Ace Flibble
Hero Member
- Messages
- 865
Had this Warmoth body sat around for a while now, doing nothing. Got this as part of the first batch of carved Teles with LP controls that Warmoth put up in the showcase, however many years ago that was now.
This body has seen quite a bit of action: pop-goth (yes, that's a thing) with a white pearl finish by Warmoth, a purpleheart & ebony neck, purple DiMarzio pickups, black hardware, and tuned to Drop C#; an alternative metal monster, stripped to the bare alder, tuned DADDAD, with a flame maple & ebony neck, and the world's first pair of white EMG 60A4-X pickups; and now it's going to have a life as a heavy blues stalwart, with a one-piece rosewood neck, overwound Gibson pickups, and a light finish between an aged Sienna burst and a weak honey burst.
Thing is, I'm too lazy to do this finish properly. For another person's guitar, I get out the compressor and paint things right. I mix the paint myself and use the airbrush, even for large areas of solid colur.
But for my own guitars, especially one which I've already remade many times over, I just buy a couple of aerosol cans of nitro and get to work ASAP. And it's not like a Sienna-honey burst will be hard to do with cans, right? It's only a mixture of orange and brown, with a very slight hint of amber in the middle. It's an easy, light, classic burst. What could go wrong?
Well, it turns out that trusting to a manufacturer's examples instead of mixing the paint myself was a bit of a mistake...
(The bridge bushings are in there because they are fitted so tight, I've never been able to get them out. Not with screws, not with heat, not with brute force. Warmoth put them in there real tight. I'm happy to spray over them, anyway. Gibson install their bushings before spraying the clear coat!)
First pass. 'Light orange', this is not. I don't think I want to risk spraying the 'medium brown' over this if this is what they call 'light'. I highly suspect 'medium brown' to mean 'solid black'.
Okay, so I guess the sienna-honey mix is out the window. I could sand it back and try again, but I can't be bothered. So it'll be a Tequila Sunrise burst instead!
... Well that second pass really darkened it a lot. I suppose it'll be a cherry burst after all!
Next step will be to sand back the middle just a little bit, because that burst really has gone too thick now, and then I'll spray on the 'pale amber'. Hopefully that is a less intense colour, as it's supposed to be. If it comes on too strong, I'll hit the entire surface evenly with 1000 and 1500 grit paper. I just get bored with sanding, so I'll be avoiding re-sanding if I can; this experiment is more just for a laugh than to create a serious, main instrument.
Goes to show how much sloppier and how much more power you get out of an aerosol compared to the fine control of the airbrush that I usually use for clients. I will say I am impressed with the consistency of the spray, at least. (The dark spots are knots in the wood, not paint; Warmoth sold this with a solid finish, so I was not surprised when I saw knots when I originally stripped it.)
The rest of the build should be as follows:
The idea is going from Peter Green to Carlos Santana in one sweep of the master volume knob. The 'reversed' neck pickup and out-of-phase tone are signatures of Peter Green, and an all-rosewood neck is something I first heard of when reading up on Carlos Santana's gear. They should combine to be a good mix for a 'heavy blues' guitar... in theory.
All done, it should look a little something like this crap kisekae + photoshop mock-up:
... though that was when I thought 'light' meant 'light' and not 'almost solid'. With how this finish is going, I fully expect it to end up more like this now:
Ah well. We'll see! This is the fun of taking a bunch of random parts, slapping together in your downtime and seeing what the hell you end up with.
This body has seen quite a bit of action: pop-goth (yes, that's a thing) with a white pearl finish by Warmoth, a purpleheart & ebony neck, purple DiMarzio pickups, black hardware, and tuned to Drop C#; an alternative metal monster, stripped to the bare alder, tuned DADDAD, with a flame maple & ebony neck, and the world's first pair of white EMG 60A4-X pickups; and now it's going to have a life as a heavy blues stalwart, with a one-piece rosewood neck, overwound Gibson pickups, and a light finish between an aged Sienna burst and a weak honey burst.
Thing is, I'm too lazy to do this finish properly. For another person's guitar, I get out the compressor and paint things right. I mix the paint myself and use the airbrush, even for large areas of solid colur.
But for my own guitars, especially one which I've already remade many times over, I just buy a couple of aerosol cans of nitro and get to work ASAP. And it's not like a Sienna-honey burst will be hard to do with cans, right? It's only a mixture of orange and brown, with a very slight hint of amber in the middle. It's an easy, light, classic burst. What could go wrong?
