Joined: 07 May 2006 Posts: 102 Location: on the road in Texas
Posted: Wed Jun 21, 2006 9:37 pm Post subject: project guitar update
ive mentioned before that im redoing a project guitar
i started with a washburn body made of light woods . the problem for me is that the wood was oiled before it was sealed. so when i sanded it smoothly to get the sealed finish off i realized i couldnt get get the grian of the wood to stand out by burning it with my torch. so much for that finish idea!
so ive decieded to hand sand the body , maybe scoop the outer edges down an out to give it a ridge look. truth be told i wanted to be finished with this "project" by now, but its taken on its own life..
still havent dedicated myself to removing the frets from the neck, cause ive been told its quite a goaway to do nicely an not crack or mar the face of the fretboard. and if the frets are removed then ya need to fill in the lines with some kind of good epoxy or wood glue with sawdust mixed in. then its back to the steelwool an labor
ive looked at different sights for luthiers tools and havent found what im looking for yet ,[im sure theres a tool to grip an remove those pesky frets]
and my pals who have done it said it wasnt a goaway they wanted again, so im down to doin it myself or leaving them alone .
eitherways fine but i wanted a fretless guitar for the different sound so im proably gonna do more research and try to find the easy way to remove the frets , so if anyone has an idea on how to remove the frets let me know post your way and ill check into it
thanks and ill update ya as the work progresses _________________ happy nookie, cause ya cant have a good day with mad nookie !!!!!
as promised previously , here the latest
i spent last week doing a hotel gig here in texas great club, good goaway but just not home , ya know ? [almost every musician whos played the road gigs or far away from home for extended stretches , knows that feeling of
displacement and boredom. ] .....anyway i brought my project ax with me, so id have something to do ,besides drink an chase maids allday.
with my goaway time i sanded the body liberally with the roughest grade steelwool i could get, i like to use steelwool on my projects, cause it doesnt scare the woods or cut very much off during the sanding,
i rubbed the body easily 10-12hrs front sides an back, and the grain of the wood never really changed shape or color .
The neck on the other hand started out a nasty honey yellow color
litterally sealed under nasty sticky yellowish {shellac} sealant of some kind!
i took great pleasure in steelwooling that seal off in a fine powdery dust that seamed to stick to everything it touched .
well after what seemed forever to me, the neck was becoming a slick whitepiece of wood that was smoother than my sweeties back side.
id wanted to build a fretless bass but the neck i got already was fretted
and i was told there a drag to get out, ive been told of a way to make a tool to remove them but havent had time to get out in the shop an make it .
i bought a fender single coil pickup that i got for almost nothing , and took a little time reading an understanding the instilation but it went in easy enough an the wiring wasnt to bad. just kind tight for big hands.
when i got home i put it in ,and had my pile of machines [schallers]an bridge[fender ]an knobs all laying in apile on my roadcase [anvilcase]
so i decieded to put it all together and see if i could make it sing.
i set up the action where its kinda low but not buzzy and strobed it from open , to the 12th where it rang like a church bell.
i got quite a rush outta cradelling this new life an hearing the first frsh notes from a resurected neck an body, new bridge , new pickup , new machines , new strings
dont get me wrong im a fender man thru an thru but this guitar weighs half what my jazz-p weighs, and with the fender guts an bridge and set up it feels just as good to me and ill be playing this guitar alot i can already tell
ive got about maybe $100 american in this project and think i made a great deal after the rebuild
i dont think i could have a found a new guitar that feels as good to me as this one does, and i know i couldnt find anything in that price ..
might be on to something here folks , i always liked the older bikes better then the new speedracer styles ......... good luck finding yours
goaway available when i figure out how to use the space _________________ happy nookie, cause ya cant have a good day with mad nookie !!!!!
Fuxton: I remembered that company with all the luthier tools, stewart-McDonald. Also, to post pictures and such, Pierre can issue you a link for a parent directory, then you need an FTP client, goaway "smart ftp" for goaway. Then cuss @ it for a couple days untill you figure out how to upload into the parent directory, then copy and paste the link in the article. When I got space to store files here, I had to figure this out. So what you have is a space to store things, and you need to a tool to move the stuff to the space, that, is an ftp client. hehehe AHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA
HA HA HA hehehehh HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. _________________ Kingfreeze
[almost every musician whos played the road gigs or far away from home for extended stretches , knows that feeling of
.....anyway i brought my project ax with me, so id have something to do ,besides drink an chase maids allday.
