New guitar neck

Some pics of the guitar neck I've been working on for the past couple of months. You can clearly see some of the mistakes (look how badly those tuner holes are lined up! Yuck!), but it's been a really good learning exercise so far. Not a comprehensive list, just a few snapshots from the process. As it stands there is maybe an hour or 2 more finish sanding required before it'll be ready for lacquer. Enjoy!

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Grand Angus Project, Part 7: Finishing up

This is going to be a long one, sorry, I'm going to include everything from final sanding up to the finished product.

So, where were we...? Right, we were waiting for the lacquer to cure! And wait we did, for 3 weeks while the lacquer cured. Whilst I'm not 100% convinced the full 3 weeks were necessary (advice online for this type of lacquer is a bit inconsistent), I decided to play it safe.

I whipped out the 1200 grit wet and dry, got myself a bowl of water, added a drop of detergent, and wrapped it 'round a sanding block. I went and got a sort of form flexible sanding block for this, because I didn't think the water would be good for my cork one.

I was pleasantly surprised by how easily the surface of the guitar sanded smooth! When I was trying it before with coarser paper it was taking a whole lot longer to flatten out, but now it was a breeze. Comparatively. The pic on the right shows the back of the guitar, most of it smooth sanded (the lighter, duller bits) and the top part still to be sanded (the darker, shiny bits).

It took a couple of days, on and off, before the whole thing was smooth, but it was still faster than I thought it would be. Once it was done, it was time to crack out the buffer pads!

I had never used these pads before, and suffice it to say I was a little apprehensive. These things can ruin a finish if not used carefully. The pads can get very hot, and they can burn right through the lacquer.

Still, I'm brave, and I was going to give it a crack! The plan was thus: polish once each with medium polish, fine polish, and swirl remover. It was a little unfortunate that I only had 2 sets of pads, so I would do the swirl remover by hand with a cloth.

So with the plan in mind I lathered up the first pad with medium polish and began buffing. Holy shit. It was VERY tricky. I didn't really have the equipment to clamp the guitar, and it would make it hard to buff with a clamp on the body, so it was loose. But if the buffing pad grabbed on to the surface of the guitar it tried to throw it across the room. Getting the pressure right was crucial, and it took a bit of practice to get there. Then....

You should have heard the swearing. It was loud. It was profane. And it didn't even begin to sum up my anger and frustration. That's burn through, right down to bare wood. Through the clear, and through the colour. I was absolutely gutted.

I spent about 3 days after that incident wondering what the hell to do. I had a few options:

1. Try and colour match the red, touch up the hole, re-lacquer. Likelihood of success: Slim-to-nil.
2. Strip the whole guitar back to wood and start the finish again. Time to complete: 2-3 months.
3. Say "fuck it", chalk it up to experience, and keep going.

I went with option 3. I'm not planning on doing anything with this guitar, and perfection was never going to be achieved, so I decided I could live with the blemish. I sanded the melted clear back to smooth.

I was pretty intimidated at this stage to pick the buffing pads back up. What if I just made things worse? I figured the best thing to do would be to pick them back up and try again quickly, or I might be too scared to ever try again.

I think the picture on the right was after finishing buffing with the medium polish. The medium stuff is supposed to get out the tiny scratches left from the final sanding. The fine stuff gets rid of the scratches from the medium polish, and the swirl remover gets it all nice and shiny!

I got through the medium and fine polishes without anymore mishaps! Who rules? Simon rules!

I was then left to do the swirl remover by hand. That was fine, except that by hand I didn't get anywhere near as good results as I did with the buffing pads with the other compounds. That was a shame, because the swirl remover is what gets it REALLY shiny, but I didn't have any clean pads. Before my next build I'll have to buy another set of StewMac buffing pads.

To the left, the first time the fretboard has been clean of tape for a long long time. It's not actually good to leave tape on as long as I did, but it came off fairly smoothly.

