Soloist in green PRS-style Laguna Dragon Breath finish

[TBurst Std]

Brought it to a reputable local guitar repair shop who told me he wasn't sure it was the nut and it was maybe 'one of those guitars that may need to have the tremolo blocked'  ??? :icon_scratch:

With that comment, I’m more concerned with the Guitar shop tha your Guitar.  Run away from them.

 

[docteurseb]

Brought it to a reputable local guitar repair shop who told me he wasn't sure it was the nut and it was maybe 'one of those guitars that may need to have the tremolo blocked'  ??? :icon_scratch:

With that comment, I’m more concerned with the Guitar shop tha your Guitar.  Run away from them.

:laughing11:
It definitely was an odd thing to say. He did spend a fair amount of time trying the guitar and checking for things that could be wrong (besides the nut).
I've have great experiences with them over the years for acoustic and electric guitars nut installation/setup, but I definitely will go someplace else in the future for electrics now.

I wonder now if he simply wanted to avoid taking the risk of installing the nut and setting up the guitar and ending up with a guitar that still wouldn't stay in tune.

The risk/reward was maybe not worth it to him, telling him I was bringing the guitar for a nut installation because I had already tried doing 8+ of them could also have scared him. That must be it.

 

[docteurseb]

It's been a while. The guitar was hardly every played since I last posted (sadly like other guitars) and I was never able to get satisfactory tuning stability with the tiltback neck.
I sold the neck last week to a fellow forum member and I'm looking forward to seeing the body+finish he'll pair it with.

A new Warhead neck is ordered and this time around I'm following Cagey's wise advice by using a low-key neck: maple + ebony fingerboard, ebony veneer, moon glow side dots to go with the green body finish, and no inlays.

I'll do a satin finish for the maple back using either superglue or wipe-on poly.
I still have the dyed wood tuners buttons I'll use on the neck, though they may look a little funny on inline tuners.

I sense awesome tuning stability coming in the near future  :laughing11:

 

[Rick]

Moon glow love it.

 

[Tomatonator]

It's amazing what you can do with a chisel and sand paper, ... and time ... :toothy12:

That's how I did the knobs on my build + a drill press to do the pot holes and spin the knobs to get curved tops

 

[docteurseb]

I picked up the neck this morning.

As expected the large wood buttons make tuning slightly inconvenient on inline tuners whenever the distance between buttons is minimal; luckily this is rare enough that it may not be much of an issue in practice.

I'm not looking forward to rolling fingerboard edges and smoothing those fret ends again. I might do a less aggressive edge roll than prior builds to save time (I mostly want those fret ends to be round/smooth).

 

[rgand]

Man, that's a beautiful neck. Ebony all the way up really does look good. :icon_thumright:

 

[docteurseb]

Managed to roll the edges/frets, polish the frets, and do the satin finish (superglue) yesterday.
I did what I consider to be a 'light' roll, still more rolled than most:

Tuners are also installed now. So I just have to either cut the nut myself or wait for pre-slotted ones.

 

[rgand]

I didn't think that neck could look better but it does. Beautiful work.

 

[PhilHill]

Looks fantastic, My Salute to you Doc.... :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :turtle:

 

[stratamania]

Good job... :icon_thumright:

 

[docteurseb]

Never work on guitars when you don't have enough sleep ;-)

I accidentally dropped the bridge on the body when trying to put it back together, this left two unpleasant cloudy dings.

I tried the thin superglue trick hoping to fix the fisheye marks but that did nothing, likely because the finish wasn't cracked completely.
That did leave a mess though which took a few hours to clean up.

Attached is what I'm left with.

This picture is the worst case under sun light, without the sun hitting it it's a lot more subtle.

Still bummed enough about it that I asked the finish shop whether that can be fixed without having to dye the top again. Doubtful, but since I wasn't entirely fond of the color maybe that's a sign (an expensive one though).

I'm still going to proceed and setup the neck/nut to see if at least it stays in tune before dropping even more cash into this build.

 

[stratamania]

And these things always seem to happen when you are about 97-99% there. At least that has been my experience.

Hopefully in time it turns out eventually to lead towards an unexpected but not unwelcome outcome.

 

[rgand]

Well, drat! That is no fun. I feel for you on this.

Hopefully, this will work out as good as, or better than, the original plan. My Bobber build was the result of my goofing up on a body and it became something I'd never have tried otherwise.

 

[docteurseb]

Thanks !

On the plus side:
- the large wood buttons don't pose any functional tuning issues. You just have to be a bit more careful not to knock nearby tuners out of tune. Pleasantly surprised it works so well.

- the inline headstock is giving me the tuning stability I expected after smoothing those nut slots. Still needs a bit more work but it's great.

- Guitar sounds /feels good with the neck too, very good resonance.

All things considered I'll most likely go the refinishing route depending on cost.
Ideally I would have liked to be the one redoing the stain, but that would mean stripping the body myself which I've never done. I'll wait to hear back from the finish shop to see what the options are.

 

[stratamania]

Good news on the playability aspect...

 

[docteurseb]

... and it's on its way for a refinish.
Price aside, I'm sort of happy to get another shot to get a color close to the one initially intended.
The top is too dark to achieve the bright vivid color of the PRS reference in my 1st post, but I think it'll get closer this time than what I achieved (too much overlap of colors)

 

[rgand]

Looking forward to seeing the result.  :icon_thumright:

 

[docteurseb]

Got an update and Pat was able to touch these up well enough w/o having to sand down to bare wood. At this point he'll sand the clear evenly and reshoot a fresh clear coat.

This works out nicely as I'm hoping it'll be quite a bit cheaper than the full refinishing (far less time consuming). While I would have been curious to see how it may have turned out with a new stain, there also was a very obvious risk doing that.

 

[PhilHill]

Got an update and Pat was able to touch these up well enough w/o having to sand down to bare wood. At this point he'll sand the clear evenly and reshoot a fresh clear coat.

This works out nicely as I'm hoping it'll be quite a bit cheaper than the full refinishing (far less time consuming). While I would have been curious to see how it may have turned out with a new stain, there also was a very obvious risk doing that.

I think that was the right decision. You obviously have a great finish man there, and a great one has many a trick up his sleeve. Hope it works out well for you.  :icon_thumright: