Gibson LP/335 etc. Headstock Template

Since Gibson's crackdown on illegal copies of Les Paul and other models, it's become a little difficult to find a template for a Les Paul style headstock. I managed to find this one doing the rounds. Just select it and print it at approximately 82mm width. It should fit the headstock of most kits.

Ricky 4001 Bass - Well, She's Dead.

I got a little time today to go through some of the fallout from the fire and try to salvage the one remaining build-in-progress. Unfortunately, Looks like this one is ded as well. If there was any doubt about the caustic nature of electronics smoke/soot then here's all the evidence you need. I started sanding down the body with 360 grit to see if I could get it clean. The wood was actually coming up OK until I saw that the binding on the heel of the body had bubbled very badly as a result of soot exposure. I tried for 20 minutes to sand the bubbles out, but here's what I ended up with. The soot has eaten huge holes out. right down to the wood underneath.

Electrical soot is cautic shit. It even eats through plastic binding.

Looks like this build, along with its brothers, will be going into the rubbish. Someone with more skills could probaby replace the binding, but sadly that isn't me. Of all the builds I thought this one might survive as I'd planned a full body paint. But sadly it isn't to be.

Bareknuckle Super Strat - Grain Filling & Colour

I found an hour today while the wife walked to dog to actually get some building done in a makeshift man-cave that I've set up. There's no lighting, but I've got some rubber mats and some carpet down on a temporary bench.  I got the body sanded down to 360 grit, with a few water wipes to raise the grain and 400-grit cutting back. Pretty happy with the smoothness - this is a nice piece of wood! With the surface prepared, and time running out (is that the patter of dog feet I hear?) I slapped on a slurry of ebony timbermate to fill the grain.

Ebony Timbermate applied. Just gotta let it dry completely.

Fast forwad one weekend hence, and it was time to sand the Timbermate back and get some colour on. After agonising over the flames idea, I've turfed it into the too-hard basket and decided to go with straight black stain. I sanded off the Timbermate with 400 grit, and the body is now smooth as a baby's wossname. It might be even too smooth to take colour. Hmm.

Timbermate sanded off, and grain filled nicely.

I got out the Colortone black dye and applied a first stain coat. I've been tossing around colours for the last fortnight, but trans black finally won out. I'm certainly a creature of habit! The stain is drying as I type and soon I'll be able to apply a second round. It's starting to look good, although there's a couple of spots where the dye hasn't taken as well as I'd like. Always seems to happen with black dye (well mine anyway). Too much sanding I'll wager. I may need to hit these with a stronger dye soluton, or add some Colortone to the Tru-Oil when the time comes.

First coat of Colortone Black dye

Bareknuckle Super-Strat

Well, it's a couple of weeks since the man-cave fire incident. I dried my tears, collected together a few tools, and have managed to clean out a spot in the shed to create a new workspace, I bought a replacement electric drill and I'm now in a position to actually start building again.

A week after the accident, I found a box on my doorstep - an Ash super strat kit sent to me by Andy in the Pitbull Guitars forum as a pick-me-up after all the fire hassles. It was an amazing act, completely unexpected, and really choked me up. They really are an amazing bunch of guys and gals over there in the forum. The kit is actually a special order (not an off-the-shelf kit by any means), with no front cavity and only pickup and bridge routes.

A Pitbull Guitars Special-Order, Ash Super-Strat

Since it arrived I've been itching to get going on the kit, and today I managed to get a simple mock build together. I loosely positioned the bridge, ran the outside strings to test for neck straightness, and used my new electric drill to bolt the neck into place.

Neck looks straight in the pocket.

It all took less than 10 minutes with the new drill. Do you know I've never tightened neck bolts with the drill until today? Such a time saving, and no stripped screws! Anyway she's looking pretty sweet.

Neck bolted into place and looking good.

Given that the top of the guitar is so clean, I'm planning on leaving her a bare-knuckle build with no rings around the pickups and just bare wood as far as the eye can see. A real no-nonsense shredder.

The Ash grain on this 2 piece body is pretty good and should look great with some grain filling and stain. For a finish I was thinking ebony or walnut Timbermate in the grain, and a trans-black dye job over the top. I was also thinking it might be cool to add some "natural wood colour" hot-rod flames. As with my previous builds sporting hot-rod flames, the idea would be to mask off the flame sections with artists frisket. Then the stain would be applied, hoping that the masked off wood remains clean and untouched. Another option might be to mask off everything *except* the flames and seal those up good with Tru-Oil before trying to stain the rest of the body. Hmm, as this is completely new territory, I might have to actually spend some time testing these techniques!

