another can. So, do I get another can of propellant and hope the gun starts playing nice? Or do I bite the bullet and go buy an air compressor and a more appropriate gun? Still haven't decided yet.

It was about this time I realised my mistake; I'd used the entire can of lacquer, meaning that there was no clear stuff left for the clear coats at the end. No big deal though, I wasn't expecting the 1 can to get through the whole project. I'll order some more soon. A bigger can.

The photos don't show it too well, but the colour is a brownish red, consistent with the 2 different ColorTone tints used. If I'd been able to finish the coat the colour would be darker.

That's where it's up to at the moment. Tomorrow or the next day I'll probably run some sandpaper over it lightly, but mainly I'll be deciding how to approach the rest of the painting, because at the moment it's fairly evident that I don't have the right tool for the job.

Grand Angus Project, Part 2: Shaping the head

My objective going in to today was to complete 2 things; shape the headstock and glue the neck to the body. It turned out the template I had for the neck shape was slightly too small, which made it difficult to use. So, rather than just trace the outline, I used the template as a guide and drew the shape on the headstock in pencil.

The first step was to get the rough shape cut out, before starting to make it pretty. I used a triangle file to cut out the dip in the middle, then clamped the neck to the little work bench to do the edges.

With the neck in place I used a jigsaw to cut the (very) rough outline (thanks for the loan, Stu!). This worked fine, although I stayed well away from the lines which left me with a fair bit to file and sand. That was intentional, because I'm not particularly confident with the jigsaw.

Once the rough cutting was done I used a bastard file to get the shape closer to the finished product. I filed almost to the line at several places along each of the curved sections before attacking it with sandpaper. I used 240 grit sandpaper, which left the surface a lot smoother than I expected.

The shape was too awkward to use a sanding block, so I would pinch the sandpaper between my thumb and the wood and use my other hand to drag the paper through, which resulted in clean smooth strokes along the natural curve. This took a while (read: hours!), but the result was quite good. See below, the right hand side after sanding and the left hand side after filing but before sanding

With the right hand side complete, I attacked the left. The challenge was now not just making the sides curve smoothly, but make the curvature symmetrical. Or at least, as close to symmetrical as I was able.

The left side probably took a little longer than the right. As well as the issue of trying to get it to match the right hand side, I also found that my sanding hadn't been particularly even on this side and the shape at the back edge was quite a bit different to the front, so I had to spend some time doing a bit of cleanup work there. No biggie though. In the end, I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.


It's not a perfect replica; if you were to compare it to a legitimate Gibson headstock you'll see the curvature has a lower profile on mine. I'm not terribly concerned about that, though. I'm actually pretty chuffed with the way it came out, considering my lack of knowledge or experience about this sort of thing.

Anyway, once the headstock was finished it was time to glue the neck. This was the part that I had been least looking forward to in the lead up to this project, as screwing up here could ruin the whole thing. I was therefore pretty relieved when I first placed the neck in to the slot in the body; it fit like a glove. Beautifully snug with no room for movement meant that I couldn't possibly screw up the left/right alignment of the neck. All I had to do was make sure the tang (or tenon) was flat against the body.

To prepare for gluing, I lay some cardboard over the work bench where the guitar will be lying to protect from surface imprints on the guitar when it's clamped. I then lathered the neck cavity with wood glue. A point on the glue I'm using, it's some stuff I picked up from Bunnings that's supposed to be epic strong, but I admit I have some concerns. I consider this as possibly a weak link that may reveal it's ugly head later on... Fingers crossed, hey!?

With the glue in place it was time to place the neck. It was a big moment. I was a bit excited, if I'm honest. I placed the neck in the cavity, making sure it was tight and flat. I then placed another piece of cardboard over the end of the fingerboard and a piece of scrap wood on top of that as a surface for the clamp.

I clamped the bit of scrap wood and the underside of the bench, making a sort of bench-cardboard-guitar-neck-cardboard-wood sandwich, and proceeded to clean up the leaking glue (of which there was plenty).

I did have a bit of a moment where I was concerned the neck might not be in there flat, so I unclamped to check, but I think that was just paranoia. I re-clamped and have now left it to set overnight.

I am pleased I got done everything I wanted to today. Once the neck is set the next step will be to tape over everything I don't want paint on. To do a good job of that means spending the time to do it properly, so I might tackle that task tomorrow. After that will be time to paint. Unlikely I'll get to that this weekend - maybe next week! That will likely be the biggest adventure of all.

Grand Angus Project, Part 1: Confessions of a 20-something luddite

People who know me know I have an unhealthy love of guitars. Those who know me well also know that I'm completely useless at any sort of manual task. Despite this minor issue, I'm embarking on an adventure to build a guitar from scratch. Well.... almost from scratch; the lads at http://www.guitarkitsdirect.com have done me the service of completing all of the major wood work.

The guitar is shaped in the style of a Gibson SG. The body is basswood, the neck is maple, and the fingerboard is rosewood. So in general, cheap quality, but as is to be expected for the (very good) price.

First thing's first: inspecting the contents of the package. The first glaring omission is any sort of instructional documentation. Luckily I'm a man and therefore wouldn't have used it anyway... psych! I would have found a wiring diagram particularly useful, and an absence of one left me feeling immediately apprehensive. Still, using my Google fu I managed to track down quite a good diagram online. This should be a sufficient resource.

The next thing I noticed was that the headstock is unfinished. The squared off top isn't a particularly aesthetically pleasing option. Ideally, the headstock will be shaped something like this. Not sure yet how I'll do it, but I'll shelve that issue for now!

Otherwise, the headstock and neck are quite pleasant. The neck itself has a fairly low profile and seems like it would be a comfortable neck to play. The inlays look decent enough, although the dots on the neck binding aren't particularly impressive, and the choice of black for the nut was... interesting.

The major issue with the neck, though, is at the other end; the neck joint. In the first picture above, you can see the tang is the full width of the fretboard. This itself isn't a major problem, although not exactly typical.

From the image on the left, you can see the edge of the fretboard sitting quite high above the body - probably 3mm-4mm - and the taper of the heal doesn't start until 10mm-15mm past the point where the neck meets the body.

Here's how the fretboard should look against the face of the body.

And here is how a well made heal looks against the body.

This leaves me with a bit of a dilemma; do I try and fix these issues, or leave them be? Truth be told, there are genuine SG's out there with neck joints like this, but they aren't particularly desirable. Should that bother me though, considering I'm not exactly planning to sell it? The tang isn't especially thick, so trying to shave some off to lower the fretboard closer to the body could weaken the joint. I will have to have a think about that..

So, where to begin!? The first step in the project is to glue the neck to the body. This has to be done prior to painting, or else chances are high the neck finish won't perfectly match the body, resulting in an ugly clash. This doesn't leave a lot of time for contemplating fixes to the neck joint. At this stage, I expect I will leave it as is.

Before finishing can commence, I'll have to do something about the headstock. I have got my hands on a headstock template, which may help to figure out the approach. It will take some planning, though...

Once the neck is glued and the headstock shaped, I will use masking tape to cover the fretboard and all the body cavities in preparation for finishing, but we'll cover that next time.

As it stands, I really don't know what I'm doing. As my first guitar, this will largely be a learning exercise, but that's what makes it exciting. If this project goes off without a hitch I will be very (VERY) surprised, as for a significant portion of the work (all of it, really) I'll be winging it. At the least, it should make for a fun blog series! Stay tuned.