Guitar kit build

GloopyJon

Yes, I'd like to do something like that.  I found one website that can produce custom text logos but I'll have to dig around a bit more.  OTOH I don't want to spend huge amounts on this guitar as it's not going to be the best quality build ever, it's just a bit of an experiment for me.

Yup!  I haven't taken it off yet to inspect the surface.   However, a kind chap called the Manchester Guitar Tech, who sells lacquers, found this pickguard for me which is quite tempting!  I won't put it on straight away, but I might consider it as a little exercise to do later on.
SG Standard Full Face - Purple Mirror

GloopyJon

Do you think it's worth shielding the cavities?  I don't have a soldering iron so I'd have to get that too.

hyperfish

I don't want to give you the wrong impression Jon, I'm not a guitar tec (although I do work on my own guitars) and have never built one from kit, but I have read up and watched literally hundreds of videos about guitar tec. Just so I don't mislead you.

Shielding is usually employed to eliminate outside interference on the internal components from lighting, microwaves and all manner of things by using the Faraday cage principle.

The pickups themselves can be affected by interference but as their name suggests, humbuckers are configured to more or less cancel this out. Single coils are more susceptible to this than humbuckers.

Bottom line is you will only hear a benefit if an issue is there to deal with in the first instance. You won't really know if it's worth doing until you plug in to your amp. So personally I would wait to see if there is a problem to fix before spending more.

Christian 71

Yup I agree, it's not usually a problem on humbucker guitars so it probably won't make much difference. I shielded my strat with copper tape it's pretty cheap and easy to do, you can always do it afterwards as hyperfish says.

GloopyJon

I should update the correct thread here with my (slow) progress so far.  I have ordered the lacquers and some fine sandpaper, which have all been delivered to my mother's house in the UK and I'll pick them up at the end of July.  I ordered most of them from Manchester Guitar Tech (manchesterguitartech.co.uk) because he was very helpful in answering my emails, but I also ordered a purple can from Amazon because he didn't have that colour.  So I've ordered one can each of sanding sealer, purple lacquer, blue lacquer and clear gloss lacquer, which will go on the guitar in that order, I think, in order to create a blue/purple burst (blue on the inside, purple on the outside.  I'll post photos when I've got them.

I decided to buy some 600 grain sandpaper today from the local DIY shop because I gather that should be OK for sanding the body.  It's already supposedly sanded and sealed, but I prefer to sand it again myself.  Also, the insides of the cavities are a bit rough, and I've been wondering how to address that.  The worst is the one for the electronics shown below:
                                                                               

So I was wondering whether you could get some kind of sanding attachment to put on the end of a drill and while looking for the sandpaper, lo and behold I came across exactly what I had in mind!
                                                                               

The thingies on the right are a set of assorted sanding bits, and I reckon that with care I'll be able to smooth out the inside of the cavities.  I was rather chuffed to find those, and I might have a go with them tomorrow.

KungFuPro

Looks like a good project, for the burst effect it might be best to do the blue coat first and the purple burst afterwards. most videos I've seen do it in this order.

I tried doing a burst a few years back, I'd say it's worth having a few practise runs with scrap wood and car primer before using your good paint. One way of doing a burst with spray cans is to make a cardboard template, raise it about an inch with wood blocks and spray around it at an angle.

You can get a pretty decent gradient this way but I had to go back and tidy up the finish with wire wool (the woodblocks tend to catch paint). If you do it this way you might want a thin coat of clear lacquer over the blue coat so you can tidy the finish without sanding through the blue.

If I was to do a burst finish again I'd probably use a spray gun, it's difficult to control the amount of paint with rattle cans, although, this guy makes it look easy enough.

Christian 71

Just watched a few of this guys videos, really, really good.

Well worth a bookmark as he goes through all the stages in detail.

GloopyJon

Good video, I'll go and watch some more too!  I hope it will be as easy as he makes it look

GloopyJon

I've just done the first actual work on the guitar body!   I took the drill attachments that I bought yesterday and used two of them to sand inside the cavities and holes in the body, where the wood finish was a bit rough.  Here's a picture of it in action.
                                                                                 
That was the attachment I used the most, which was cylindrical, with a flat bottom so that I could sand the bottom of the cavities as well as the sides.  The big advantage is that this device can get into all of the corners which I wouldn't be able to reach by hand.

I also used the smaller of the two bullet-shaped attachments to go inside the holes for the controls and smooth the inside of those.

It took a bit of time to go around all of the cavities and holes, but it worked brilliantly - they are now much smoother than they were before.  They don't need to be absolutely perfect since all of these places will be hidden, but I didn't want them to be rough anyway, for whenever the guitar gets opened up and so that the whole thing is nicely finished, and the result is perfectly adequate for that.

Here's a repeat photo of the rear cavity after sanding.  You can't really see a huge difference in the photo, but it's much more pleasant to touch the wood now (no crude jokes please!).  You can see that I've got rid of the splinters by the hole on the right, at least, if you compare this with the picture in #25 above.
                                                                                 

Not sure if I'll do much more with it before I go to England and pick up the lacquers, but at least I've made a start!

GloopyJon

Back from the UK today with a few supplies for the guitar build.  I'll try to finish it by the end of August but it depends on how long I need to leave it to dry between coats, and how many coats it needs.  Anyway, here are most of the new goodies that I've returned with:
                                                                                 

Not shown in the picture, because I didn't think of it at the time (and it's dark now!), are a fret dressing file, which is very small, a set of feeler gauges and a mahogany neck rest (I've added the Amazon links so that you can take a look if you want).

The first job will be to fashion a handle that I can temporarily fix to the guitar in order to do the spraying, like in the video that @KungFuPro posted.  I'll see if I get around to it during the week, otherwise next weekend will be the start of the next phase.

Question to all of you...you know that I plan to do a blue/purple burst on the body of this guitar (blue inside, purple outside).  I plan to do the same on the front of the headstock, but what should I do with the back of the headstock and the neck?  I think the options are to leave it natural, spray it blue, spray it purple or to do a burst down the neck as well.  Bearing in mind that I want this guitar to look unusual and a bit garish, whaddya think?