Musicmaster project - COMPLETE!

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:47 pm

Pens wrote:Nah, I'm just going to leave it bare. I like bare headstocks.

So, last night I decided to shoot the first layer of neck amber on. Maybe it was bad lighting but I was having a hard time seeing any change in color, so I applied it a bit too heavily and got a pretty severe run. I think this stuff is water-based? Can I wipe it back off with a wet rag or do I need to acetone this bitch?

You might just wetsand the run out. It's better to do 2 thin coats as opposed to one really heavy coat. Takes longer but you can avoid those runs and the time it takes to fix them.

I am doing the exact same thing on my 1969 Mustang neck using tinted nitro and it took 5 thin coats to notice a difference. Currently resembles the finish on the current Jagmaster necks. But I am wanting Mustang RI neck tan/gloss on my neck so it will take many more coats to get the color and gloss to acceptable levels.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 3:56 pm

Yeah, I want that heavy tint color as well, I'm using my MIJ Jag neck as the comparison as I want it to be around that color. I'm going to try water later when I get home from work, barring that I'm going to try to lightly acetone it to just melt away some of it and hopefully not go back to square one.

I should have known better, I just needed some kind of feedback to know where I had hit with color and where I hadn't, and this stuff is very very subtle in one coat.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:12 am

Okay, new question. How long does it take for nitro to cure to the point I can sand it?

I got some acetone and cleared the amber runs, that left me with some "patchy" areas that I was afraid wasn't going to be able to be blended, but I was shocked at how forgiving nitro is. I now have the neck tinted as dark as I want it, using my MIJ Jag neck to match it to. I'm happy with the amber coat now.

I shot some more nitro on it, it's still going to need to be wet sanded with some 1000/2000 grit but it looks good. Now I'm just wondering, how long do I have to wait for this shit?

While I was waiting for the coats to dry on the neck, I got to work wet sanding the body and raising the grain/sanding it back down with 600 grit paper. The body is now nice and smooth, just waiting for it to dry completely, hit with some mineral spirits, then apply a can of sanding sealer.

This shit is taking longer than I thought it would. I want to play this guitar NOW.

robroe · Post by **robroe** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 4:20 am

i don't know.

i just send all my shit to rodvonbon / robOG and it comes back AWESOME

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 5:43 am

Pens wrote:Okay, new question. How long does it take for nitro to cure to the point I can sand it?

I got some acetone and cleared the amber runs, that left me with some "patchy" areas that I was afraid wasn't going to be able to be blended, but I was shocked at how forgiving nitro is. I now have the neck tinted as dark as I want it, using my MIJ Jag neck to match it to. I'm happy with the amber coat now.

I shot some more nitro on it, it's still going to need to be wet sanded with some 1000/2000 grit but it looks good. Now I'm just wondering, how long do I have to wait for this shit?

While I was waiting for the coats to dry on the neck, I got to work wet sanding the body and raising the grain/sanding it back down with 600 grit paper. The body is now nice and smooth, just waiting for it to dry completely, hit with some mineral spirits, then apply a can of sanding sealer.

This shit is taking longer than I thought it would. I want to play this guitar NOW.

It's so weird because I just finished spraying tinted nitro on my neck like 10 minutes ago. Nitro can take a while to fully harden I remember letting my Telecaster body harden up for about a month or so before playing. I have read anywhere from days to weeks to month(s). Whatever your patience meter will allow.

This might be helpful: http://theunofficialmartinguitarforum.y ... qjuyXHyCFs

serfx · Post by **serfx** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 5:44 am

robroe wrote:i don't know.

i just send all my shit to rodvonbon / robOG and it comes back AWESOME

^this

or i just don't give an fuck and rock out on it way to soon.. this has the added dis/advantage of giving it a bit of a "relic" job.. but actually from playing.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 6:30 am

I'm doing poly on the body at least. I'll give the neck as long as it takes to finish the body to cure. If it ain't ready, I don't care.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:44 am

Okay, so I got the main run fixed on the neck, but there was this BUMP of balled up clear and amber that was driving me nuts. I was gonna just wait and sand it out later, but decided to acetone it and try spot fixing it.

