Too many projects thread, aka bits-a-geddon

roberty

Figure I should start my own thread instead of spamming @fretmeister's again (though I must say he was good about it)

High level I'm in the process of replacing a bunch of guitars with bitsas. However, instead of doing one at a time like a normal person I'm doing loads at once for maximum stress

After some false starts I'm beginning to have success finishing necks. This is my patient zero, finished and stripped twice so far:



For my third attempt I freshly sanded the surface and worked the first coat in with some pressure. To me it looks like this opened the fibres and helped pop the figure, there's a dark fuzziness to the grain that wasn't there before, but this could be confirmation bias

On the very first coat after a minute or so I had dry patches appear, so I kept reapplying until there were no dry spots. My thinking was to flood the surface before it polymerised and blocked the entrance

I started using folded up kitchen paper like in the picture to apply my coats. Every other method I tried was a shit show. You can dunk the paper straight in the bottle without decanting so it's tidy and efficient



Things I wish I'd known before I started:

• Wet the surface and don't touch it after that (don't even look at it)
• Best results with at least 3-4 hours between coats, max 3 per day
• If you get oil on your hands mix some cooking oil in before washing, gone instantly

Here are another couple which are pretty much done. I used nitro aerosol for the headstock faces because the decals react badly with oil:



I used Liberon oil on the plain maple to get this nice golden colour:



Once the oil has hardened (a week or so) you can use Renaissance wax on the back to get it extra slick. Amazing stuff

fretmeister

Good stuff!

roberty

First attempt trying to age a pearloid scratchplate. It's different kind of plastic to a normal pickguard and it's not as easy to do

My usual way is to scuff the face with scotchbrite and leave it submerged in Rit synthetic yellow dye for a few hours. The dye isn't cheap but you can decant it back into the bottle when done.

I have this old baking tray I use:



There was no reaction after a few hours so I left it overnight:



When I checked this morning there was still no reaction, so I went nuclear and heated the dye to a simmer on the stovetop:



The dye did take in patches, but it was blotchy and I wasn't able to control where it happened

The main difficult was getting the right temperature, it only seemed to work when it was hot enough to warp the pickguard

I'd come this far so I just went with it, and flattened it best I could afterwards between two plastic bags with a heavy book:



This was the result:



The whites were really bright so I scribbled over it with a graphite pencil and thumbed it into the abrasions

Wasn't sure about the yellow edges so I sanded them with a 120 grit sanding block. I was going to do that anyway to get rid of the cutting marks

This is how it came out:



It's not what I expected but it's not too bad. I've seen old ones with blotchy patterns like this. I think it would have come out better if it had been a yellow/ivory colour to start with

I'm okay with the warping, once it's screwed down it'll look like shrinkage, but I was planning to use it as a drill template which probably isn't a good idea now

WezV

in fairness i had a sheet of pearloid that went just like that  from being left in the sun.  With the right ageing on the body it might just work

roberty

WezV said:

in fairness i had a sheet of pearloid that went just like that  from being left in the sun.  With the right ageing on the body it might just work

Ah okay I didn't think modern stuff would yellow in UV, I can do that too

Went in for round 2 and happier with the result now:

WezV

in fairness, it might have spent 20 years near the window to discolour

thermionic

roberty said:

First attempt trying to age a pearloid scratchplate. It's different kind of plastic to a normal pickguard and it's not as easy to do

My usual way is to scuff the face with scotchbrite and leave it submerged in Rit synthetic yellow dye for a few hours. The dye isn't cheap but you can decant it back into the bottle when done.

I have this old baking tray I use:



There was no reaction after a few hours so I left it overnight:

Great relic job on the baking tray.

roberty

WezV said:

in fairness, it might have spent 20 years near the window to discolour

Or live with a heavy smoker

Light patches from wear seem to be common





I'm quite happy with it after that second go

Lessons learnt:

- prepare a space to squash it flat before you start
- wait until the dye is boiling, then get it in and out fairly quickly

roberty

thermionic said:

roberty said:

First attempt trying to age a pearloid scratchplate. It's different kind of plastic to a normal pickguard and it's not as easy to do

My usual way is to scuff the face with scotchbrite and leave it submerged in Rit synthetic yellow dye for a few hours. The dye isn't cheap but you can decant it back into the bottle when done.

I have this old baking tray I use:


There was no reaction after a few hours so I left it overnight:

Great relic job on the baking tray.