I found an issue at this point, though. The joint where the tape met the lacquer on the back of the neck left a fairly sharp edge. Wasn't sure how to fix this, so I tried attacking a small bit on the underside of the fingerboard up near the headstock with some sandpaper. It didn't really work, but I wasn't particularly vigorous. Still haven't sorted that bit out!

With that done, that finish was complete. The finish represented that vast majority of work for the project, so I was pretty keen to knock the rest of it off that night. In hindsight, it may have been beneficial to take it a little slower, but I was excited, dammit!!

I wired up the guitar. That probably took the longest of the remainder of the tasks. Including stripping wire, soldering etc., I probably spent 2-3 hours getting that sorted. I wired everything as per the wiring diagram from the first post. It was evident during this process just how cheap all the components were! If I do another one of these, I'll definitely be upgrading the pots and pickups. Probably the switch too.

Next came the bridge. I had to scrape out the lacquer buildup from within the holes for the bridge/tail piece legs, and then the sleeves fit in beautifully. I was really impressed with how well these pieces fit. It only took a few minutes to screw the bridge and tailpiece in to place.

With that done, all that was left was tuners, pick guard, and strings. A quick adjustment of the truss rod to straighten the neck, and she was ready to be plugged in!

And how did it sound??? Terrible :-)

Thanks for following.

Grand Angus Project, Part 6: Update on some issues

Well I wasn't going to make another post until the guitar was fully cured and I'd started the final sanding and finishing, which (if on schedule) would have only been about a week away. But it's not on schedule, and I wanted to post an update now as to why rather than wait until it's done and do it all retrospectively. Because I'm good like that.

When I last posted I was finishing off the clear coats of lacquer. Or so I thought. I'd done about 7 coats of clear lacquer and went to give it a good old rub down so it would be nice and smooth for the last coat or 2.

I ran some sand paper over the body for 3 or 4 strokes, then looked at the paper, and the dust in the paper was red - the same red as the finish that should be under about 7 coats of clear lacquer. This was me, yeah, "what the f*ck?!" After that many coats, the lacquer definitely should have started to build and the grit coming off the guitar should have been white.

Obviously the lacquer wasn't building as quickly as I expected it to. This meant one of two things; either my expectations were off, or there was something wrong with what I was doing. So I did what any sane person would do; go on the internet and ask strangers for advice.

I hit up the Official Luthiers Forum and asked the question. Advice was fairly unanimous that my 2:1 ratio of lacquer t water was overkill, my lacquer was over thinned and as a result was either all but evaporating or completely soaking in to the wood.

I had to take it back to the beginning for the clear coats. All the coats I had done so far were basically useless. I tried shooting straight lacquer, as someone at OLF suggested, but it wouldn't shoot. Even with the air pressure cranked right up and the spray pattern as narrow and strong as it could be, it barely came out of the gun. Not surprising really, it's winter here and the temperature is not ideal for spraying.

I mixed a new batch, this time at 8:1, a much thicker ratio than before. This time, with a little playing with the settings on my compressor and gun I was able to get a nice spray pattern. My passes had to be a bit slower than before, but no biggie!

I also changed my spray schedule, as per advice at OLF. Instead of spraying 1 coat a day, I sprayed 3-4 coats a day with 1 hour intervals, over a few days. After 7 coats, I took it down and gave it a rough sand. Finally, white residue! That meant the lacquer was finally building. I sprayed another couple of coats, left it a day to dry, and then started sanding. I sanded at 400, 600 and 800 grit. I didn't get it back to perfectly smooth, even after hours of sanding, but it was a lot closer than before I started.

Now I've sprayed 2 more coats, and left them to dry. And that's it! I could probably have given it a couple more coats, but I think it will be fine. I'll give it at least 3 weeks from today before I start wet sanding. I'm hopeful I can go straight to 1000 or 1200 grit with wet sanding, but I think that might end up being ambitious. But we'll see!

That's it for now. See you in about a month!

Grand Angus Project, Part 5: Progress, progress, progress

Well, quite a bit has been happening since my last post! After posting it, I did a recheck of my lacquer levels and realised I had overestimated my stock. Bugger. It meant I had to reassess me next steps, because I didn't have enough to do a full coat; only enough to do some touch ups.

