Ok, so I had been monitoring this website for when they would have these things in stock here in the Netherlands. When they did I immediately ordered one and a few days later I took delivery of my own soon to be first home-made guitar.
Somehow the people at packaging had anticipated my joyous state and had included some balloons with blue lettering to help celebrate the occasion.
Or perhaps it was for condoleances on the dissappointment that followed unpacking the body. I had planned on doing a natural binding including the cut-aways but it appears the top had to be 'filled' with a plank of a significantly darker color.
Another surprise was to see a 24-fret neck. I measured it up and it appears to be a short scale 24.7”. I compared it on the body and it checks out. So it's like a 7/8 guitar?
Oh well, I'll have to rethink that one. Probably come up with something patentable...
Headstock looks nice enough
Ok so the body is made of 5(!) pieces. That's 6 if you include the filler-plank. The sealer everybody talks about actually feels alright and it crosses my mind to just leave it as is.
Everything seems to be there.
Most of the parts fit perfectly, except for the neck pickup. The part of the neck after the last fret pushes the pickup ring backward, which makes the pickup push against the body, which makes the pickup tilt when you raise it. I'll have to fix some custom mounting rings. Or first try to fit the Schecter pickups (G&B) left over from my 006 Deluxe EMG H4 project. (wow, sounds like a space adventure)
It looks the part, anyway. At this point I'm already telling myself what a shame it will be to mess up that beautiful flame maple top. I'll have to see how long my patience holds out. She's louder than any of my other guitars (unplugged that is), almost like a small acoustic. But maybe that's because it's all new? Weight's nice too.
Yep.
Size is right too, my trusty old case is a tight fit.
Why not leave her like this?
Well, because of that plank of course.
It really messes things up.
I could still use half of the cut-away's cut-away...
It would work. But that will require some masking skills.
And contrary to most of the other builders I came across on the forums I'm going to leave all the sealer on. This because I want to try a sunburst on the front and if I mess up at least that beautiful flame maple top is protected.
Forget about the body for a while and concentrate on the headstock. I haven't decided on a shape yet but I have decided that since it's only the headstock I'll finish it first and shape it later. I know I'll end up redoing the whole neck in the end but so be it.
First, as advised, let's try this paint I've bought at the big bicycle and car appliances dealer on some old furniture. It's Motip's Mirage effect set, this one called Fire Fly, and supposed to shift color from gold to red depending on lighting angle. So we try it on a flat surface for best effect right ;)
Seems to work. These pictures are taken in daylight. First you spray the primer, which is black, and let it dry for a while (the can says 2 hours but for the test I waited only 45 minutes or so). I sprayed some different opaques, to see if I could do a sunburst thing, to spare the beautiful flame maple top somewhat. I masked of the front and sides of the body, following a straight line from the low edge of the neck pocket so the paint would cover about 5 mm over the edges. I didn't really know why but it felt ok, and i could always sand it off later. I masked the sides of the headstock and neck and gave everything but the back of the headstock two coats of primer.
Oh and of course my terrific headstock design, ahum. I 'misted' that and the sides of the headstock with a little primer. I waited for the full two hours and proceeded with the effect paint on the headstock. I found out you can do a nice transition from effect to black as the effect comes with the number of layers you put on. I just covered it completely.
Here's what it looks like after about an hour's drying time.
Different angle, different light, different color!
The sides also have a little flake sparkle but it doesn't capture on camera that well.
I left the back untouched.
It says it does gold to red, but actually it does black purple red gold yellow and green!
This headstock design is terrific!
The logo fades in and out under different angles.
See? I'll leave the back black, for now, because I don't want to run out of paint before the front is done.
I had tried a sunburst with the primer on the back, free hand, using little puffs of paint from the outside inward, tilting the can from down to up with each puff. That worked for for about 3 cm wide, but as I tried to get closer to the middle I messed up so I covered it completely and decided to copy the sunburst masking techniques from some other forums for the front.
One not completely unsuccesful sunburst attempt. I ended up using 2 masks on top of eachother, separated with little rolls of tape and bending upward from the inside out. This worked well but the lower mask had dropped on one side leaving an edge in the paint.
...
Let's look at the headstock some more while I figure out whether I'll leave the burst thing or leave the burst thing alone.
I sanded the edges and added a little contrast to the shape.
So it's predominantely reddish gold sort of...
Yeah...
Or just black.
