Thinline Cabronita: Colour Coats

With the Ash Stratocaster still on the bench awaiting a bone nut blank, I had a chance to get back to the Thinline Cabronita which has been languishing with a single coat of primer for the last week or so.

After a very light wet sand with 800 grit wet/dry paper, I gave the body 2 more coats of primer and hung it overnight. Man, that body looked and felt pretty nice I can tell you! I could have stopped at matt white for this build without any qualms at all.

Wet sanding with 800 grit and a last coats of primer

With the primer dry I gave these last coats another light wet sand and then it was time for the colour coats. Just like I did for my Surf Monster Telecaster build, I have decided to go seafoam green for this Cabronita. That means getting the cans of MTN94 Luminous Green back out of the cupboard. I gotta say I really do love this colour, and it was a pleasure to be spraying it again!

The first coats of MTN94 RV6027 - Luminous Green

As usual, the MTN94 didn't disappoint. The first coat I laid down was a mist coat with much of the primer showing through. After drying for an hour in front of the IR lamp, I was able to lay down a second, more substantial coat. The results (shown above) are pretty damn pleasing I must say. That green just pops, and will look even better with some clear and a white pickguard :).

Anyway, the body went back under the IR lamp for the rest of the afternoon. I'm gonna let these coats lie for a couple of days now to make sure they are completely dry. I don't want any problems when the clear coats go on! One more coat of colour and I'll be able to lightly wet sand some of the orange peel away, then a final coat before moving to clear! That will be in a couple of days time. Hopefully!!

Thinline Cabronita: Bridge and Tremolo

With bad weather making more clear coats on the Ash Stratocaster build impossible today, I got on and positioned the roller bridge and tremolo on the Ash Cabronita build. Firstly, I consulted the Stewmac Fret Position Calculator to determine the correct location of the bridge posts. With a scale length of 648mm (324mm from the nut to the middle of the 12th fret), the distance of each bridge post from the nut was quickly established - the bass post being 1.5 to 3mm further than the treble post for the purposes of compensation.

The bridge is placed for correct intonation and the Tremolo is fitted.

To determine the lateral position of the bridge posts (side to side) the two E strings were installed across the bridge and up the neck. The bridge was moved side to side until the strings travelled straight up the neck equidistant from each side of the neck. With the position of each post established, a transfer punch marked the correct location and the post holes were drilled using a Brad Point bit in my electric hand drill. The trick is to keep the drill as straight as possible in both dimensions whilst drilling.

Looking amazing - even the white undercoat.

The posts were carefully hammered home with the bridge in place (to stop the posts going in crooked) and soon everything was in. That left just the tremolo to position, and I did this by eye, making sure the strings travelled straight from the tremolo and over the bridge rollers, and that the tremolo itself was perpendicular to the base of the guitar.

In addition to the bridge and tremolo, I also got the headstock vinyl decal installed. A few coats of Tru-Oil will be required to lock the decal in place, but the headstock is basically done now.

The decal is on the headstock and she's looking hot.

The 10 coats of Tru-Oil that I've laid down on the neck are feeling very nice indeed. This baby is going to play beautifully. All in all I'm really liking the look of this build - even with the white undercoat. I'm still deciding on colours, but it's clear that the solid colour was a great choice. I'm really excited about seeing this build come together. The xTrem from GFS feels really nice (much more fluid than my Bigsby B70) and all the chrome really pops.

Thinline Cabronita: Primer

I just got back from Europe yesterday and went straight to the man cave - jet lagged and all. After 2 weeks away, I just have to get something done on something! Turns out, that something was the Thinline Cabronita, which I have decided to paint a solid colour. The decision was kinda made for me when my initial sanding attempts showed that the factory had filled all the grain with some kind of vinyl sealer. Rather than try to sand it all out to allow the stain to take, I opted for a solid paint job. I'm still thinking about colours, but I'm looking at a 50s rockabilly palette, so maybe Studebaker Green or 50s fender light yellow. Something like that anyway.

In the meantime, I set about getting the body ready for paint, and that meant primer. I got out the tried and trusted Rustguard white primer and laid down 2 coats. She's already looking great. Tomorrow I'll give her a light wet-sand with 800 grit and lay down a couple more coats and then see what I have.

White primer is looking great and brimming with possibilities.

Just looking at my primer, I think my decision for to use a solid colour on this axe was a good one :).

While the primer was drying, I also started sanding the neck with 240 grit. Here again I found that the factory had sealed the neck already, but half an hour with 240 grit paper finally removed the last of it. I really want to give the neck some amber stain, so removing the sealer here was really worth the effort.

The neck sans sealer is now ready for 360, 400, 600 and 800 grits.

With the sealer removed, the neck now just needs finer sanding down to 800 grit before the stain and Tru-Oil can go on. I've just now realised that I've primed the body without drilling the post holes for the roller bridge (bummer), so that will have to be done before more primer coats go on. Ahh the impetuousness of the jet-lag addled brain!

Thinline Cabronita: Another Rockabilly Beast

Well, I've been sitting on this little beauty for a few months now, waiting for a few other projects to clear. Now, finally, I have some scope to get back to it! You see, at the start of 2014 I contacted a Chinese kit manufacturer through Aliexpress to build me a custom kit. Pretty straightforward right? Broadly speaking, my specifications were to deliver a Thinline Telecaster Cabronita with an Ash body, a spalted maple cap, and binding around the top.

In June 2014 I finally took delivery of the kit and, whilst it bore only a fleeting resemblance to my initial brief, it did posses the broad strokes of what I was after.

The body could be Ash (I'm still not 100% sure what the wood actually is), and it's certainly a good approximation of a Thinine Cabronita. There is some nice grain in the piece of timber used to fashion the body (yes a one piece body - wow!) despite there being no spalted maple cap. Furthermore, instead of a control cavity in-back as requested, the controls are reached via a largish hole under the pickguard. This means that the pickguard stays, in some form or another, no matter what. Quite a blow given how nice the wood looks.

This being said, the top of the guitar is a nice solid piece of wood - not the ply sheeting that you often see - and seems to have been taken from the same single piece that the rest of the body came from. You can see how nice and thick it is at the F-hole - you've gotta be happy with that right? So in summary, while it's not the guitar I ordered, I'm quite happy with what I received. This kit is a one of a kind man - there's no way in hell I could get this configuration again by specifically asking for it! So all in all it's been a happy accident.

A week ago, with this kit firmly in my focus now, I went on a shopping spree at Guitarfetish to grab some parts. I had in mind a Telecaster Rockabilly beast, and this meant a vintage tremolo and a some single coil pickups. I thought I'd give the GFS X-Trem tremolo a go to see whether it could live up to the marketing hype. I also forwent the obligatory GFS Surf 90 pickups in favour of GFS Mean 90s. I have 2 builds now with Surf 90s and while they are a beautiful pickup, I thought the over wound Mean 90s might give me a little more grunt. Add to this a roller bridge and some roller string trees and we're in business.

Anyway, all this junk from GFS turned up on my door step today which meant that it was time to do a quick mockup and see how it all looked on the body.

It's possible that the pickup cavities may need to be deepened just slightly as I'm using flat chrome humbucker surrounds, but apart from that everything fits beautifully and really looks the goods. I must say I'm pretty happy with how she looks, and I'm actually pretty excited about this baby now - all I have to do is pick a finish for it so I can get started. I've been agonising over a colour choice for the last 5 months and to tell you the truth I'm no closer to a decision...