It's roasted

roberty

edit: managed to even it out by scrubbing it down with a 1800 grit polishing cloth and then giving it another quick hot both - there is room for error with this method

roberty

Mustang wiring done. Got an Air Norton S in the bridge and the bridge version of the True Velvet to go in the neck, 6.5k

The True Velvet is staggered meaning the Mustang style cover wouldn't fit. I cut out two small bits of surgical tubing to use as spacers and they seem to be doing the job:



Was going to just do simple tone/vol + 3 way, but I bottled it and added push pulls to the bridge pickup for series/parallel and phase reverse. That means running the signal from the pickguard to the control plate and back to the pickguard again which is what I had originally wanted to avoid:





The ground wire from the jack to the pots is probably unnecessary but only costs a wire

A fixed resistor at the switch corrects the loading for the neck pickup

roberty

Did some decals for a mate. Couldn't resist throwing a wildecard in



Improved my own designs while I was at it. The JM looks a bit naff as is but it's ready to buff now so will crack on with the option to redo later

CasperCaster

roberty said:

edit: managed to even it out by scrubbing it down with a 1800 grit polishing cloth and then giving it another quick hot both - there is room for error with this method

@roberty I'm very much enjoying this thread, and would like to try your dye method for a pickguard - do you have a link to the dye that you used? There are quite a few different ranges on the RIT website, so not sure which one to purchase. Cheers, CasperCaster.

Edit: Is it the 'Daffodil Yellow DyeMore for Synthetics Liquid Dye'

roberty

CasperCaster said:

roberty said:

edit: managed to even it out by scrubbing it down with a 1800 grit polishing cloth and then giving it another quick hot both - there is room for error with this method

@roberty I'm very much enjoying this thread, and would like to try your dye method for a pickguard - do you have a link to the dye that you used? There are quite a few different ranges on the RIT website, so not sure which one to purchase. Cheers, CasperCaster.

Edit: Is it the 'Daffodil Yellow DyeMore for Synthetics Liquid Dye'

Hey mate this was the exact item, sounds like you got the same one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0F48LN167

I've got a feeling it warped slightly during the process so recommend screwing it in first to get the holes in the right place before gently melting it lol. It might be that I was just too aggressive with the heat and a lower temperature will do

I got the idea of maybe screwing it into a thin piece of wood to stop it curling up, but who knows. Could just warp the screw holes

roberty

I got this far with the Mustang:



The wiring fit okay. One thing I would say though is the control cavity is much deeper than cutouts, and getting those fat twists of wires around the body of the push/pull and over the lip of the cavity was touch and go

I do have a slight problem however lol:

It's fine though - I think I know what's happened. Another control plate is on its way

My plan has been to take them in for nuts and frets, but I'm starting to wonder what I could potentially do myself. Probably about time I learnt how to file and dress a nut. I think at the very least I can stick a nut on and string it up so I can get some of the setup out the way, neck angle, trem balance etc

roberty

Didn't realise I'd ordered knobs with glow in the dark indicators - Tayda has them listed as "fluted knobs with shiny line" lol

roberty

For oiling the necks I think the first and last coats are the most important

What I ended up doing was scrubbing them smooth with steel wool, then applying one last coat and leaving to dry for a few days. Then I polished the last coat up to 12k grit with polishing cloths, and finally some renaissance wax

It gets really glossy with the polishing cloths, probably didn't need as many coats as I thought to get them like this:

roberty

Made some progress on the JM aka Jazzdisaster

Test fit last night:



I got the thimbles and ground wires in, then set about ageing the pickguard.

Fresh scratches never look any good on black so I buffed them out with brasso and that worked well. Then I yellowed the edges in boiling dye:



The pickguard did curl up and dye like the last one but I figured out how to straighten it out again. Just squash it flat under something heavy and point a hairdryer at it:



Then I drilled some holes in it for my momentary switches. I made a rubbing of the cavity and stuck it over the guard to help with positioning:



Settled on this:



It looks a bit like it's got warts but I guess there's no way around that. I left enough clearance around the toggle for it to rotate all the way around

The buttons are IDEC brand, made in Japan and rated for 1,000,000 presses lol. The reason I use them though is how they feel - you press them down a little bit and they spring the rest of the way themselves

Next time I will do drilling before ageing in case it goes wrong. That was silly

roberty

@CasperCaster just to warn you the dye says to wear gloves and I would recommend you do based on my hands today. It looks like I've got scurvy

CasperCaster

@roberty thanks for all the tips. Definitely going to have a go at ageing a pickguard soon. The BWB pickguard looks good to. Always difficult to get the right level of scratching on them, so yours looks excellent.

roberty

Cheers @CasperCaster seems to be a process of realising it looks naff then desperately trying to bring it back from the brink. Only a pickguard at the end of the day, plenty of them in the sea