Day-mun
Hero Member
- Messages
- 925
Built with screamin' deals unfinished parts, this was my first DYI finish project.
The standard thin contoured maple/rosewood fretless Jazz neck has satin poly sprayed on after getting sanded to 320. I knocked down the edges of the headstock and gave 'em a bit more of a radius. 0000 steal wool'd about every third or fourth coat (something like 10 to 12 coats total; I was laying on really super-thin), then just polished the top coat with cotton cloth (a.k.a. old t-shirt) to leave it velvety and fast!
The '51 slab alder body was gonna get stained with a conventional stain, which I thought I could get away with since I had the miracle-in-a-can pre-stain wood conditioner (from Minwax), which didn't do #*%@ about alder not taking stain for nothin'... but did a pretty good job at washing off/out the stain that was pouring into the end-grain, yet rolling off the sides like water on a duck's back. Whew! That was close! That same conditioner became the solvent base for a home-made stain made with iodine and IPA (rubbing alcohol minus the water). Got that idea from a youtube video my son showed me of a guy doing "Soviet Red" on the stock and handguard of an old AK-47. As ya can see, mine didn't turn out nearly as close to garnet as those old rifle's furniture sets, but at least I made the body a distinctly different color from the neck. Umm-teen coats of semi-gloss poly, also 0000 steal-wool'd and polished just as the neck.
The pickguard was ordered later when the color started to take, and the finish started to build up. I wasn't gonna do a pickguard, but I noticed a fairly deep scratch (maybe the reason it was in screamin' deals?) on the front that would be obscured if a pg was affixed. The red pearl showed up a little more flashy than what this project could take, so I buzzed the white bevel off the edge, then sanded/polished the now rounded (nearly squared) edge to a smooth new finish. The face of the guard got dulled down with light swirling with 0000 and buffed with a coarser shop-cloth type material to match the sheen of the rest of the instrument.
The rest is pretty standard stuff; Schaller tuners, Gotoh bridge, SD quarter-pound '51 SC and Ernie Ball group I nickel flat-wounds.
The standard thin contoured maple/rosewood fretless Jazz neck has satin poly sprayed on after getting sanded to 320. I knocked down the edges of the headstock and gave 'em a bit more of a radius. 0000 steal wool'd about every third or fourth coat (something like 10 to 12 coats total; I was laying on really super-thin), then just polished the top coat with cotton cloth (a.k.a. old t-shirt) to leave it velvety and fast!
The '51 slab alder body was gonna get stained with a conventional stain, which I thought I could get away with since I had the miracle-in-a-can pre-stain wood conditioner (from Minwax), which didn't do #*%@ about alder not taking stain for nothin'... but did a pretty good job at washing off/out the stain that was pouring into the end-grain, yet rolling off the sides like water on a duck's back. Whew! That was close! That same conditioner became the solvent base for a home-made stain made with iodine and IPA (rubbing alcohol minus the water). Got that idea from a youtube video my son showed me of a guy doing "Soviet Red" on the stock and handguard of an old AK-47. As ya can see, mine didn't turn out nearly as close to garnet as those old rifle's furniture sets, but at least I made the body a distinctly different color from the neck. Umm-teen coats of semi-gloss poly, also 0000 steal-wool'd and polished just as the neck.
The pickguard was ordered later when the color started to take, and the finish started to build up. I wasn't gonna do a pickguard, but I noticed a fairly deep scratch (maybe the reason it was in screamin' deals?) on the front that would be obscured if a pg was affixed. The red pearl showed up a little more flashy than what this project could take, so I buzzed the white bevel off the edge, then sanded/polished the now rounded (nearly squared) edge to a smooth new finish. The face of the guard got dulled down with light swirling with 0000 and buffed with a coarser shop-cloth type material to match the sheen of the rest of the instrument.
The rest is pretty standard stuff; Schaller tuners, Gotoh bridge, SD quarter-pound '51 SC and Ernie Ball group I nickel flat-wounds.