Well, it turns out that trusting to a manufacturer's examples instead of mixing the paint myself was a bit of a mistake...
(The bridge bushings are in there because they are fitted so tight, I've never been able to get them out. Not with screws, not with heat, not with brute force. Warmoth put them in there real tight. I'm happy to spray over them, anyway. Gibson install their bushings before spraying the clear coat!)
First pass. 'Light orange', this is not. I don't think I want to risk spraying the 'medium brown' over this if this is what they call 'light'. I highly suspect 'medium brown' to mean 'solid black'.
Okay, so I guess the sienna-honey mix is out the window. I could sand it back and try again, but I can't be bothered. So it'll be a Tequila Sunrise burst instead!
... Well that second pass really darkened it a lot. I suppose it'll be a cherry burst after all!
Next step will be to sand back the middle just a little bit, because that burst really has gone too thick now, and then I'll spray on the 'pale amber'. Hopefully that is a less intense colour, as it's supposed to be. If it comes on too strong, I'll hit the entire surface evenly with 1000 and 1500 grit paper. I just get bored with sanding, so I'll be avoiding re-sanding if I can; this experiment is more just for a laugh than to create a serious, main instrument.
Goes to show how much sloppier and how much more power you get out of an aerosol compared to the fine control of the airbrush that I usually use for clients. I will say I am impressed with the consistency of the spray, at least. (The dark spots are knots in the wood, not paint; Warmoth sold this with a solid finish, so I was not surprised when I saw knots when I originally stripped it.)
The rest of the build should be as follows:
- Solid alder body, usual Warmoth carved Tele drilled for LP controls
- One-piece rosewood neck, 21 frets, 24.75" conversion scale, Jazzmaster headstock. (non-Warmoth) Like the body, I've had this sat around for a while, paired it up with many bodies. It's my favourite neck and I've just never found a body that does it justice.
- Gibson Burstbucker #3 pickup for the neck. This is usually a bridge model, ~9k, but I like very hot neck pickups so I can keep them further from the strings and still have strong enough output to push the amp into natural overdrive without a high preamp gain setting. I often use 'bridge' pickups in the neck. I love the look with the screw coils toward the bridge, too.
- Gibson 500T for the bridge. This is a very hot pickup with three ceramic magnets and a thick tone, but when you put it further from the strings it reduces down to a 'super-PAF' kind of tone. (Similar to the Seymour Duncan Custom.) If it works out too bright, I've got A8, A5 or A4 magnets on standby which I can swap in for the main ceramic magnet to reduce the treble. Never needed to change magnets before, but every other guitar I've put 500Ts in has had a mahogany body and set neck, so we'll see how it goes with alder and a bolt-on.
- CTS 300k linear pots for the pickup volume controls. Bourns 500k audio taper for a master volume control instead of the neck tone. Bridge tone pot will be a phase reversal push-pull switch and not operate as a tone pot. I can't stand tone pots. The pickups' individual volume controls are linear taper to provide accurate balancing for the out-of-phase middle tone, with the master volume providing the actual volume control. CTS make the most accurate linear pots with a stiff feel for accuracy and Bourns make the best-tapered log pots with a loose feel for volume swelling. 300k + 500k is the classic combination for humbuckers used in 1950s Les Pauls and archtops. All of my 3- and 4-control guitars are wired this way.
- I'm going to try to fit a generic LP pickguard to it. The measurements are fine, I'm just not sure if the bracket will quite reach until I actually drill and try to attach it. It's barely long enough by 0.3mm. It's going to be a very tight fit, at best.
The idea is going from Peter Green to Carlos Santana in one sweep of the master volume knob. The 'reversed' neck pickup and out-of-phase tone are signatures of Peter Green, and an all-rosewood neck is something I first heard of when reading up on Carlos Santana's gear. They should combine to be a good mix for a 'heavy blues' guitar... in theory.
All done, it should look a little something like this crap kisekae + photoshop mock-up:
... though that was when I thought 'light' meant 'light' and not 'almost solid'. With how this finish is going, I fully expect it to end up more like this now:
Ah well. We'll see! This is the fun of taking a bunch of random parts, slapping together in your downtime and seeing what the hell you end up with.
