Cabronita Thinline: Clear Coats & Assembly

After a few sessions baking under the IR lamp, the chemical smell has finally gone from the White King Acrylic clear coats and my Surf-abilly Thinline Cabronita is finally ready for its final cut and polish! As usual I started the process with a good wet-sand with 1500 grit, wet and dry paper. It took a while, but finally all the orange peel was removed and the surface was nice and matte with no shiny low spots. With this complete, I moved up to 2000 grit. After all the effort required to level all the orange peel with 1500, the 2000 took no time at all and the surface really started to take on a shine.

With the wet-sanding completed down to 2000 grit, it was time to cut and polish with Meguiars Ultimate Compound. This is when the shine really starts to deepen! After two passes with the compound - rubbing it in with small circular motions and then wiping it off - the surface looked amazing. There's no visible height transition between the flames and the background colour (the surface is completely flat) and the shine is awesome.

First pass with Meguiars Ultimate Compound.

With the polishing complete it was time for the long awaited assembly. The pre-drilled screw holes made it a snap to re-attach the neck and get the bridge and tremolo locked down without marring the finish at all.The pickups required a bit of finagling to get them lined up and screw holes drilled, but it was finally managed.

Hardware went back on like a dream.

Neck is still straight, with the strings running nicely from the tremolo,
over the bridge to the nut.

All that is left for me to do now to get the body finished is to cut a new pick guard out of plain white 3-ply material (the kit came with black) and to finish the wiring using shielded wire. Even with the bridge flat on the deck the strings are a good 5mm away from the 22nd fret, so the neck will need a shim before I do a fret level and complete the other setup tasks. First though - get this bad boy making noise! Can't wait to hear these GFS Mean 90s in action.