Firebird -"ish" build

[pshupe]

Thanks guys. I'm definitely doing more clear. Before I wet sanded most of the top and back I thought there would be more pores not filled, so drop filling may be a solution. I will touch up the burst and then spray some more clear and then see what's what. That is one thing I keep forgetting. That I can drop fill the areas. I seem to just keep sanding then burn through. I'll try and make a mental note.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Back in the booth. I touched up the burst, which went well. Now just spraying some clear coats. I'm using a friend's HVLP turbine setup. It doesn't atomize quite as fine as my detail gun but once the clear goes over top it seems to melt the colour and it blends it out nicely. Here is a shot after the colour touch up-

I'm just heading over to do my last coats today. I've done a 3 day schedule of 3 coats per day. I sanded in between days and it seems to keep the orange peel at a minimum.

After day 2 before sanding -

after sanding -

So I wet sanded with 400 grit. My second round of spraying was quite thick and I got a couple of runs, so I went with a pretty aggressive grit sandpaper. I will be spraying a few more coats then let it sit to cure for a while. Apparently this is "quick cure" nitro as it recommends 5 - 7 days before buffing out.

**NOTE - I wanted to post a couple of pics regarding the difference between shiny with an uneven surface and matte with a flat surface because recently I have seen posts regarding finish sanding that seem a little strange. These posts show pictures of a glossy but not flat surface and the OP has said they have worked through grits to a very fine level. I might touch on this a bit more when I get to finish sanding but this is the concept: Note the first blow up of the guitar body above. It is very shiny. This is what it looks like right after it is sprayed and possibly after it has finished curing or drying / shrinking. If you want a flat glass like surface you wet sand with a lower grit sand paper, like 400 grit, and sand until the whole surface is like the second blow up shot. It should be a matte finish or cloudy looking and you should not see any shiny places.

Here is a pic of the shiny spots to which I am referring -

If you see shiny spots you are not done sanding at that grit level. Be careful at this point because if the lower spots are very low you could sand through the clear finish into the colour and then you have a problem, like I did.

Here -

This is why I had to touch up the colour and re-spray my clear coats.

Once the whole guitar is that matte finish without any shiny spots you can then move up a grit. I usually go from 400 - 600 - 800 - 1000 - 1200 - 1500. It takes the longest to level sand with the coarsest grit but once it's level moving up the grits goes quite quickly. For instance, it could take you a couple or even a few hours to level sand your whole guitar, but maybe 10 - 15 mins to go through each grit. The idea is to sand out the sanding scratches from the previous grit making the finish more shiny. With my 600 grit I would start sanding in one direction then when all the scratches are going that direction you can move to the next grit. Rotate the direction of your sanding by 90 degrees and sand until all the scratches are going the same way. Continue with this method through all the grits. Once you finish sanding you can go to a buffing wheel or some sort of polishing pads with sanding compound or even a scratch remover product. This will give you a very shiny glass like finish that will be completely flat.

Cheers Peter.

PS - I use naptha as the wet component. I have used water in the past and unless you seal all the holes really well it can get in and expand the wood and crack your finish

 

[TheHarleyMan2]

I was going to say leave it and just relic it, but I hadn't been here in a while. Looks good Peter!

 

[pshupe]

I was going to say leave it and just relic it, but I hadn't been here in a while. Looks good Peter!

Yeah - that could have been an option. I think this wood choice would look good slightly relic'd. It will get banged up enough on it's own though.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Ok back from the spray booth after final clear. The orange peel looks to be at a minimum which is great. This is quick dry nitro so I should be able to sand and buff next week. Then electronics and setup and I'm finally done with this build. Thanks for your patience. ;-)

a couple of pics of the finish on the final clear -

Cheers Peter.

 

[valvetoneman]

Let us know how it sounds because it looks bloody great, I'd love to have a go at one when I've got more time, very cool guitars

 

[pshupe]

So I got some more time on this one. I wish I would have had some time to wet sand but no such luck. I went over to a friend's shop and I straightened out the neck with a slight truss rod adjustment and taped off the board. I think his process is similar to mine and we have pretty much the same tools, so that was good. Marked the tops with a sharpee and levelled with a long fine flat file. Didn't have to take too much off, which was great. Then marked again and use the diamond fret file to crown the frets. Daniel gave me a tip around this and ended up almost completely taking care of dressing the ends at the same time.

