New guitar incoming for finishing and assembly

ThePrettyDamned

Recently, @GSPBASSES posted a picture of a guitar sitting "in the corner of the workshop in disgrace" because of a couple of minor issues. Some PMs were exchanged and I'm going to buy it. I'm very excited! 

Photo borrowed from Graham - I hope you don't mind!



So, what is it? 

It's a Les Paul Junior Special-ish - it has been drilled for a wraparound bridge and routed for the usual volume and tone control layout. It has a quilt maple top, mahogany body and mahogany neck, and the back will be carved away for upper fret access. 

Those of us lucky enough to know Graham's work know that he produces amazing instruments - this will be my fourth - so I'm very excited about this. The two flaws on this are:

- a filled hole on the back from a stray drill bit. 

- a bit of damage under the neck pickup to the maple cap. 

So, what are my high-level thoughts on this? (all subject to change!) 

- prep body and neck. 
- grain fill the mahogany with a deep golden brown or reddy coloured grain filler. 
- dye/stain the maple cap - I'm planning on using chestnut spirit stains rainbow pack to be able to experiment on some offcuts.
- use chestnut acrylic sanding sealer and denib. 
- finish with chestnut acrylic lacquer, probably several coats sanded flat each time. 
- run through microfine sandpaper and polish to a nice gloss.

The finish will be tested ahead of time on offcuts a lot, I really want to get this right and it's fair to say my finishing skills have improved drastically over time (proportionate to the time and effort put in) but this is a real step up from last efforts. 

Hardware I'm still thinking. It'll have standard vintage style tuners because they work and look good, pickups will need to have a bit of a think though - I want quite pokey ones I think, maybe a Duncan custom 5 and JN, or maybe a custom custom. We'll see. I'm also slightly tempted to try the alumitone pickups from lace, but I'm not sure whether I'll like the sound... 

The bridge - well, I could just go with a vintage style one but I'd rather it have excellent intonation. I'm looking at the abm3024na or the wraptonate bridge that @FelineGuitars sells. It'll need to have a lot of travel for intonation, and I think I'll need advice on this as well as a lot of careful measuring. Post holes are 11mm, so the abm bridge may need me to enlarge the holes for the 13mm post hole thingies. It'll be a while before I make this decision but any advice appreciated from forum experts!

So, given I don't even have the guitar yet, why am I starting the thread? 

I'm going to document everything. So, over the next couple of weeks I'll get the stains and top coats, and experiment on some maple and mahogany offcuts. Ebay probably has some, but if anyone on here has any figured maple or mahogany offcuts they want rid of, let me know! I'd be very grateful. 

The neck will probably be rubbed down to satin for comfort. I don't like glossy necks.

Lastly, electronics will be simple - one tone, two volume probably with a three way. No coil tap or anything, just solid, simple and effective.

It also gives me a chance to prove myself at scraping binding. My last attempt started great but the binding was damaged when my father knocked the guitar to the floor and it never looked the same... So any tips on tools for this will be appreciated (I used a Stanley knife last time, but may get a scalpel this time for ease of handling). 

Phew! I'm off to buy some supplies... Wish me luck. It'll be a long thread. 

paulnb57

Watching with interest, Im home tomorrow from holiday and will pay Graham for an all Rosewood Tele. Like you I have some previous GSP builds, all superb…. 

Corvus

I've got some mahogany bits you can have Paul, not sure on flame maple though - used loads a bit ago trying a new spray idea out. Might be able to rescue some though.
Give me a shout when you're ready to rifle the bins : )

JMS96

paulnb57 said:

Watching with interest, Im home tomorrow from holiday and will pay Graham for an all Rosewood Tele. Like you I have some previous GSP builds, all superb…. 

I too am in the queue for an all rosewood tele. Not sure about the finish yet. Need to get this right.

ThePrettyDamned

Corvus said:

I've got some mahogany bits you can have Paul, not sure on flame maple though - used loads a bit ago trying a new spray idea out. Might be able to rescue some though.
Give me a shout when you're ready to rifle the bins : )

That is incredibly generous of you. Thank you - I'll drop you a pm this evening  

paulnb57

JMS96 said:

paulnb57 said:

Watching with interest, Im home tomorrow from holiday and will pay Graham for an all Rosewood Tele. Like you I have some previous GSP builds, all superb…. 

I too am in the queue for an all rosewood tele. Not sure about the finish yet. Need to get this right.

At the risk of derailing this thread, I also have an all Rosewood Strat which I finished with just 1 coat of Tru Oil which just sealed the slightly porous part of the grain, wipe on wipe off done, silky smooth…

paulnb57

@ThePrettyDamned ;
Have a look a BigD on You Tube, go back to some earlier vids, he has done a lot of staining on figured tops..

https://www.youtube.com/user/thebigdguitars

ThePrettyDamned

So I've opted to try sealing the body with cellulose sanding sealer spray from chestnut. This will hopefully prevent the dye from moving. I'll then try @Andyjr1515 method for wipe-on rustins. Obviously lots of testing going to be happening over the coming weeks and months, but I'll make sure it's all documented. 

ThePrettyDamned

Holy moly. Look at this.

 
So like... That's incredible.

I'm slightly terrified of drilling the control cavity holes but planning on going very simple - two volume, one tone and 3 way toggle. I might even just have two volume and a 3 way toggle as I don't really use the tone knob much... 

I need to fill a small imperfection in the top - @WezV maybe you have ideas on how this is best achieved? It's very small... Maybe 1mm deep, more like a scratch. I wondered if I could "slurry" something in, but I really don't want to negatively impact that top. 

As usual, Graham's work is outstanding. The heel carve is lovely, and the binding is flawless too. Frets are beautifully set in and there is even a bone nut fitted. 

