Sure, the last guitar that I made was “custom”, but I didn’t start from scratch. A lot of the legwork was done before I touched it.

I decided while waiting for the finish to cure on the kit guitar, to start on the next one.

I don’t have an exact plan on this one, I’ll just play it by ear. I wont make it a habit of winging every build, but I will be tooling up during the process of making this guitar, so I cant make a lot of decisions anyway.

This stage of the process required me to purchase some hand planes. I bought some cheapo Stanley planes at Lowes. I cut the shape of the guitar with my electric jigsaw. I also made a make-shift shooting board so i could glue it together.

Shooting the sides of this thing was a huge learning process. I still dont think that i have it…

I made some attempts at thicknessing the back with the plane. As you can see, it’s horribly mangled. I’m not sure what to do just yet. I think I’ll just sand it until its un-mangled. Then i get to decide what to put as the marriage strip…

-Marcus

Ok, the studio is back up and transmitting. That just means I have stopped stuffing my mouth with Halloween candy long enough for me to make another post.

Epoxy. Or should I say Z-poxy.

Let’s start at the beginning.

Wood CAN be very poreous. If you look at some of the closeup pictures in my other posts, you can get an illustration. From what I understand, if you finish a guitar without filling those pores (or gaps) then you end up with a guitar with a bad complexion. What happens is that the finish gets sprayed on, you sand it, and the wood sucks in (or absorbs) the finish and the finish then gets sucked into the pours. That is a theory that I think I read somewhere…. I could be totally full of crap, though.

Enter Z-poxy. Z-poxy is an epoxy finishing resin. Most epoxies are for adhering things to one another. This epoxy is for finishing. Basically, you just apply the epoxy to the wood and it fills the pores… simple as that. Simple, yes! Messy? very.

I use gloves to apply the stuff. If it gets on your hands you’ll be using sandpaper to get it off after it dries.

The first few pictures are my first attempt at pore filling the back of the guitar and the headpiece. A lesson learned on this application is that the more you leave on the back, the more you will have to sand off. So my next attempts consisted of applying the epoxy and then scraping off the excess. For the back, I used an old Subway (eat fresh!) card. The subsequent applications were used with some clay modeling utensils.

You see all that epoxy globbed on there? It took me soooo long to sand that off, even with an electric sander.

You can see the epoxy reflections in the pores of the wood here.

From what I have read, 3 applications of the epoxy should be enough. Epoxy, sand, epoxy, sand, epoxy, sand, done.

On to finishing the rest of the guitar.

-Marcus

I wanted to show the pictures first in this post so you could see the progression of the top finish. I am using shellac from ColorTone. Initially, I was waiting on the funds to order my Z-poxy (more on that next post) but then I realized that the top doesn’t really need any pore filling.

Apparently there are different “cuts” to the shellac that you need to be aware of. 1 pound cut, 2 pound cut, etc. etc.

From what I’ve learned (and I don’t know much) is that you need to start off your base coats with a fairly low cut (thin mix). So I dumped some shellac flakes in my container, poured in a bunch of alcohol and waited. I had to play around a lot with the mixes because the shellac doesn’t dissolve very well and I kept getting chunks. This probably means it was way too thick, so I kept adding more alcohol.

When I got to a fairly thin mix, I started applying the shellac to the top. My first impressions weren’t good. The shellac was dull, clearly not coating well, and overall very underwhelming. I figured I would keep trying, I could always just sand it away if it didn’t work. So I added a few more coats. It wasn’t getting any better. I decided to call it a night.

The next day I made a thicker cut and applied the shellac liberally. After it dried I started to see some results. Then I remember that the very idea of shellac is a slow buildup of finish. Duh!

So my routine was add 2 or 3 coats of shellac and let it sit for a day. After sitting for a day, I would either add more shellac or sand it flush, depending on what I saw.

That’s where I am currently. Hopefully I’ll post an update on it in a week or so.

Here are the pictures of the inlay after it was glued in. There were lots of little gaps (as seen in the first two pictures) so I did the whole gluing process again to fill those holes. The last picture is essentially what it is now, I have since sanded the CA (super glue) out of the pores.

Bailie Guitars, that is.

I got a preliminary headstock design done. It didn’t take very long to design, which I am surprised. I only did about a page of sketching. Immediately I started hacking into the headstock of the kit guitar, I like how it turned out. It doesn’t leave a lot of space for a fancy inlay or logo, but I think its pretty unique.

Who knows, I may change it again later.

on the guitar.

-Marcus

I got a couple packages today. I’m expecting a few more this week so I’ll wait until then to spill the beans.

I don’t know if this constitutes and actual “jig”, but I made it and damnit I’m gonna use it.

This is a neck thickness jig that i made off of my Taylor 714ce. The guitar kit that I am currently working on now needed the neck sanded to thickness. I didn’t have any bearing on what to sand it to, so I made this Masonite jig with the help of the contour gauge.

Pretty nifty, now I just have to drill a hole so I can hang it on the wall….

THIS is the piece I’ve been waiting on. It came in awhile ago, but I never got around to taking a picture of it with me moving to the new house and all.

It’s a lovely set (back and sides) of Black Limba. I’m definitely going to wait to make it #3 or #4 because I dont want to ruin it.

This is the last day of the class. The guitar is now playable and sounds pretty decent. The neck still needs to be shaped and quit a bit of setup needs to be done. After that, i have to final sand it and figure out what sort of finished i am going to put on it.

Hopefully the next post i make will be a post about my next guitar!