My guitar was a murder weapon

[Akahito]

The neck wreck Epi LP Std. I got off eBay a while ago arrived today. It had the neck split in two, and after a quick evaluation I decided to refinish it along with fixing the neck. So I got immediately to stripping the finish. Took me about five hours to do the whole guitar. Here's some pics along the way:

Stripping the body of poly and black paint


The neck split and truss rod


The back and neck fully stripped


Getting along with the top


To my pleasant surprise, the body was made of only three pieces.


The whole geetar done...


...but wait, what the heck is this?

Someone got hit on the head with this? Or what?

Good thing I'm doing dark green with a stripe down the middle so it won't show much.


The back...


The headstock. The splinters look nasty, but it's actually all there nice and tight.


This is really gonna look badass when I finish it...


...In other local news, this one guy killed another dude by hitting him across the head with an electric guitar. Hope it's not this one, since I'm looking forward to finishing the project.

[djwilbanks]

How do you think the neck got broken off?

[Akahito]

Originally Posted by djwilbanks

How do you think the neck got broken off?

Exactly, hmm... O_o

[Jason]

Crazy... hey, for future reference if you can get some Aircraft Stripper, you can take that finish off in just a few minutes instead of hours... plus you won't mess up the contours of the top with sandpaper.

[klohiq]

i cant believe epi painted over the back of that body...

all these refin threads make me wanna go refinish my epi right now...must wait until i have a backup guitar!!

[The_Sentry]

This is going to be a great thread, Akahito. (I really liked your archtop restoration thread as well....)

[Akahito]

Originally Posted by JasonC

Crazy... hey, for future reference if you can get some Aircraft Stripper, you can take that finish off in just a few minutes instead of hours... plus you won't mess up the contours of the top with sandpaper.

Thanks for the tip. But will that be harmful to other plastics, like the binding?

I don't think I'm much off guessing the guitar was on its way to becoming a plain top burst, but then some sticky-fingers with a red paint gun smudged those stains on the top, and off it went to become an ebony. I wonder how many surprises of this kind we'd find on Agiles...

[AdrielTimothealovesLps]

wowow thats cool i should buy one and attempt to glue it together

[dennistruckdriver]

Originally Posted by Akahito

Thanks for the tip. But will that be harmful to other plastics, like the binding?....

Yes, it will.

[Dan28607]

Wow! That back is amazing!

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Akahito

Thanks for the tip. But will that be harmful to other plastics, like the binding?

Yeah, you have to mask off the binding.

[Dino]

Originally Posted by JasonC

Yeah, you have to mask off the binding.

You have to do more than that ... you have to avoid the binding all together.
Stripper will eat away at the tape, or at the very least, it will seep under it and melt the binding.

Sandpaper may be more labor intensive, but it really is the safest way IMO.

[Akahito]

Right, after three days of tedious sanding I'm about 3/4 through sanding off all the lacquer. The top is going to be a tough challenge, the veneer is indeed thin like paper. It might still be I need to reapply a new veneer and redo the binding at the same, we'll see.

Here's some progress photos, I glued the neck today. Sorry for the horrid photos, I only had my cell phone with me.

Here's what we started with:

I had cleaned the bare wood surfaces, and noticed there was a lot of old glue sept deep in the pores. It was obviosly why the last fix didn't hold, the wood sept up most of the glue, leaving practically none to bind.



Here's my friend, Sasa doing the contours for the neck clamp pieces on the bandsaw. Reason I couldn't do them myself was I'm utilizing my girlfriend's polytechnic school's woodworking side for my projects, but as I'm not myself a student of the school, I'm not allowed to use the machines.


I followed Nelson647's neck fix thread for cues on how to apply even pressure on the break.


Here the clamps go on. I made ultra sure the highest clamp was tight, as there's least wood surface making contact.


And there she rests until tomorrow when I unclamp it and see if I did a horrible job or no.

