Build Update #16

I've been keeping track of my blog 's statistics and realized that there are over 200 views a week. It's been a while so here's an update for you all (no pictures, sorry).

I still haven't addressed the electronics short. It was a pain to get in the guitar, and it will be a pain to get out. I probably won't fix this anytime soon, for reasons i will discuss.

The big problem with the build now, is the finish. I admit I wasn't careful and rushed the finish in the end. A lot of grain is showing through the lacquer and, because it isn't even, it looks bad. I gave the back of the guitar a once-over with 400 grit dry (to remove major orange peel), 400 grit wet, then 600 grit wet. I gave everything a quick hand buff with a rag and got it nice and smooth. It looks nice in some areas, but the stubborn grain won't go away, and in some spots, it was bad enough where water from the sandpaper seeped into the pores of the wood and cracked the finish. I somewhat expected this to happen and was surprisingly not too pissed about the whole ordeal. I planned from the minute I shot the last few coats of lacquer that I would need to refinish it. This is how i believe the refinish process will go for me:

-Since i used lacquer, any future coats should bond well to the existing.
-A liberal sanding will take the lacquer back down to almost the wood (or even the wood itself), depending on how bad the pores are showing.
-If any pores are still existing, a thin, 'localized', coat of thinned epoxy will refill the minute grain leftover.
-A final prep sand and the new lacquer coats can go on.

I figure until that time, i can handle the current state of the electronics. I would have to take out the electronics now, fix them, put them back in, take them back out again when i refinish, then reinstall. Instead, I can take them out to refinish, fix them, refinish the guitar, and reinstall.

In the meantime, I can finish up the nut, find and install a pickguard, and buy and install the strap bolts. I will probably get to going over the whole thing lightly with 600 wet grit sandpaper to make it more comfortable to the skin (the orange peel on the lacquer is quite irritating).

I am currently analyzing a talkbox amplifier circuit that i'm interested in, so expect some future updates related to that.

My roommate is a sneaky bastard and captured this video of me messing with my cheap amp's distortion. Crazy heavy metal.


-Rock and Roll