Yeah, that didn't go so well. So finally I just acetone'd off a good 2 inch strip from the back around the first/second frets. Just reshot it with clear, gonna try once more to fix that spot.

Meanwhile, I've used almost a whole can of Deft sanding sealer on the body, it's getting close to be able to level-sand and then start shooting with primer.

GETTING CLOSER.

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 3:58 am

Hang in there. I love it when a guitar comes together.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:15 am

Yeah, you can kinda still see the line here. Shoot another coat of amber or just clear coat it from here?

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Fri Oct 28, 2011 7:22 pm

GUH.

I took the body down and started sanding the sealer coat flat. I had it pretty close, just needed to recoat it a bit, so I was trying to re-tie it back up, and dropped the mufuckin body. It's okay, just a few minor scuffs that I had to resand out, it's back to hanging up and getting another sealer coat. I ordered an extra can of that sealer just in case, I'm almost through the first can.

In other news, the neck is almost fixed. I took some 800 grit paper and lightly sanded on that line to try to even it out, then hit with some more amber coat on the whole thing. That helped smooth that line a great deal. I'm gonna let it dry, do one more run of light sanding on that line, then it should be golden.

I love working from home. I get to do my job, and work on my projects in between work shit. Win-Win.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:43 am

Body is pretty much sanded flat now. Ran out of sealer so I have another can on order. Should just need another few coats andd be golden.

Neck is pretty much done now. I need to hit it with a few more coats of clear then finish sand and buff.

Joey · Post by **Joey** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 2:08 pm

Spraying in a well lighted area helps avoids the runs. I hold whatever I'm spraying at different angles in the light, so I can see each spray pass build up and know when to call it at day.

Reason why people wait a month for nitrocellulose lacquer to cure is because the longer you wait, the harder it is. So when you polish it, it will be flat like glass. If you jump the gun, and buff to soon, the finish will continue to cure and be wavy.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Mon Oct 31, 2011 6:07 pm

Cool, thanks for the tips.

This is the color I bought the other night at the auto store. I couldn't really find any other "dark green" than this one, but I think it may be too dark. I might be taking these back and looking around for others.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:14 am

Shit.

Well, after another full can of sealer and doing some more sanding, I decided to move on to the first primer coat.

Once I layed that down, it became obvious that there were some areas that weren't actually flat. I'm going to have to do more level sanding on it.

DAMMIT.

hotrodperlmutter · Post by **hotrodperlmutter** » Fri Nov 04, 2011 2:38 am

NOT PUNK ROCK.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Sun Nov 06, 2011 9:05 pm

Well, I decided I'm going to do the body in nitro also. The neck is coming along so well, and after discovering that you can light sand with 1500 paper between coats to speed up cure time, I decided to order two cans of gloss nitro, and one can of yellow tinted gloss nitro.

My thinking is this, the green I bought is a bit too blue for me, but if I just apply a bit of amber tint to yellow it a bit, that's really what I'm after in the first place. To get to there, I'm going to have to use nitro to "melt" the layers together to make sure it's even. I like working with nitro, also.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:49 am

First coat of green down. It has this cool metallic thing going on, I still want to try yellowing it a bit, though.

taylornutt · Post by **taylornutt** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:52 am

I am digging it. I like all the green guitars on the forum. Changing things up a bit.

Pens · Post by **Pens** » Tue Nov 08, 2011 5:59 am

Yeah, although I was at the auto store today looking to see if they had a slightly yellower green color available (they didn't) but I spotted not only the famed Bahama Blue, but also Ford Med Blue which looks a lot like that faded grey-blue color I posted earlier. I really want to do a guitar in that color now as well.