First draft - hotrod flames.

Anyway, as you can, see I dummied up some flames to try to get a feel for how it would look on the body. I think the black/natural contrast could really work with this design and I'm really excited to give it a try. I must say, I do like how the flames look on the body. Time to start some testing while I get the body sanded and the grain filled. Stay tuned for test results!

Heartbreak in the Man Cave

Well, I have some very sad news to relate today. Last week we had an electrical fire in the man cave. A de-humidifier caught fire and smoldered for hours. The windows and doors were all closed (to promote de-humidification) and so the oxygen supply was limited.

Fast forward to the aftermath and every surface in the 2-room granny flat is coated with a thick layer of electrical soot. Every crevice, every cranny, every cupboard is full. It stinks, it's corrosive, and it's fucking everywhere. While the building interior will need to be gutted and replaced, more importantly it is looking like every guitar on the walls and in the racks will be written off, including all my builds in progress. The hollow-bodies are particularly affected - being full of soot - but the hardware and frets on all guitars have very quickly become corroded. To make matters worse the cleaner used to remove the soot is not doing the finish any favours.

So basically that's my collection of around 20 guitars, built up over 5 years of hard work, decimated in one foul swoop. To say I am totally gutted is an understatement.

Once the damage is repaired I'll slowly start re-building, but right now I think I'll go sit down and have a cry.

Scratch Pine Toronado: Body Finish Do-over

Due to a catastrophic clear coat fail, the scratch Toronado build languished in the corner of the man-cave.  After a hiatus of almost 12 months, I've finally gotten around to resurrecting it. I couldn't rightly abandon my first (and only!) scratch body build, now could I?

The cause of this build's untimely demise was yet another issue with Acrylic as a finish. Once my current builds are done I vow never again to cross Acrylic's dark path! Everything seems OK with an acrylic finish until you try to assemble the thing. But, as soon as you screw into the acrylic, chances are it will lift from the surface in a bubble and you'll hurl the thing across the room. And it seems to be worse the thicker the clear coats are. Grrrrr! Maybe poly will serve me better in the future.

Anyway after dusting the body off I sanded it back completely, added a whole new coat of black dye, and got the Tru-Oil going. After 5 coats things are looking good already. I didn't apply the dye as darkly this time around, opting for more of a trans-black look. The pine grain is standing out nicely although the colour is looking a little blotchy. That's to be expected with pine, and truth be told I'm not that fussy.

Lots of grain in the pine to see, but some blotchy patches too.

Honestly, any variation in the finish is good with me; whether it's beautiful grain or colour blotches. I'm not even sure whether I'll even bother getting the body up to a full gloss this time around. I'll just keep applying layers of TO until I'm happy, but I'm kinda digging the satin oiled look the early layers of Tru-Oil give. I might leave the shiney to the chrome and pickguard for this bad boy.

The Toronado is a really nice shape, am I right?

I gotta say, coming back to this build I forgot how much I love this body shape. It's a little Tele, little Jazzmaster, and a little Jaguar-esque all mixed into one. I think after this one is done I'll get on and start another, this time maybe just in a simple Amber or Yellow. I will have to start from "scratch" again though as my MDF template is ruined.

Jazz Bass: Wiring & Assembly

I finally got this bad boy assembled and wired up today. This time around, as the bridge pickup cavity wasn't really shield-able, I didn't bother shielding either of the pickup cavities at all. I just whipped out the Slugga snail-tape and shielded the control cavity. The omission of the shielding on the pickup cavities seems to have done very little to increase the noise level - something to remember for future builds. I have read elsewhere that it isn't necessary, and even some who say it affects the brightness of the pickups so go figure.

Shielding by "Slugga".

With just 4 solder points, I had the remainder of the control wiring together and making noise in no time. Man, I love the ease with which these F-type kits go together. 4 wires soldered, and everything is done? Magic. Pitbull really do provide the goods with these pre-soldered control cavity covers.

Jazz Bass Wiring is amazingly quick with a pre-soldered control cover.

And so with the wiring done and the covers screwed down, she is finally making a nice clean, low boomp - boomp sound; especially from the neck pickup. Niiiice. Can you tell I'm not a bass player?? Well, I'm not. But I'll still try to do a sound demo once she's finished. How hard can this bass playing be ??? :P

Seafoam goodness gives a really nice looking instrument.

The all important headstock signage.

Ready to join the flock!

I still have to do a fret level, a re-crown, and adjust the height of the nut, but to be honest she's playing quite nicely already. In no time at all she'll be a permanent resident of the guitar rack!