The accidental relic

eSully

Ha. Thanks for the feedback. I have to admit it took me a few seconds to refocus my eyes and see the evil mouse but yep, now I can see it, back to drawing board it is

eSully

Back to sharing another blunder. I was overdue one.

Well, I Sanded the poly down in preparation for a buff and polish. Yet again, up to 3000 grit, it felt superbly smooth to hand but looked cloudy. A few little low parts as you can see in the picture below but overall really good. At the point of the picture below I decided the tiny imperfections I could live with and it wasn't really worth the risk going right through the poly again. I'd do a buff and see how it went, I could always scuff it up again and re-coat with poly if I wasn't happy with the results.




but the buff and varnish came up superb, I'm really happy with it, I think you can see in the picture below it's got a real gloss shine, the surface is beautifully smooth. Could still use some Swirl remover if I wanted but even as it is I'm happy enough for it to stay that way.



Onto the scratch plate. I'd done a rudimentary placement of the kits black scratchplate on the body and assumed there to be no issue so went ahead and used the one included with the kit as a template for my tortoiseshell one.



And cut out with the jigsaw, not perfect but with a bit of sanding and scrapping looks pretty decent. There is a layer of protective film on the top so ignore the dust and scratchs.



So I played around with it, sanded it down a little and placed it on the guitar where it looked best, happy with the result I drilled the holes into the body and screwed in loosely. Great. Progressing nicely.





It occurred to me I should see what it looks like with the pick up in place. And .....




DOH, I'll have to look into reshaping it today. Annoying as I'd already drilled and countersunk the holes!  

The one that came with it wasn't much better and Looks like it was meant to be placed very close to the bottom edge of the guitar which I didn't take into account when I placed mine. Not having the dogear pick up handy to check when placing the pickguard, dumb move.

eSully

Well, Time to put this thread to bed. Monday night I hooked up the electrics, I need to level the frets as there's a couple of high ones but overall it's playable and maybe with a bit of extra work could make it quiet decent.

I'll add here that I decided to use only the parts that came with the kit (barring the tortoiseshell for scratchplate), first time doing a guitar build so if I was going to screw up wiring/pots/bridges and whatnot then I'd rather do that with cheap crappy parts. I may end up ripping out and replacing parts down the line. We'll see. Issues with parts of the kit below:

The Good:

• From a distance it looks nice, the relicing effect in person is surprisingly nice and has a 3d effect when moved in the light.
• The buff and polish of the front and back looks fantastic against the uneven finish underneath. Very happy with the overall look.
  
• Pretty happy with how the scratchplate, Truss rod cover and headstock veneer came out.
  
  Kit parts
  
• The tuning stability is really good, better than I expected, the machine heads that came with it feel solid and hold tune really well.
• The pickup is quiet bright but actually sounds very good and definitely hums less than the 2015 LPJ I had.
• The wood is really resonant, the guitar sounds great acoustically, also the fretboard, although quiet light is really lovely, I intend to darken the fretboard slightly at some point.
  

The Bad:

• It's a very uneven poly finish when you really look at it up close, there are some drips showing underneath the poly on the sides, working in a spotlit shed didn't help I think. a lesson learned in applying poly. I had applied the earlier coats of poly far too heavily and impatiently and really I was on the back foot from there.
• I think I connected the wire to the wrong side of the tone pot, rolling off makes it brighter!!!! My 2 pots work in opposite directions - Oops (In my defense, first time wiring and I wired it the way the diagram showed)
  

The Ugly

• Rushing to finish things I managed to add imperfections in the finish, my drill slipped when I was buffing at one point and left a nasty groove on the side. I also managed to burn down through the poly at one point while buffing as I had the drill on too high a setting. I intend to do spot fixes on these so I'll learn from them.
  
• the bridge is not grounded currently, I'm not getting a lot of hum from the pick up at all tbh, surprisingly but still, I hammered in the pole piece bushing before doing the electrics and completely forgot to put the ground wire in - DOH. I know how to get the bushing out, done it before on my SG so I can fix it when I take the strings off next!
  
  Kit parts -
  
• The bridge needed to have the base sanded down in the grooves for the pole pieces as they wouldn't fit ... at all. The bridge was too wide for the slots in the pole pieces. Got them fitting now after attacking it with the sanding block for a while but still, very poor.
  
• The scratchplate that came with it really didn't fit the body very well either and didn't leave room for the pickup.
• the plastic nut is rubbish, although that's to be expected, filed down the bottom to improve the nut height but I will replace it when I get the chance.

I wish I had better pictures because I don't think these quiet do the top justice but crappy iPhone pics will have to do for now.














Right .. time to line up my next build  

Rox

There's something very satisfying about finishing a parts build... but it's bloody addictive!

So what's next...?

eSully

Absolutely @Rox - I've enjoyed it a lot, I've barely watched tv in the last 4 weeks as I was out in the garage every evening trying to fix what I broke the night before

I don't know what's up next yet. I'm thinking another kit is a good idea but I won't lie, there's a devil in me that wants to try to build one from scratch. If I do that I'll try to come up with my own design rather than do a strat/LP style copy. If I go down the kit route I'm thinking goldtop LP. I have another non-guitar related evening project kicking off now that should keep me busy for another month or so and I'll decide while doing that.

hows the walnut strat coming along?

Rox

Got a neck, three (!) bodies on the way, (none are actually walnut but that'll be the colour anyway)...  Can't wait to get started!

jonnyburgo

Well done, I've just done my first project, an Esquire, which to be fair is pretty much just bolting everything together. It Is addictive though, I want a Junior now!

eSully

Cheers @jonnyburgo - How did the Esquire go, any pics?

jonnyburgo

It's a bit further down the page, also an accidental relic as I was a bit sloppy in the prep work so decided to go for a relic finish. Deffo getting an LP Jr kit though, been eyeing them for a while. .Might try the ink stain method.

eSully

jonnyburgo said:

It's a bit further down the page, also an accidental relic as I was a bit sloppy in the prep work so decided to go for a relic finish. Deffo getting an LP Jr kit though, been eyeing them for a while. .Might try the ink stain method.

Ah, I had seen your thread, very nice finish, was the blue a spray on nitro?

The kit I went with had good and bad points, I've tried to highlight above, I would recommend it but just bear in mind you might want to do you're own scratchplate or reshape the one that comes with it a little. Also, the bridge poles on mine didn't fit the bridge and it needed to be sanded down a bit. In all fairness though, for a £95 kit I'm not put out by that.

jonnyburgo

No it wasnt it was furniture spray paint from B&Q i think its Valspur brand or something like that, sprayed over a 50s classic white blond poly body that had been badly routed for buckers. I lack the patience to wait for Nitro to cure! One day though, possibly (but probably not)