I used the Stew Mac erasers from 400 - 800 - 1200 which worked well then onto the Stew Mac fret polishing wheels. Took off the tape and grabbed a bone nut and marked with a flat pencil off the fret tops, and edges and then filed down to shape in a little vice.

Got it most of the way there and glued it in with a couple of very small drops of CA glue. Used the string spacing guide and marked and cut the slots leaving it very high for now.
Installed the tuners and tailpiece and bridge and the E strings and strung it up. Now I just have to find some more time to adjust for action and I'm a little closer to finishing this thing up.

On the wall until the next instalment.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Bought some more supplies. I was out of naptha so off to Canadian Tire. I found some solid cork trivets and thought I'd make some new sanding blocks and got out my stock of wet sandpaper -

Hopefully this won't take too long as the surface is pretty flat thanks to sanding inbetween days.

Regards Peter.

 

[lowatter]

Pm'd

BTW...awesome build!

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

looking sharp, mate.

 

[pshupe]

Ah Canadian Tire. The Sears and Auto Zone of Canada. I worked at their headquarters in Toronto MANY years ago in the advertising department at Young and Eglington if I remember correctly. I used to do paste up, design and camera work for the catalogs and flyers etc. It was so long ago that one of the hot sellers was Commodore computers before the Commodore 64!
I lived in a high-rise(completely round tower near Queen street I think) and commuted by subway to a high-rise and did a lot of my shopping at the under ground mall under the Canadian tire building. Now I live way out in the country 20 miles from a city...suits me just fine.

BTW...awesome build!

Yes - unfortunately I do a lot of training in Toronto. I live about 40 mins away in a medium sized city, large by Canadian standards. But it can take me 2 hrs each way in rush hour. Not fun. Canadian Tire is great it would compete with a small Walmart here in Canada with more Automotive stuff.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

looking sharp, mate.

Thanks FDP - Home stretch now just have to finish a setup and wet sand and buff. Bought some new tools and should get to that today or in a few days as my daughter has a swim meet this morning.

Cheers Peter.

 

[lowatter]

Yes - unfortunately I do a lot of training in Toronto. I live about 40 mins away in a medium sized city, large by Canadian standards. But it can take me 2 hrs each way in rush hour. Not fun. Canadian Tire is great it would compete with a small Walmart here in Canada with more Automotive stuff.

Cheers Peter.

Pm'd

 

[fatdaddypreacher]

well as far as new tools are concerned, it won't be long before i try out that very nice inlay template guide I picked up from you recently. can't hardly wait.

 

[pshupe]

You're in Hamilton right? I was born there(if you didn't already know). Went to Mohawk College in Brantford...the home of Wayne Gretsky. I live in South Carolina now.

Yes Hamilton - just over 30 years now. I went to Mohawk College, Fennel Campus. I might have known a while back but have forgotten. ;-)

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

well as far as new tools are concerned, it won't be long before i try out that very nice inlay template guide I picked up from you recently. can't hardly wait.

Cool - Let me know how it works out.

Cheers Peter.

 

[lowatter]

Yes Hamilton - just over 30 years now. I went to Mohawk College, Fennel Campus. I might have known a while back but have forgotten. ;-)

Cheers Peter.

Pm'd

 

[pshupe]

set you a pm.

So onto the setup. I didn't get around to wet sanding on the weekend. It was my anniversary and my daughter had a swim meet. I did get a bit of time to work on the setup. I had marked the string spacing so I adjusted the depth of the string slots for a decent action. I filed the E & e saddles because my fret board is a little wider than standard and I had to stretch the strings over a bit to have them nice and parallel. I slotted both E saddles and also slotted all the strings to about the right depth in the nut.

