an old RELIC

apply the decal

had to widen the neck pocket a little - out come the mini scrapers

decal applied. just like your old model airplane.

prepping the neck for a decal

more sanding

soak your paper before sanding - this will keep the material from wadding up on your sandpaper and possibly scratching your beautifully sanded up till now surface.

i bought these little sanding pads from stew mac and i love them. i use them all the time - nuts, saddles, fingerboard repairs, everything.

so i got the neck nice and smooth - no more orange peel, very shiny

here, i cut the decal around the letters to make it look a little more like the original.

this is me fixing my goof. i sprayed the white toner on the neck as well as the body - shouldn't have. the original necks were not toned with white. now you can see why - all the black position markers turned milky and gross. what i did was scrape off the finish in those areas, and since i had to spray more lacquer over the decal anyway, i'll be retouching these areas with clear lacquer later.

and i scraped all the finish off of every fret. it wasn't too bad, actually - scrapes right off.

sanding, more sanding, and more sanding

so once i finished the finish spraying - i did multiple coats of vinyl sealer, then a toner coat, then clear lacquer, then sand the high spots, then clear again - i started to sand the finish smooth. this is where things got very labor intensive for me. i decided to relic this guitar, to make it look more authentic as a 50+ year old guitar. this meant A LOT more sanding, and very careful attention to detail in order to make the rub-through effect more believable. i'm going to just say that i took my time and looked at pictures of the original guitar to get there. hopefully, it looks fairly authentic. i'll let you be the judge. here are some pictures.

here are a few pictures of my headstock decal - more on that later...

I also sprayed lacquer over the pick guard - I read somewhere that they did it at Fullerton this way. It didn't really make much difference to my build, other than another sand - through look once this was relic-ed.

An explaination for my hiatus

Been a while since I posted here... Sorry about that. I was filling in as a squad boss on Pleasant Valley Hotshots and had absolutely no time at home between all the travel and a newborn baby. I did get some things accomplished in the fall, though, and i took a lot of pictures. Bare with me as a update this blog. Thanks!!

Spraying a Custom Finish - Part FIVE

Here it is - the big one. Today we are going to spray the toner to make this blond finish butterscotch-ish. 

I used lacquer thinned about 2:3, two parts lacquer to three parts thinner (maybe a bit more thinner than that), then added my teaspoon of white pigment, and then I added six drops of vintage amber and the secret ingredient was four drops of medium brown. The vintage amber was just a tad too yellow. This mixture came out perfect, I think.

I marked the side of a jar with my ratios for thinner and lacquer. This makes it easy to pour your ingredients the same every time.

Once again, make sure you mix all your ingredients somewhere else, then pour it into your gun.

My mixture turned out looking like coffee with creamer. MMMMM!

Don't forget your respirator and safety glasses! This stuff is NASTY! Even with the respirator, I was developing a nasty cough if I sprayed for more than an hour at a time.

Here's my first try. I sprayed with the grain, which helped hide any streakiness from my horrid technique. You're supposed to keep the gun the same distance from your work at all times, start and stop off the piece, and overlap your layers of paint by 1/2. I was holding my guitar with one hand and spraying with the other while standing outside in the wind, so - yeah, my technique was less than ideal. It is possible, though!

I started to get a run here, but instead of continuing spraying, I stopped, put the piece flat, and let it sit for a while. Lacquer is pretty forgiving. For the most part, it wants to flow out and make itself smooth, which is what happened here. Once it dried a little, I finished spraying the rest of the piece, and now you'd never know!

First coat on the neck. Needs a bit more, I think.

Some pictures of the back and front before I toned the sides, so you can see the difference there. Pretty crazy, huh?

And the final product. I think it looks just about right!

A word on toners - you should consider your usage of the guitar before you decide how much toner to add to your finish. Wood naturally darkens over time, and the lacquer I sprayed actually yellows as well, so if I were to leave this guitar out in the sun regularly, it might actually get much darker and much more yellow than I want. I am very particular about keeping my guitars indoors or in cases, however, so I felt comfortable spraying my finish fairly butterscotch-y right from the start. Some other builders have skipped the toner and just left their guitars in the sun for a period of time to achieve the same effect. The choice is yours.

Now all that's left is spraying clear lacquer (4-5 coats, 2 hours apart), then wet sanding and buffing and/or spraying a flash coat. I'll keep you updated! Then maybe I can finally put all the pieces together and get this thing set up to play some tunes!! Can't wait!