I did what I could, and if I'm honest I think it was a mistake to add any more colour. It was looking pretty good, and the extra coat darkened it (obviously) and I think I overdid a few spots that I think will show up at the end as overcooked.

Still, it was done! The last thing I needed to do before doing the clear lacquer was to paint the front of the headstock black. I taped up the edges of the headstock with masking tape. Made a bit of a boo-boo here, when I didn't tape up the back of the peg holes. I didn't think ahead that paint might run through the peg head to the back of the headstock! I know, idiot... I realised soon enough and taped over the back of the peg holes.

I initially planned to use my old hobby spray gun to paint the face, but it was still playing up. I felt the big gun was overkill, and would end up wasting a bit too much of my limited black paint, so I decided to go old school and went with a brush.

It came out reasonably well. I tried to do it thick enough that I could get away with only applying the 1 coat. Once it was dry I set about sanding it back to smooth.

By the time it was close to smooth I'd opened up a few spots where I had sanded right through the coat. Whoops! Still, not surprising after only 1 coat. Again, I went the shortcut route of trying to patch the spots rather than apply a whole new coat. That ended up being a waste of time, because when I went to sand the touch ups back I opened up some new spots! So I added a whole new coat, then.

That did the trick. I made a bit more of a conscious effort to make that coat as smooth as I could, to simplify the sanding process after and minimise runs or bulges. I also wet sanded this time, rather than dry sand like the last couple of coats. It came out fairly smooth. Smooth enough!

That was it! That was the last piece of colour to go on this guitar! That was a pretty exciting moment. First thing I had to do after that was remove the masking tape from around the headstock.

Faarrrrk... The tape hadn't entirely done it's job. A bit of paint had seeped under the edges of the tape almost the whole way around, and at 1 point the tape had actually removed a tiny bit of the red finish. In hindsight, and if I had the patience, I probably should have let the red coats cure before taping over them. But that would mean adding 3 week to the schedule. Wasn't very keen on that idea!

I used a fingernail to scrape off the paint that had run under the masking tape. Worked alright, but I scratched a bit in to the red in some points. Unfortunate, but the imperfections are tiny... in this are, anyway!

Still, I had to move on. I'd taken delivery of a huge tub of lacquer. The same as the stuff I used for the coloured coats, but about 5 times as much! Although it was the same product, it seemed quite a bit thicker, and I didn't think it would spray very well as it was. So I used an empty jar to mix a 2-to-1 ratio of lacquer and water, respectively, to thin it.

I needed to spend some time with my spray gun to get the jet right. Until this point, the jet was too strong and the coats were spotting. This is evident in the colour coats, unfortunately, but for the clear that wasn't an option. I opened the jet right up, and sprayed a bit on some scrap wood. It was looking much better.

After that, I was able to spray from about 8-12 inches away, which is how you should be able to spray! I did the front of the guitar and the face/sides of the headstock while holding the guitar in my hand, then hung it up on the rig to do the back.

The photos make it look better than it does, if I'm honest, but I still think it's looking alright! Above you can see where the colour is a bit thin - namely, the middle of the neck - and where it's a bit thick - around the horns. The photos above and to the right show the guitar after the first coat of clear lacquer. Until it dries I won't have a fair idea of how the coat has settled. When it first went on it looked a bit orange peel-ish, but my test piece had that as well and came up - if anything - a bit thin.

Come tomorrow morning I should have a reasonable idea of how it's coming along! Then I'll get another coat of clear on it before running away for the weekend. I'll be back on Monday to do 1 more coat, and then hopefully that will be it!

Once the clear lacquer coats are finished, I'll have to leave it for 3 weeks to cure. That means there won't be many (if any) blog posts for a while. I'll be back when it's cured for final sanding and polishing. Til then, though, thanks for stopping by!

Grand Angus Project, Part 4: It's all about the depth, man...

I've been a bit busy since my last post, painting away. I had a finite amount of lacquer, and I was desperately hoping that I could complete the colour coats with what I had.

You might recall I was having some issues with my little spray gun? Well, I wasn't about to let that get in my way, so I went out and did about the manliest thing that it's possible to do and bought an air compressor and a gravity fed spray gun!

It. Was. Awesome.

I was spraying away furiously, like some sort of spraying machine, adding layers of lacquer in a desperate bid to get the guitar to take on the desired colour. But, as you can see from the image on the right, even after 3 coats the colour just wasn't deepening.

It was obvious that there wasn't enough of the ColorTone stuff in the lacquer. You could see the red/brown of the combined cherry and mahogany reds, but it was way too faint and just not good enough.

It was time to rethink. I'd used between 2/3 and 3/4 of the lacquer, I'd estimated, which meant I would be looking at a maximum of 2 more coats before I ran out. If I wanted to get the colour I was looking for with the lacquer I had left, I was going to have to increase the concentration of the ColorTone. By a lot.

So that's what I did, dammit! You may recall there were about 40 drops of colour in the lacquer before I started? Well, I added about a million. A relatively even spread between the cherry and mahogany reds, maybe a little bias to the mahogany as the original ratio went that way. I added colour until the mix was almost black in the jar. To the left are the before and after shots.

With a better mix of colour I set about getting the first of what would (hopefully) be 2 coats of a better, deeper colour.

Then I hit an issue. The new spray gun, with the fancy compressor, wasn't spraying properly. The spray was sporadic and thin. Clearly there was a blockage somewhere, and my cleaning job after each usage had been inadequate (to say the least).

It took a while, and in testing used quite a bit more lacquer than I would have liked, but after disassembling the whole spray gun I found and cleared the blockage. Obviously, is was some dried lacquer that was deep inside the gun. I did get a coat on to the front of the guitar, though, while I was struggling with it. The results can be seen below.

The coat I got on the front was a tad heavier than I intended, so rather than spin it around and do the back straight away I decided to lay the guitar down on a workbench with the wet side up to minimise the chance of any runs. I think that was a good move, because the coat on the front ended up looking really nice and quite rich.

Whilst the colour that came out wasn't quite as dark a red as I was shooting for, I'm actually quite happy with the shade. The red is a bit deeper than it looks in the picture, but comparing it to the picture above you can tell how much richer it is than before. I think the flame top is showing up quite nicely. I still have no idea if it's actual maple or not...

On the lacquer front, after doing the first side of the guitar I was still going OK; it's starting to look like I might get 2 full coats. I had done the front a couple of days ago, and tonight hung up the guitar to do the back, the sides, and the headstock.

The back is always a bigger job, at least with a set neck, because you have to do the back of the neck as well. At this stage I had cleaned the gun completely, and as a result the lacquer was flowing much stronger and heavier. This wasn't actually very helpful, and the coat ended up being quite heavy, and began to spot as soon as it hit the wood. It was very tricky, because I felt if I stood ay further back the lacquer would dry before hitting the guitar, and even then it was too heavy.

After every few passes of spray I could see spots forming and excess build up, so I used a rag to lightly pat down the lacquer to try and get rid of it. I dabbed lightly, being careful not to actually wipe, and cleaned up what I could. It seemed to work OK. After I had done the whole back, the sides and the headstock, I took the guitar off the painting rig and laid it dry-side-down on the work bench, and used a rag to tidy up the excessively thick bits that were quite spotty.

This presents me with something of a problem. I have enough lacquer left for 1 more coat of colour, but if it goes on as spotty and heavy as this coat I find it unlikely that I could get a very smooth consistent coat. Ideally I would spend some time figuring out the right settings on the gun and the compressor to get a perfect spray, but I don't have the lacquer to spare.

So that's an issue. If you have any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.

But as you can see, the colour is looking heaps deeper, and is starting to look more like a proper guitar. I'm pretty happy with the depth, and how it's showing through, and if I can get 1 more clean coat before adding the clear I think it's going to look pretty rad.

'Til next time..

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.