Black Burst and Top Coats

Now that the color coat is on, it's time for the black burst. In order to minize color bleed, I sprayed a few coats of shellac over the enitre guitar. Once completed, I masked the entire guitar except for the top.

For the burst color, I mixed black pigment with the waterbased lacquer that I was using for the top coat. Before getting near the guitar, I practiced the burst on scraps. My original plan was to use a template that was smaller than the guitar and raised off of the surface to produce the vignette. I found this method difficult to use since it was difficult to determine the size and height of the template. Even though my spray gun does not have an adjustable fan width, it worked very nicely for spraying the burst.

The standard technique (which I used) is to spray at a 45 degree angle from the inside to the outside of the piece. I started by spraying past the edge and slowly working my way in using short bursts and always keeping the gun moving.

After applying the black burst, the color tone of the guitar became really dark. It is slightly darker than I had envisioned, but it looks great to me.

The back, sides, and neck also came out surprisingly well. After applying the dye, I wasn't convinced that the color would be even enough. Due to the overall dark tone of the back and sides, the color blends nicely.

I applied around 10 clear coats of waterbased lacquer. I think I sanded with 400 grit paper after the 7th or 8th coat. The lacquer had a lot more orange peel than I expected, but this can be taken care of during the polishing process.

Front with Clear Coats

Back with Clear Coats

Polishing the Finish

In order to achieve a truly high gloss finish, it is necessary to rub out the finish using ever smaller grits (smaller in size, not number designation). After waiting the recommended 100 hours for the finish to cure, I started by wet-sanding the enitre guitar using 600 grit paper. Once the finish was evenly dull, I moved up to 1000 grit and then 2000 grit.

After the sanding is complete, I used Meguiar's Professional Polish, followed by Mequiar's Swirl Remover. I applied these by hand since I haven't replaced my buffer since I let the smoke out of it a few years ago. In the future, I might re-buff it with a machine, but for now it looks fine to me.

Top Coat Polished

Add the Hardware and String it Up

The final step is to add the hardware and set everything up. I started by wiring the electronics. The wiring diagram I received with the electronics kit was a little confusing at first because it didn't really tell you where to start. Since the jack went straight to the switch, I decided to start there. The only issue I ran into was that I used too much of the shielded wire between the switch and the jack. I had just enough left over to wire the switch to the volume pots. By just enough, I mean just enough. I had to rotate the pot just right and do the soldering with the pot in place. There is not much slack at all in the wire. I was a little concerned that the wire would break, but since the parts are stationary, they shouldn't see any stress. I will pick up more wire the next time I place an order from Stew Mac.

During the wiring process, I applied a few coats of boiled linseed oil to the fret board, which, with the frets, I had polished with a grey and then white synthetic pad.

After finishing the wiring, I mounted the bridge, tailpiece, and tuners, and added the nut and strings. I measured the string height and the 1st fret and sanded the bottom of the nut until the heigh was 2/64" on the low side and 1/64" on the high side. During the process, I also brought the strings close to the proper height at the 12th fret (5/64" low side, 3/64" high side). I tweaked the truss rod just a bit to get the neck relief at the 7th fret around 0.010", and made the final adjustments to the string height. Once these steps were completed, I glued the nut in place with a drop of super glue and then set the intonation.

Finished Guitar

Finished Guitar

Much to my surprise, the everything worked perfectly when I plugged it in for the first time. I'm very impressed with the pick-ups (Golden Age Overwound at the bridge and GOlden Age Regular at the neck, both from Stew Mac). The guitar plays and sounds very well. When I have some free time, I will attempt to record and post a sound clip.

I've learned quite a bit from the process and I'm looking forward to building another (probably an acoustic). The build went a lot quicker and expected. What I thought would be the most difficult parts (shaping the neck and carving the top), were not too difficult.

In the end, it was definitly worth the time and expense. I can't wait to build another.