[-=[Shifty]=-]

Originally Posted by Akahito

...In other local news, this one guy killed another dude by hitting him across the head with an electric guitar. Hope it's not this one, since I'm looking forward to finishing the project.

Well, that would make it an official "Killer" Axe!!

[gaelkuo]

are you going to add a new veneer on it? cool. I thinked about it when I doing my project. But mine is a custom and it's hard to make it smooth on the edge of binding. ( i don't know how to redo the binding.)

[Akahito]

I hope not having to apply a new veneer, but we'll see how the sanding goes when I get around to finishing it. Custom binding is more difficult as it's multi-ply, you really have to do a lot of calculating to get the corners right. But if I'm not mistaken you can get multi-ply binding as is, like two or three ply, which would be easier to use combined than doing each layer separately.

[gaelkuo]

it's why i gave up adding a maple veneer on my custom. Although i like maple veneer better cuz it has light color and strips..would be easy to stained and get good looking...

i've used to add a veneer on a Strat style guitar. Quite easy due to the flat top and no binding. And i just accomplished a Tele style project. I just bought a MIK Tele and stripped the finish off, stained to yellow, made Fender logo on the headstock...haha it looks like a 52' hot rod now and also sounds good. Pretty interesting.

My Les Paul Custom " Shit Burst" is almost done. But i am in Shanghai for a biz trip now. I can't wait to come home and finish all the jobs. Also awaiting for some new process of your project.

[Akahito]

Right, the neck is glued. Seems to hold fine. I also sanded the top now. I gave up on being careful and patient and just buzzed through the lacquer with a palm sander. Worked fine, the veneer is still intact and looking good.

Here's some pics along the way:







The red booboo is also now all gone. This'll be a pretty plain top. Next in line is sanding the sides and staining the wood.

[The Shoe]

I'm going to miss that red spot. Oh the stories you could have told...

Looks like things are moving along. Good show!

[Paul_Cat]

Wow, that's a nasty scar! Definately badass, though

[diceman]

Nice work!

(side note - I thought you were older...)

[Akahito]

Originally Posted by diceman

Nice work!

(side note - I thought you were older...)

...older than..? If you're comparing to my friend there, he's some 7 years younger than me. He goes to the same school as my girlfriend who has already graduated highschool the same time I did, but is now back getting vocational education.

(And thanks! )

[Akahito]

I took the plunge and dyed the top. I dyed once, and noticed I hadn't gotten all of the lacquer out by sanding, and the finish turned spotty. I had to sand it down once more, and this time the dye turned out like I wanted to.


The masking tape had come off in the curves, I know. (-_-) I'm gonna have to go over the binding with fine sand paper before I put any lacquer on it, but before that, I still need to dye the back and neck. More of that later.

[gaelkuo]

oh...my god....GREEN??

[GaloDeBarcelos]

green is different... I wonder how it is going to turn out !

[R.L.]

Cool, looks good.

[Akahito]

Bet you were expecting some kind of reddish burst, huh? It's going to be awesome. Just be patient.

[pawpek]

Originally Posted by Akahito

I took the plunge and dyed the top. I dyed once, and noticed I hadn't gotten all of the lacquer out by sanding, and the finish turned spotty. I had to sand it down once more, and this time the dye turned out like I wanted to.


The masking tape had come off in the curves, I know. (-_-) I'm gonna have to go over the binding with fine sand paper before I put any lacquer on it, but before that, I still need to dye the back and neck. More of that later.

Looks good, my first thought was looks a bit like Rossi's Tele from Status Quo



Nice to see a different colour, I love reading this thread, can't wait to see the finished guitar!

[SlaytanicDude]

Green, pretty original there. If you don't pull it off right, it's gonna end up looking like kurkkusalaatti though (cucumber salad for those who don't know)

[Akahito]

No cucumber salad here, man. I put the parts on it to get an idea of how it'll look when it's finished. Here's what I got:


The matte finish doesn't quite suit it, so if you can imagine that in high gloss, then it's pretty close.

Here's a few more: