Stratele Refinish - Finished

Grampa

Who ever thought retirement would be so busy, definitely fall into the "no idea how I ever had time to go to work" camp.
Couple of peaceful evenings over the last week while Grandma caught up on Casualty allowed me to get the neck sorted. Wet sanding should be offered as a therapy it's so relaxing and satisfying, well chuffed with my first attempt....
https://i.imgur.com/3mFeFmP.jpg

SteveF

Very nice! May I ask what grits you used and what you did for the final polish? 

Grampa

SteveF said:

Very nice! May I ask what grits you used and what you did for the final polish? 

Hi Steve, 800 - 1200 - 1500 - 2000 - Meguiars Scratch X 2.0

SteveF

Great, thanks I’ve been spraying my neck over the last couple of days so will be doing my own in a week or two. 

Roland

SimonRF said:

… tell her they've asked you to keep working...

I had an uncle who “changed jobs” a year before he retired. He rented office space, caught a later train every morning, read the newspaper, had lunch with old friends, snoozed in his office after lunch, and caught the early train home.

Roland

Grampa said:

… Grandma has a rather long to do list for me…

I already had a list. One item had been on it for 16 years.

Grampa

Roland said:

Grampa said:

… Grandma has a rather long to do list for me…

I already had a list. One item had been on it for 16 years.

I think my oldest item goes back to 2007 

Grampa

Poor old Grandma laid up with the Covid so between tea and sympathy I finally started to wet sand the body. Took about 3hrs in total and too knackered from running up and down the stairs to finish polish more than the belly cut, came out OK. 1200 - 1500 - 2000 - 2500 - Meguiars Scratch X 2.0 on the belly cut.
https://i.imgur.com/GNVOynJ.jpg

Grampa

Grandma still coughing and wheezing so sat for an hour in relative peace at the kitchen table with a bottle of Meguiars and an old tea towel to gave the body a quick once over. Far from factory perfect standard but easily good enough for my needs. No more sparkly paint and, more importantly, no sand throughs, result. Now just need to put it all back together.
https://i.imgur.com/FzcPT8m.jpg

Roland

Do you find that retirement gives you the patience to do these things?

Grampa

Roland said:

Do you find that retirement gives you the patience to do these things?

Hi @Roland ;;....I've always had a very patient nature, nothing stresses me and I'm an eternal optimist. Retirement just gives me the time to do these things. Having 40 to 60 extra hours per week that I control rather than my previous employer makes a huge difference to life.

Grampa

Couple of hours at the kitchen table and it's starting to take shape. Couldn't be bothered to walk out to the garage in the pissing rain to get the soldering iron so stopped as is....
https://i.imgur.com/LI0EHex.jpg

Grampa

Grandma feeling a bit better and spent the evening watching Strictly. Luckily I can't stand sparkly dancing and she prefers to watch in peace so used the time wisely to finish the build.
 Nailed it back together, fitted a set of 9-42's, set a nice low action and couldn't be happier. Everything lined up perfectly, very comfortable to play and sounds superb.
Spec....
Warmoth body
Warmoth neck
Oil City Route 66 pickups
Babicz bridge
Gotoh locking vintage tuners
Graphtech nut & string tree
Mojo pots
Switchcraft jack
Oak Grigsby switch
Elixir Nanoweb 9-42's
https://i.imgur.com/w2DRRJj.jpg

stickyfiddle

For some reason I missed this thread when you were starting but glad I'm here now. 

I actually quite liked the orange and blue, but the red is fantastic too. Looks like you've done a great job  

Penn

stickyfiddle said:

For some reason I missed this thread when you were starting but glad I'm here now. 

I actually quite liked the orange and blue, but the red is fantastic too. Looks like you've done a great job  

I also missed this. Nice to see people doing things. I love tangerine and like LPB but the finished guitar looks great in the Dakota Red. Nice work @Grampa ;I hope your list is getting smaller. 

Grampa

@stickyfiddle & @Penn Thank you, it's taken a while and I've learned a huge amount but it's definitely been worth the effort. And I think that the Grandma list is actually getting longer! 

Philly_Q

@Grampa I've only just seen this thanks to your sale thread, but nice work! 
I'm curious, where did you get the Warmoth decal?  They never used to sell them, just vinyl stickers or metal stick-on logos which I'm not keen on.  I always wished they'd make a proper Fender-style decal because I don't like a bare headstock. 

Grampa

@Philly_Q Hey buddy, thanks for the compliment, much appreciated. I hunted high and low for the decal finally finding one on Ali Express of all places. Arrived in around 2 weeks and actually was of superb quality. They had decals for all the major manufacturers, highly recommend.

Philly_Q

Grampa said:

@Philly_Q Hey buddy, thanks for the compliment, much appreciated. I hunted high and low for the decal finally finding one on Ali Express of all places. Arrived in around 2 weeks and actually was of superb quality. They had decals for all the major manufacturers, highly recommend.

Ah, I thought it must be from somewhere other than Warmoth.   Looks good though, and it's not really a "fake" since Warmoth themselves don't make one.  I might have to buy a few.

Svennn

Very enjoyable thread to read through and a fabulous result. Extremely well done with far more patience than I would have