Pickups are from @monquixote and they are a dimarzio tone zone and air Norton, but the wires may be just a tiny bit short. I expect I'll just solder a 2 inch extension to the ones that matter, and shrink wrap the join. 

So... First job at the weekend - practice grain filling and test some stains! 

davros

That's an impressive top!

For scraping binding I get an offcut of pickguard material, but anything would do, an old credit card for example. Then double sided tape a brand new stanley blade, with the point sticking out about 1.5mm. The pickguard plastic runs along the side of the body, acting as a depth stop. It gives you some control over depth too as tilting from side to side increases or decreases the depth of cut a little.

The key I found out is to scrape as soon as it's touch dry, no more than an hour especially on a hot day (that's with nitro).

monquixote

Ooo looks like the pickups are going to a very blingy home!

WezV

Is it round the fill, or somewhere else.    Maple is a pig for getting a matching filler.  Dust and glue will go a lot darker.   Natural wood filler stays closer in colour, but can reflect light quite differently to the wood.

I would use a pickguard on this as it will make the straight line of that fill almost totally dissappear.

ThePrettyDamned

WezV said:

Is it round the fill, or somewhere else.    Maple is a pig for getting a matching filler.  Dust and glue will go a lot darker.   Natural wood filler stays closer in colour, but can reflect light quite differently to the wood.

I would use a pickguard on this as it will make the straight line of that fill almost totally dissappear.

@WezV The fill will be visible, no doubt, but I don't really mind that to be honest. I might look into a scratch plate, but it'd be a shame to cover any of that top! 

It's a small scratch a couple of inches under the right most bridge hole. Very very small, maybe 6mm long and 1mm deep. My first thought was to use dust and wood glue but perhaps filler is a better option in this case, it's small enough that I don't think it'll be a compete tragedy.

Honestly, I wasn't considering a scratchplate but it is a flat top and might look okay - could get a cream one to match the binding. Hmm. It'll need to be a custom job, any idea where I might find one?

Edit: that said, honestly, I think it won't be too bad with just a humbucker ring. I will need to mock it up though. 

ThePrettyDamned

Oh, just another note - I didn't take a photo, but even the mahogany back on this looks nice. It's going to be a seriously pretty guitar. 

ThePrettyDamned

First thought for control cavity.

 two volume, one toggle. 

Looks a bit cramped - I am aiming for something a bit like the buckethead layout. I may also have a momentary killswitch, as I wear out toggles otherwise! Not sure where I would put it, though...

Erring away from a scratchplate for now. It would cover the repair better, but I really like the clean, simple look of pickup rings on the flat body. May change my mind. On the plus side, the cream rings match the cream binding absolutely perfectly so that's nice. 

I need to extend my pickup wires though - they're too short to reach the switch unless the switch is at the top, which I don't think would work for me as a player!

paulnb57

If it were me I would put the volume at the top front position and the tone at the bottom rear, switch top rear, then if in future you want to go to two vols and two tones, you would only have to drill 2 holes and there would be room
Where s the scratch? Can you not sand the whole top until it disappears?

I would stain the top black, then sand it back, until the black stain remains in the more porous parts of the figure and the less porous would go lighter stain the colour of choice to make the figure pop, then lacquer/oil whatever

Big D on youtube does this a lot…

ThePrettyDamned

paulnb57 said:

If it were me I would put the volume at the top front position and the tone at the bottom rear, switch top rear, then if in future you want to go to two vols and two tones, you would only have to drill 2 holes and there would be room
Where s the scratch? Can you not sand the whole top until it disappears?

I would stain the top black, then sand it back, until the black stain remains in the more porous parts of the figure and the less porous would go lighter stain the colour of choice to make the figure pop, then lacquer/oil whatever

Big D on youtube does this a lot…

I'll be doing lots of finish tests - one I fancy trying is yellow - sand back - blue to see if I can get a blue/green, but I need to test. I'm sure it's not straightforward. BigD is a good recommendation - I've also found some prs videos and prana custom guitars have a very long video that discusses a lot of ideas, pros and cons etc. Lots of testing to be done! 

The control cavity is tricky - i won't have a tone control though for sure, I never use it on humbuckers. You might be right on the layout, but I just want to make sure it's all comfortable to use. My big one is whether I drill a fourth hole for a momentary switch.

The scratch is below the treble side bridge hole, a couple of inches or so below. It's very small so I may be able to mostly sand it out, but we'll see. 

ThePrettyDamned

In fact, I could go volume, 3 way and momentary switch. I think that would be absolutely fine for me - volume easy reach, momentary second easy (maybe in place of bridge pickup volume) and 3 way in the bridge tone position.

Will have a more detailed think when I'm actually measuring it all up. 

paulnb57

Perhaps the scratch could steam out?

ThePrettyDamned

paulnb57 said:

Perhaps the scratch could steam out?

Ooo hadn't considered that. Worth a try! 

ThePrettyDamned

Decided to go for either gotoh sd90 tuners (about £30 for nickel ones) or, maybe, kluson revolutions.

As I'm likely to be tuning this to D standard, I wonder whether the klusons (with their higher ratio of 19:1) might make tuning smoother and easier. However, they come in at nearly double the price - has anyone had any experience of the klusons? 

I've had gotoh sd90s (on my jazzmaster) and they are excellent so maybe I should save the money. 

In any case, I'll be going for non-locking tuners. This will be a very simple guitar, hardware wise. 

Edit: after expert advice, plumped for trusty gotoh sd90 tuners in nickel with nice metal buttons. Should look classy and understated, and last well - my jazzmaster has sd90s in gold and they're fantastic so I have high hopes.