Originally I was going to redo the fretboard with the vine inlay and leave the body intact. I actually completed the vine inlay project only to find out that the fretboard scale was a Gibson vs Fender.
So I purchased an additional fretboard slotted to that scale length and started over. I went to Andy DePaul's website and selected the Lotus, I decided to do the white mother of pearl because initially I was going to keep the body black.
The first step to inlay is making sure you have your pieces correctly setup. I have almost inlayed some pieces out of order but caught it before I routed the wood. So now I always line my pieces up and keep them in the order they will be applied. This helps with not losing any (yes I have lost pieces and have had to buy individual replacements) and keeping you on track.
The next step is preparation of the fretboard. I knew that with this design, ensuring the inlay was dead center was going to be paramount. I marked the center of each of the frets I was going to inlay. This would help me when placing the pieces so I at least knew where center was.
As I normally do, I paint the area with white out, then while still wet I put the inlay piece on top so that the white out will hold the piece in place when it is dried. I do this because I have had problems in the past with contact cement and other adhesive where I break the inlay getting it back off. This seems to hold it in place firmly enough so I can do the scribing but is fairly easy to remove.
Once I scribe the general outline I then follow up with a mallet and chisel so that I have a stop line when routing. This helps considerably in preventing a 'run' with the router. I usually do the general outline with a 3/32 bit then go in after the crude shape is cut and then use a 1/32 bit to fine tune it. Then I use a chip knife and chisel for the final fit.
Just a word about the final fitting, this is really the most crucial part. You can try to just fit the entire piece in and trim back where there is overlap but in the past I have gotten a 'drift' of the rout as one side fits and the other doesn't so you trim that side. You can end up 'chasing yourself' and end up with more of a 'pool' effect where the inlay doesn't fit snugly. Now I usually choose to fit from the bottom or top first. In this case the bottom was larger and flatter so I tried to fit the bottom in first. Once I had a snug fit I could then trim the top to fit. This prevented the bottom from floating as much. I did run into a little chip out close to some of the fret slots and will have to fill these later with epoxy.
Glueing in the inlay is also tricky. I use epoxy and hardener from Stew Mac and then mix in ebony dust I have from routing. I create a fairly thick mixture, more of a paste. I then put the paste into the rout and press the inlay piece in. If your rout is somewhat of a pool, you have to be careful that piece doesn't slide once covered. I have a caul to fit over the fretboard when I am ready to press and dry. Also if your pieces had broken during the fitting phase, you will have to reassemble them and ensure that they have a clean fit again. I then cover with wax paper, put the caul with the reverse radius over it and clamp and let dry.
Once I let it dry for 24 hours I am ready for sanding. You can see some air pockets are the inlay which will need to be filled. Usually glueing ends up being a two part process. First is to affix the inlay in the route, the second is to even out the drying of the glue. As the expoxy hardens it does contract and if there are air bubbles you will get pockets.
I usually will use flat 80-100 grit just to remove a percentage of the glue. In this case I really didn't need to. I started in with the 180 grit on a 9.5 radius sanding block. This picture shows it sanded down to the point just before I will change to 220 grit for the final sanding. You will also notice some of the fret slots will need to be re-cut but not all of them. The most important part with sanding is paying attention that you don't apply a lopsided radius. It is easy to do. I usually stand so that the finger board is horizontal to by body. I will then rock my body and arms from the left to the right which minimize the turn you apply when you use your arms only. This is slow work and you have to pay attention to inlay and how far you have sanded it. Most inlay's are only a few mm in thickness.
Here is the fretboard, sanded and frets re-cut. It is ready for it's first coat of oil. These boards are usually very dry by the time I get them and since I live in a very arid part of the county they get bone dry. At this stage I will normally oil it up once to let the wood recover before I put the frets in. At this point you can evaluate the inlay. In this case I did fairly well but 2 of the inlays were just slightly off. It will be interesting to see if it becomes more obvious once the frets and strings provide a basic grid... My goal is never perfection, if I wanted that then CNC would be the obvious choice, so a little bit of patience with yourself goes a long way.
Here is the fretboard after its first drink. You can see the natural color of ebony coming out and the grains are more pronounced. This will all settle down after a couple of days. I usually won't do any sanding after oil application. The next step will be the installation of the frets.