Like the body after a sunburst touch up attempt. Some more pondering if I'll leave the lighter part light or cover it up before I said '[expletive deleted] it' and almost emptied the can of effect pain on it.
Like the back I had masked the sides leaving about 5 mm to be covered with primer and effect paint.
I sprayed layers up and down and side to side until it appeared wet, then let it dry for a while and put on somemore layers.
The more of the effect paint is used, the more opaque the color becomes and the sparkle dissappears a little.
Still wet though.
A bit later the flake seems to return a little.
And where did that sunburst go to?
Maybe I shouldn't have used any primer and just bursted the front with effect paint only, thereby leaving some visibility for the beautiful flame maple top.
But this color is nice too.
I like it.
Here you can see a little of the different colors in one picture. And You can even see the line in the burst a little.
Which looked like this.
Off with the masking tape.
This looks quite nice already.
Gold?
How do you call this sort of paintjob? I call it 'Security ClearanceTM', patent pending.
Red?
Bronze?
After some hardening time during which I looked at the headstock and body a lot I decided to go for another patentable option.
This one is called the 'Poor Man's JacketTM' which consists of a natural binding which is sanded out after first applying Security ClearanceTM.
Though not everywhere as tight as it would have been had I taken a few hours to do it instead of minutes, I'm quite satisfied with my progress so far. Purple.
Gold.
Further copying of techniques from other builders. I decided to string her up for clearcoating.
I did go for the Poor Man's JacketTM on the back as well, but it turned out too thin in some places so I sanded those sides completely.
The result of which is fine by me.
This guitar body now holds about 1500ml of paint.
That's 1 400ml can of primer, 1 of effect paint, 2 of clearcoat, minus what went on the headstock, and the thin 2 coats of clearcoat I gave to the neck.
Let's hook 'r up!
I sanded the gloss off of the truss rod cover.
I'm starting to get exited.
I know I should let the paint dry and harden for about a week. But it's already been two days or so. I'm a put this baby in wax.
Tadaah...
I sanded the pickup ring from the inside so the pickup would have more room, but it needs two different holes as well. I can't find the screws to fit my Schecter pickups and the store didn't have any.
Proof it's me...
Toilet training.
The angle of the neck requires the bridge to be rather high, almost looks like a violin.
Lovely.
One of the holes from the bridge mounting ring gave way to the screw, so definetely some new rings are due.
With anti buzz application. Need to change the wiring for the pickup.
Black guitar.
After listening to the pickups for a while, I decided they're pretty ok, but they sound a little on the vintage side. I haven't tried it on a real amp yet, just through my standard setup in Guitar Rig2. Very well suited for blues and rock playing though. I will find a use for these sometime.
Predominantely purple with improvised suspension mechanism for the Schecter pickups. These sound a little more modern and were left over after I put EMG H4's in my 006.
Handmade.
I might leave the headstock as is, though that will give it's origin away quite easily. I'll figure something out.
There's even a little bit of burst under some angles, thanks to the carved body.
Not under others.
And yes, I know the plastic ring should be on the inside of the jackplate...
...but this is a
HRK 360 Poor Cheap Stick
Where the ring goes on the outside.
And HRK360's are tuned to B, preferably with thick strings like Power Slinkies, which is why you can see 4 wound strings in this (and other) pictures. This one is currently strung with GHS Boomers, but they're nowhere tight enough. This will change in the near future, though.
LOL. I'll definitely do this again sometime soon. Maybe a Leg Pole. Or maybe sand this one down to bare wood and try something with that BEAUTIFUL FLAME MAPLE TOP.
So now that she's 'finished':
Dissappointments:
-
The 'filler-plank' that messes up the inner cutaways.
- The
neck/neck-pickup situation is too tight for a nice fit.
Pleasantries:
-
The 24 fret short scale neck, though causing one of the
dissappointments, is a bonus in itself. The heel starts around the
18th fret(!) making the entire fretboard very
accesible.
- The standard pickups sound pretty good.
- The
tone-pot actually works
And now that I've reattached the neck it turns out there's much less of an angle, taking the bridge down.
Definite
replacements/add-ons:
- Graphite nut
- Pickup rings
-
Some Ernie Ball Power Slinkies
Optional
replacements/add-ons:
- Locking tuners
-
DiMarzio/EMG/Swinehead pickups
- A real volume control, maybe
push/pull for coil tapping.
Cheerz