Leaderboard

JazzBlaster project just arrived!!

tylereot said:
I may have underestimated the nastiness of lacquer fumes.  I figured: "well, I'm only shooting a tiny part of the guitar (headstock), and it's from a can.  How bad can it be?".
Then I woke up this morning with the thought to attempt a 'blackburst' on the back!
Yeah, I know, I know... this thing is going in 5 directions at once.  It's not going to win me any "guitar of the month" awards.  But it seemed a great way to highlight the koa on the top, while still keeping some ash grain on the back, but not too much.
So, freehand, here's the back-in-blackburst...
I'll go over this now with the black stain, dilluted way down so I can control the fade to black.  Some lacquer runs that need to get cleaned up, then we can finally start with the tru-oil to the body.


70230d6d.jpg
Click to expand...
You've never done this before and you are attempting a burst...

I love you.
 
I am also impressed....Im doing the same thing on my build, that is nitro or something and stains etc. etc. myself for the first time....waiting for the neck, I am so glad to see another brave soul make a go of it first time out.....definantly an eye opener.....

I dont think I will be as brave as trying a burst, though I give you Big Kudos for that, and who cares what kind of awards you get, I think guitars look better after being roughed up a bit anyway so no sweat on perfection.....

Im diggin your efforts and regardless, that Beast will sound Bad Arse no matter what you paint it with...Hell thats the whole reason your building your own, anyone can pay to have it done.

Hendrix: "Are you experienced ? Have you ever been experienced ?" 

Well, now you have.... :icon_thumright:

 
I'm going to be good at fixing mistakes.
I just hope tru-oil will work well over that black lacquer.
:o
 
It was a pretty productive evening/ morning! 
I finished up the 'blackburst' by using a very dilute black stain from stewmac, diluted in denatured alcohol.  As you can see, some of the wood took it pretty well.  Some...less well.
I fussed around with it, wiping it off, adding it on, and found that there really wasn't going to be any way to make it really even. :icon_scratch:
Maybe someone will respond here with a tip to help others NOT make the same mistake.
Anyway, it's the back of the guitar.  And I can live with it.
Here it is with one coat of sealer, one coat of tru-oil.  The tru-oil showed me the subtle figuring inherent in the wood, which is why I guess the stain wouldn't get even.

340aff74.jpg

Kinda 'dirty asphalt', if I were to name it.

In other news, I found a roll of copper slug tape my wife had never gotten around to using.  Guess what I did with THAT!
(Tip: don't cut yourself with this stuff... it hurts like !#@*^%!?!)

This is with one coat of sealer, one coat of tru-oil.  I think the color is going to be just dandy.
4241fd50.jpg


Oh...did I mention this body weighs just a whisper over 3lbs and rings like a bell?  :headbang:
 
Cool beans....love those copper cuts...lol  really gets you into the build......blood and all....lol
 
I guess you've really GOT to expect mistakes.  It's what you do with them that counts.
If you make a mistake FIXING your mistake... you could be in for a long slog.
If on the other hand, you get inspired by the mistake, and leverage it into something cool...well, then.. congratulations, you're a genius!  :occasion14:

I made a mistake with the tru-oil, and had a little pool of it harden up.  So, I tried to just hit it with steel wool.  Oops.  It wasn't completely dry, it smeared and left a relief of the little puddle.
Hit that with some 600wet sandpaper, and burned through the finish.  :sad1:
So, I took a chance, and hit it with a little more black lacquer, which pretty well did the trick.
Been layering up the tru-oil again, but the back will not be this guitar's best feature.

By the way, Altar, I'm taking your advice and returning the pickguard for a solid matte black one.  Also going to incorporate two tone controls, ala strat.  Should be just a little less fiddly on stage.
 
tylereot said:
By the way, Altar, I'm taking your advice and returning the pickguard for a solid matte black one.  Also going to incorporate two tone controls, ala strat.  Should be just a little less fiddly on stage.
Click to expand...
Glad to hear it, can't wait to see it.
Are you putting a cover on the jazzmaster pu? I think you should... http://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts/pickup-covers-jazzmaster/Mojotone-Jazzmaster-Pickup-Cover-Black-51mm-2-009 Would look good.
 
[/quote]
Are you putting a cover on the jazzmaster pu? I think you should... http://www.mojotone.com/guitar-parts/pickup-covers-jazzmaster/Mojotone-Jazzmaster-Pickup-Cover-Black-51mm-2-009 Would look good.
[/quote]

Yeah, it's included with Ken's Roadhouse pickups.  The Warmoth generator didn't put one on the original mock up...for whatever reason.  No cover on the bridge humbucker, though.  Maybe if I could find a black one. 
I dunno, I'm not worried about the details of inexpensive stuff that can be swapped out in an instant.  I want my inlay to get here.  That's my critical path at this point.
Pickups (and other electronic bits) should get here after Labor Day.
 
Sorry if I missed thsi somewhere, but what tuning machines are you using?  Some tuners (like Sperzel locking; my fav) are staggered so that you don't need string trees.  I try to avoid them wherever possible, as they're a band-aid solution to poor engineering.

-Mark
 
tylereot said:
Um.. just thought of this... am I going to need a string tee to keep the top strings in the nut?
Click to expand...

Not if the nut is well-made. Mr. Fender came up with the string tree idea back when production rates got too high to spend the time needed to do a proper job of cutting the nut. The tree tends to force the strings to stay in the slots where they might not otherwise.

Problem is, it often creates tuning issues. The string has a greater tendency to hang up at either the nut or the tree. Combine that with sloppy Kluson tuners and his crummy bridge designs, and you had guitars that were a cast iron bitch to get in tune or keep that way.

Listen to the old Strat players like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Ritchie Blackmore... the list is long. Those guys were out of tune more often than they were in. About the only thing that saved them was the fact that they rarely played a straight fretted note/chord. They played blues and blues-based rock where everything was all bends and vibrato, so if you were good you could be out of tune quite a ways before you finally had to do something about it.
 
The strat headstock is a long way, even with staggered tuners. Before going up 3 string gauges, the G and B strings were prone to popping out with extreme bends.  See jazzmaster discussion - I'm planning to put some rollers or graphtech tees on whenever the next order goes in.
 
Schallers going on this one, along with a graphtec nut.  No reason to use 1950's technology here.  The headstock is pretty far below the nut, so I hope it won't need that kinda thing, as I do use the tremolo, and I imagine it will just get in the way of good return tuning.
Thanks guys!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

autieblesam
Dual Humbucker Experimentation Build
Replies
13
Views
1K
xld
xld
ruscio
How about a special run of chrome bodies?
2
Replies
20
Views
853
dmraco
dmraco
Bruce Campbell
Planning for 2-humbucker Strat
2 3
Replies
57
Views
4K
anthonyfury
anthonyfury
E
Help me figure out how to make my options work
2
Replies
20
Views
872
cuthbert
C
V
V-locity build
2 3
Replies
45
Views
3K
vernschrock
V
Back
Top