Here is the guitar strung up with my new gauge nut slotting files. Lee Valley had an acoustic set but they are pretty close. I think I will order a few of the other sizes so I have them in my set of tools.

Here's a pic at the nut. I still have to final shape, sand and polish but I played it a bit and I like the way it feels.

Here is the offset strings on the saddles. Most of my guitars have the outside strings sitting close to the edges of the saddles, so I do not think this is unusual. The string offset isn't as bad as I thought but still need to notch the saddles to keep the strings in the right place. I will intonate and notch the other saddles with my string spacing guide after I finish the nut.

Here is a pic down the neck. Notice the strings on the saddles and the slightly splayed E strings off the tailpiece.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Ok - had some time today and wet sanded some. This was probably my best wet sanding experience to date. It was still quite a bit of work but I got through the first grit quite quickly and was very happy with the result.

I wanted to touch on this a while back when there was a thread about wet sanding through grits and clearly the person had moved grits before it was level. If you have not done this before or are scared about doing this, it is really quite simple as long as you understand the process. When you finish spraying a guitar it is very shiny but the surface is bumpy. You want to level the surface making it completely flat. As you sand with a flat block it will take the high spots off first. Because you are using a somewhat course grit sandpaper it makes those spots not as shiny.

The image above illustrates what your finish looks like before wet sanding and what it looks like maybe halfway through. It's relatively easy to see when it is level because you will see no shiny spots on the guitar. I started with 400 grit and periodically held the guitar up to the light to see if all the shiny spots were gone. When they were gone I moved on to the next area until the whole guitar was level sanded.

Here is a shot after finishing a couple of the flat surfaces on the back of the guitar. Notice how shiny the untouched side is and how matte or cloudy looking the other side is. IT's cloudy looking because it is all sanded to 400 grit.

Here it is once I sanded that one wing and finished level sanding the back.

There are no shiny spots left so I can now move up a grit and sand again to get out the 400 grit scratches and start getting the surface more shiny. Here is a blow up of the sanding scratches from the 400 grit paper. My last couple of passes I orient the scratches so they are all the same direction.

You can see fairly heavy scratches, 400 grit, at about 110 degrees to the grain or from bottom edge of the picture. Now I move up to 600 grit and sand perpendicular to those scratches. The idea being once I do not see anymore scratches at that 110 degrees I know all the 400 grit scratches are gone and I can move up to 800 grit again sanded perpendicular to the 600 grit scratches. I keep doing that through the grits until I'm up to about 2000 grit and my finish is very shiny again, but also completely flat ready to buff to a perfect shiny finish.

Here is a picture in the same area after 600 grit. Notice the heavy scratches are gone and there are finer scratches running perpendicular to the old scratches.

The finish is also a little bit shinier and smoother. As I said I just keep doing this until I am done my highest grit sand paper then it's ready for buffing.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Another tip here, which has just been reinforced in my head now. DOAH! There are different grading systems for grits of sandpaper with the same numbering. Be very careful. I believe the most common gradings are CAMI and ISO (FEPA P).

I posted a pic earlier of my assortment of sandpaper from 400 - 2000. So I started at 400, which is P400 btw and it's nice that it shows the P designation on the back of the paper. Here is another pic of the backs of my assortment. Wouldn't it be nice if they kept the P designation on all of the P designated sandpaper? Too much to ask apparently.

Note the only paper that has the P designation is the 800 grit, but only one is NOT P designated. Can you guess which one? LOL It was the 600 grit that was US Standard. So I went from P400 to 600, and noticed it was taking a very long time to take out the scratches. I finally clued in and figured out it was actually P400 to 600 = P1200. No wonder.

So I guess this long winded post is a reminder regarding the different classifications of grit and a recommendation to buy all the grits of the same manufacturer. I bought all the grits except the 600 at Canadian Tire in the automotive section, and the 600 grit at Home Depot. Damn Americans! LOL It's funny that the, what I assume to be, metric was sold at Canadian Tire and the US designation sold at Home Depot. It's probably only peculiar to Canadians as we normally would stock US pretty much everywhere over any metric standard.

Cheers Peter.