The Billy1802t

cur · Post by **cur** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:08 pm

BacchusPaul wrote:Pics don't work, bandwidth exceeded.

How do I correct this?

stewart · Post by **stewart** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 5:15 pm

pm dots and ask, or upload them to a photobucket or imageshack account instead.

cur · Post by **cur** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:29 pm

Dots saved the day (again). Thanks.

I was able to shape the horns by hand yesterday. Used a combination of oscillating spindle sander and hand held random orbital sander. I think I did an OK job.... pats self on back.

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Gabriel · Post by **Gabriel** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:45 pm

Looks great, I'm really excited to see how this turns out.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:05 pm

BANGIN'.

cur · Post by **cur** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:18 am

Got some stuff done this weekend. Friday after work I filled the grain on the guitar with epoxy. I was able to get a couple good coats on. Then I went down town to check out all the stuff going on with the all star NHL hockey in town. Drank too much bourbon, but was not driving so all was good.

In the morning I sanded it smooth. Did not need any more coats to fill the grain. So my son and I went down to check out all the hockey stuff. Then in the evening I shot the guitar with three coats of shellac as a sealer and to get a final leveling coat on it. Sanded down to 320 grit.

This afternoon I cut and beveled the pickguard on the router table. Things went well. I was a little concerned about routing plastic, but the stuff machined well and did not melt and pill up. I had purchased the three ply mint blank from GFS. However, I the picture does not look too minty.

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Billy3000 · Post by **Billy3000** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:33 am

Holy crap! I am seriously amazed at the progress you have made on this guitar! I'm really glad I gave it to you, it never would have turned out anywhere near this nice if I had kept it and worked on it myself!

cur · Post by **cur** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 2:44 pm

Thanks, Billy. Its been fun. Have not had a good project for a while. Probably going to order the rest of the parts tonight. And hopefully start painting soon.

One issue I have noticed is that the neck is not snug in the pocket. There is a good sized gap between the body and the neck. I am thinking of throwing a low and high E string on it to get the neck aligned and then look at the gap and decide if I should build it up and reform the pocket.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:14 pm

really great looking, curby.

cur · Post by **cur** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 1:49 am

For the amusement of of Billy and Hotrod, I will give another update.

I ordered the rest of my parts on monday night. Pickups, pots, shielding and switch. Should be here soon. I attached the neck and put on some E strings so I can tell where the pickups need to go.

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So the truss rod cover did not patch my new pickguard. It was cream and the new stuff is mint. So I went about making a new truss rod cover. Of course, it could not be a simple flat cover, but had to be angled to match the neck contour. So I made a jig to match the bend of the original cover. Then I cut out a new cover from a trace. Then I free hand shaped it. Getting it symmetrical was time consuming but I did not care to make a tiny routing pattern. Then I cut the 45 degree bevel with a box cutter blade and whittled it to shape. It is a good job from about 2 foot away. I beveled the back edge to match the nut. So all good but the scary part was drilling the screw holes to match. I matched them up good enough and then counter sunk the holes. You need a nice countersink for this, but I have a razor sharp one sitting around.

Oh, yes, I was confused on how the get the proper bend in the cover. I did an experiment with some scrap pickguard material. I boiled some water in a coffee cup and then stuck the end I wanted to bend in it for about 20 seconds or until it was a little bendy. Then I placed it on the jig so bottom side was down. and held in place with my thumb. I took about 20 seconds to cool. Just like forming a mouth guard for football.
I did notice that the side against the wood was soft enough to take on the saw marks from the wood. So I did not use the top mold for the real cover. Just my thumb.

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And here is how it worked out.

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I am fairly happy with the new cover. I might do a little more shaping with the razor, but I don't want to get greedy and then make a mistake and start over. It does look pretty good unless you get right up close.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:11 am

this looks so good, pisssssssssss

what are you doing for pickups and configuration? jag pickups would be super sweet.

great job on the truss rod cover. you have really surprised me with your skillz.

Lucamo · Post by **Lucamo** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:34 am

This guitar is hot as hell!

This is an inspiration to me! WO

cur · Post by **cur** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 3:58 am

Well was not going to mention it until I get it all wired up, but I am all excited ... so I spill the beans.

I have a CV Duo, Danelectro, and my SX short scale with tex mex pickups and a jagmaster neck. I also have a Douglas Spad, which is like a Schecter C1. So I want something with a different tone and sound to it than what I have covered. I am hoping to get a raunchy bar rock sound out of it. Not sure I made the right choice of pickups but I know it will sound different from that I already have. I ordered the GFS Brighton Rock; 8.5 for bridge and 7.5 for neck..... they were out of the 6.5 so what the hell. Also, I think they will look cool in the guitar. I am using all black gear to go with the pickups. A black 3-way switch, and
these knobs. I got an on-on switch to go from parallel to series in the middle position.