Now we can turn our attention to the headstock.
I am not sure what the headstock was made of. I believe it to be an ebony veneer but am not sure. The lotus design had two pieces to it designed to make one whole flower, I decided to split them apart. You should be able to see the center line running through the center of the headstock.
The procedure remains the same, whiteout, attach the pieces, scribe around the pieces, provide a stop cut with the chisel and then rout out the main part of the design with the 3/32 then trim with the 1/32 inch bit except this time it was done by my son :-)
For most of my routing I use the Dremel Drill with Router Base. It seems to meet the need nicely.
Here is the headstock inlayed, sanded down to 400 grit and oiled. I will apply whatever finish I do to the body. I haven't decided that yet, although I do have some Spray Nitro that I have ben wanting to try. It just hasn't been that warm yet. While the work was being done on the neck I began prepping the body. I soaked it in paint stripper for a couple of days then scraped the paint of which came off quite easily. Underneath the paint is what I call the "zoot suit". I have not found a stripper or toxic chemical yet that will remove the "zoot suit". This is when the random orbital sander comes in handy, but the sides and horns need to be done by hand which is tedious at best. Make sure you are wearing a good breathing filtration device, you don't want to inhale this stuff.
I researched several different ways to "ebonize" the body. I wanted a very deep opaque black. I had the materials for 3 Ways. One was a Color Tone Stain, another was oil stain that they use for leather and a mini-wax ebony stain that I had used on the Stratocaster. I pre-treated the wood with a pre-stain and let that dry for about 30 min. I was decided on the oil stain and was read to go for it when I just had a desire to do it Cherry and see how it would turn out, if it didn't work out I could always 'ebonize' it. So I put one coat of the cherry on pretty thickly, waited 10 minutes and wiped it dry. Let it dry for 4 hours and then I applied a second coat pretty thickly also. Let that dry for another 10-15 minutes and wiped that off.
Here is the shot from the rear. Really not a bad lookin guitar... I am thinking of doing a quick wipe with the ebony mini-wax and see what turns up, I can always try my black spray paint :-)
Well ended up not opting for the black spray paint but finished with a Watco Danish Oil Finish and a nitro finish on top of that. For the Danish Oil I 'soak' the guitar in the oil, let it dry for about 10-15min then wipe it down. The next time I repeat with wet sanding 400 grit. This creates a slurry which fills the pores and any uneveness. I let it dry for 10-15 min. Then I wipe it down. Then let dry overnight. I will repeat this until I get to about 1000 grit and the guitar is very smooth to touch. I let dry for at least 48 hours.
This provides an excellant base for the nitrocellulose finish. I am trying out the spray can version since I don't currently have an airbrush. I did the last guitar with a hair brush so I figured one step at a time... I improvised a spray booth in my garden shed. I warmed the spray can to about 80 degrees by sitting it in a hot water bath. I have never spray painted so it took a little getting used to. I got some beading and a couple of small runs which seemed to resolve a little with second and third coats. I spaced the coats out by 2 hours and then will let it dry overnight. Tomorrow night I will sand and apply more coats.
In the meantime I was working on attaching the fingerboard to the neck. Having never worked wtih this scale neck before it was a little different. Where the stratocaster finger boards have space for a nut, the Ibanez did not. Trying to glue the nut square to the fingerboard was a little tricky and I did have a little uneveness where the 6th string would go over the nut. I then drilled three guide holes for the fingerboard, applied glue and clamped together. Unfortuntately I did not think ahead and I was already gluing something so the number of clamps became an issue. I also forgot I have a fingerboard caul... So I ended up using only three clamps. It came out ok, but with some gaps between the finger board and the neck.
I decided to move forward anyway and trip the fretboard to the neck. Normally I do this with a hammer and chisel. I forgot I had purchased a scroll saw which would have made quick and efficient work of the overhang... Once I roughed it in with the chisel I sanded it down to approximate width.
I also noticed some rattling (never a good thing) from in the neck. I decided due to the poor glue job and the rattling I was going to have to re-glue the fingerboard,which meant taking off the fingerboard I just glued on. Using an iron and a spatula I separated the fingerboard from the neck and found the problem. The top of the truss rod had come free from the threads. I don't know if it's repairable or not, will have to look at it more closely in the morning.
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