Finished!

In total this build has taken just a smidgen over a month to go from bare kit to fully complete guitar that is ready for it's new home, which is a good job as its Andy's birthday in only a few weeks.

Anyway, here she is all finished.

And with the Lils Paul from my last build, not a bad looking pair even if I do say so myself!

Nearly there...

Well it's nearly there, we've come along way in quite a short time.  I got pick up and wiring cavities painted with conductive shielding paint.

Because the controls match the Les Paul project we did last time, I did the majority of wiring outside using a wiring template made out of some off cut ply.  This picture is from the Les Paul project, the components used in this build are more basic and don't have push/pull switches.

 All done and strung up, it just needs the action setting up and it'll be good to go!

I did make one little booboo in that I forgot to put the earth wire in before I hammered in the bridge/anchor bushings.  So I carefully drilled a hole through to the anchor post hole, then stripped about 2cm of wire bare which was stuffed in to the newly drilled hole till it touched the bushing and made a good connection. The other end was soldered to the back of one of the pots.  Because the earth is normally fed through and held in place when the post is fitted I then put a small drop of glue in the wire hole to prevent it from falling out.

Whilst the guitar would have worked without it, there are two reasons to fit the earth -

1 Safety, if for any reason the strings became live they would earth through the player, electrocuting them in the process.

2 The earth reduces unwanted annoying humming noises.

Gluing the neck

The lovely shiny shellac finish has now hardened so I can get the neck attached.  With a liberal coating of wood glue I carefully lined up the marks I made right at the beginning and clamped it down to the body.

Then, using a block of wood with fret grooves carved out, I added another clamp this allows for firm clamping against the fret board without applying pressure to the frets.

And here it is ready for some hardware and wires...

Applying the finish

Just before I start applying the finish I need to stain the headstock and get the lettering on it.

Didn't see the point in trying to get a burst effect on the headstock so I went with the same ink mix that I used on the outer edge of the body.

I used shellac on my last kit with stunning effect so I thought I would use it again on this one.  I know it's not as hard wearing, and it's a labour of love to apply however it feels just delightfully silky soft and warm to touch.

 The shellac darkened the basswood body giving it a warm antique look

 And the same for the maple neck, but the front is a different story...

In my inexperience I didn't count on the natural slightly yellowy colour of shellac and what it would do to my lovely blue front and headstock!

Oh look, the lovely flame top blue burst has turned a greeny blue...  Oops...  Thankfully and with no shortage of luck it's turned a gorgeous dark sea green and blue.  This certainly wasn't planned but I absolutely love the results, in fact I'm almost sorry that it's going to someone else now!

Thankfully the headstock turned out the same colour, and although the black initials in the hearts can only just be seen, the gold lettering stands out rather quite nicely

Setting the neck up ready for gluing

When I opened the kit I noticed the neck had a bit of back bow when it arrived.  I tweaked the truss rod about half a turn and it straightened out perfectly.

Using a straight edge resting on identically size blocks of aluminium I was able to see the necks back bow.

 Some tweaks of the truss rod, about half a turn in all...

And it was soon dead straight.  I then left it a week to see if it would move anymore, it didn't so I was able to get on with leveling the frets with an oil stone.

 After leveling I re-crowned the frets with some needle files.

I then cut the headstock shape out.  This series of love hearts, one for each member of the family was designed by the girls.  Each heart will have their initial in it

Adding some colour

Okay after carefully sanding back the deep black to more of stripey grey it's time to add some colour.  It was decided that it should be blue so here we go.  Unfortunately the kids weren't able to be here and I'm limited to time so I've cracked on with it.

 First layer of watered down cobalt blue ink.

 Building up the colour using neat ink...

 Added a tiny bit, and I mean a tiny drop, of black ink to darken it around the edges.

Let's see how it looks with the fittings - This is going to look good!

Making flames...

As this is a birthday present, I intend to print this blog and include it with the guitar.  This means I need his kids to help...

First thing we did was liberally cover it in black ink, which will be sanded back bring out the flame stripes.

Aprons donned and black ink poured, now the messy stuff ensued...

 Lily, now being an expert after the last project supervised

Nearly there...

A few hours later and it had dried, the girls didn't like sanding - apparently it's boring so they left that to me.  As with the Les Paul kit you have to be careful sanding as it's only a very thin veneer and can easily be sanded through so I did it all by hand with a fine grade sandpaper.