For paint, I want something to go with the mint guard. I ordered a water based LPU that I have experience with from my boat building days. The stuff is a joy to work with and water based - totally non toxic, don't smell, lays out nice, dries really fast, hard as nails ... Bla bla bla... The color I picked is Whidbey White. Kind of a cream thing, and some high gloss clear to go over that. But having seen the newer Mustangs with the Grabber Orange paint I was thinking this would look nice with the mint and black hardware. If I go orange I might do the front of the headstock orange as well.

When I am building things, I can imagine what they are going to look like in shape and form, but I can never envision colors like that in my head. My wife thinks the Grabber Orange looks like Home Depot. So I lost my chubby on that.

Any input with colors would be appreciated, but I think the glossy creamy white with mint and black knobs and the Brighton Rocks will look nice.

Also, this is a huge bodied guitar with a 24.75" scale neck. It is silly big.

Richard · Post by **Richard** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:03 am

That's looking great. Nice work.

Billy3000 · Post by **Billy3000** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:04 am

Holy crap, dude! Those were the exact pickups I was going to put in it if I did the project myself! You read my mind! That's awesome! I'm really excited to see the progress in this thread! I think the orange could look cool, maybe not with the mint color pickguard though.

Lucamo · Post by **Lucamo** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:09 am

Do green... SEAFOAM

cobascis · Post by **cobascis** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:10 am

Looks choice.

cur · Post by **cur** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:40 am

Daphne blue with Mint Guard is one of my favorite looks, Hotrod post one all the time on a bronco. But not on this guitar.

I am not really thinking Fender-like colors on this thing. But like I said, color schemes are not my thing. I know what I like when I see it but hard for me to figure it out in my head in advance.

One of the invaluable things about being married to some one with more style and sense than me is that I get stopped at the door if I leave the house looking like a rodeo clown dressed me. It's a win win.

Any way I might just rock it in its patch-work, unfinished state for a couple of months until the weather out side permits. That is if I decide to change from the cream. I can shoot that indoors with my HVLP, because it is water based and don't stink. If you guys convince me of something else then I will probably have to wait until the weather gets better outside. Painting can be fickle like that.

cur · Post by **cur** » Thu Feb 03, 2011 4:51 am

Billy3000 wrote:Holy crap, dude! Those were the exact pickups I was going to put in it if I did the project myself! You read my mind! That's awesome! I'm really excited to see the progress in this thread! I think the orange could look cool, maybe not with the mint color pickguard though.

Great minds and all that ...... maybe from rocking the same suburbs.

So about the orange with mint. There was a G&L tele thing that was orange (clear orange maybe) and a mint guard that made me want it so badly. Can't find a pic of it.

cur · Post by **cur** » Sun Feb 13, 2011 5:01 am

Well I have all the stuff to put this thing together and make it a guitar. But there was one glaring problem that needed to be addressed before I felt comfortable in routing out the pickup slots. There was a giant gap in the neck pocket and the neck itself. Other than the obvious hack job on this guitar, it is probably why Billy found it in the dumpster. No way this thing would have a stable neck. I could about stick a nickel in the gap.

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Before I started, I put the neck on with the E and e strings attached. Then I fiddled with the neck until the strings ran parallel with the outer edges of the neck. I put a straight edge along the outer neck and traced the line onto the guitar body so I could keep an eye on how much I needed to shim and build up.

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I used a feeler gauge to see the max distance of the gap and it was 1.5 - 2 mm. I used the band saw to cut a veneer from hard maple to fit and glued it into place. To fix the radius and the little seam created by the shim, I used J-B weld. Great stuff because it sands and machines well when it sets up and it is thick does not sag when setting up. Sort of like Bondo, but it is a 1:1 mix.

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Then I let it set overnight and sanded everything up. I put on the neck and it was a nice tight fix. I could pick up the guitar body with the neck and it would not drop off.
I put the E and e strings on and it did not even have to bump the neck to get it lined up perfect.

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Hopefully I can get it wired up tomorrow.

I ordered a single coil template from stewmac, but since the template was cheap and the sipping was more that the part, I also ordered the humbucker template. They sent the single coil and the p90 template. Sent them a pic of the error and they said keep it and are sending the humbucker template for free. SCORE! I got the complete set now.